# All Slavic Languages: Before Him (Preposition + Pronoun)



## SerinusCanaria3075

Good evening.

I have a question regarding the “nim” forms for the 3rd person singular masculine form used in Czech and Russian; I’m confused because to me it seems to be a combination of the locative/prepositional “нём, něm” and the instrumental "им, jím” (which of course it is probably incorrect, just guessing), specially since I could not find them in any Grammar sources other than the online dictionaries.

Bulgarian: Не съм аз Христос, но съм пратен пред *Него*.
Croatian: Nisam ja Krist, nego poslan sam pred *njim*.
Czech: Nejsem já Kristus, ale že jsem poslán před *ním*.
Polish: Nie jestem ja Chrystus, ale żem posłany przed *nim*.
Russian: не я Христос, но я послан пред *Ним*.
Ukrainian: Я не Христос, а що я посланий перед *Ним*.

Is “Ним” a more widely used (popular / modern or older?) pronoun used in Russian after prepositions and if so does it count as a prepositional pronoun or not? Or is it simply "им" merged with a preposition?


----------



## Grizlyk

Sorry, I dont really understand what are you asking for.
But, about russian, ucranian and so on, "nim" its just the same as "him" in the english translation: "Im not the Christ, I am just the one sent before him".

"I follow him" = "Я иду за ним"


----------



## jazyk

After prepositions, personal pronouns starting with a vowel regularly take an N.


----------



## Lemminkäinen

In Russian, personal pronouns that start with a vowel (more specifically, this means the third person pronouns) that are preceded by a preposition get an н- attached (мы подошли *к нему* : мы дали *ему* книгу). I'm not really sure if that answers your question, though.


----------



## winpoj

"After prepositions, personal pronouns starting with a vowel regularly take an N." - That does not seem to be true for Czech because "j" is a consonant.


----------



## Jana337

winpoj said:


> "After prepositions, personal pronouns starting with a vowel regularly take an N." - That does not seem to be true for Czech because "j" is a consonant.


With which personal pronouns starting with "j" would you use a preposition?


----------



## winpoj

I see - my mistake - jazyk probably meant pronouns starting with a vowel in nominative. What I had in mind was that in the respective case where the pronoun begins with "j" this "j" changes into "n" when a preposition is added:

jím - s ním, etc.


----------



## Athaulf

SerinusCanaria3075 said:


> Is “Ним” a more widely used (popular / modern or older?) pronoun used in Russian after prepositions and if so does it count as a prepositional pronoun or not? Or is it simply "им" merged with a preposition?



Such double forms of personal pronouns exist in all Slavic languages. However, in South Slavic languages, they are more numerous and their use is much more complicated than in others. As in Russian, prepositions are always followed by longer forms, but in other cases, the rules for choosing between short and long forms are much more complicated, and the choice has further complex implications on the permissible word order. 

In fact, in South Slavic languages, these short forms are a subset of a class of words known as clitics. These words aren't independently stressed, so that they're pronounced as a suffix or prefix of the neighboring word (clitics also exists in Spanish -- inflected pronouns such as _le_ and _lo_ are pronounced together with the verb as a single word, and they're even spelled together when they follow it). Most personal pronouns and auxiliary verbs have both long and clitic forms, and the syntactic rules for their use are incredibly complicated. This is in fact one of the very hardest areas of the grammar of Croatian and other South Slavic languages.


----------



## Outsider

Is it similar to _yo -- *me -- mí*_ in Spanish? (I ask this since it might help Serinus, who is a Spanish speaker, to understand.)


----------



## Athaulf

Outsider said:


> Is it similar to _yo -- *me -- mí*_ in Spanish? (I ask this since it might help Serinus, who is a Spanish speaker, to understand.)



Yes, that would be a good analogy with the way things work in Russian. For instance, the above example:_мы подошли *к нему* -- мы дали *ему* книгу_​would be analogous to a phrase in Spanish involving the first person pronoun (I hope my Spanish isn't too shaky ):_compraron un regalo *para mí* -- *me* dieron un regalo_​In both cases, the choice between the two forms depends on whether the pronoun is preceded by a preposition, or just used without one as the direct or indirect object. The main difference is that unlike Spanish, Russian has different prepositional forms only for third person pronouns.


In South Slavic languages, however, things are far more complicated (and not just in corner cases, but also even in the most common ways sentences are formed).


----------



## Tagarela

Ahoj,

A doubt: what is the translation fo the phrase?

I am not [Jesus] Christ, but I can tell/send [it] [to] him?

Na shledanou.:


----------



## slavic_one

Tagarela said:


> Ahoj,
> 
> A doubt: what is the translation fo the phrase?
> 
> I am not [Jesus] Christ, but I can tell/send [it] [to] him?
> 
> Na shledanou.:



Třeba "Nejsem Krist, ale mohu mu říct / odeslat (to co máte za něho)!"?


----------



## slavic_one

SerinusCanaria3075 said:


> (...)
> Croatian: Nisam ja Krist, nego poslan sam pred *njim*.
> (...)



This sentece doesn't sound good to me. First, I'd say that it's better to say '..nego sam poslan...' and that 'pred njim' part I actually don't quite understand!
"I was sent before him" can be translated as 'poslan sam prije njega'
and on the other hand, like in the sentence e.g. "Thou shalt kneel before him" 'before' is translated 'Klečat ćeš pred njim (ispred njega)'!
'pred njim' can be rather translated 'in front of him'. e.g. pred njim je kuća = there's a house in front of him

To sum it all, if 'before' is adverb of time, it's 'prije'. If it's adverb of place, it's 'ispred', which in Croatian has the same meaning as 'in front of'.


----------



## Athaulf

slavic_one said:


> This sentece doesn't sound good to me. First, I'd say that it's better to say '..nego sam poslan...' and that 'pred njim' part I actually don't quite understand!
> "I was sent before him" can be translated as 'poslan sam prije njega'
> and on the other hand, like in the sentence e.g. "Thou shalt kneel before him" 'before' is translated 'Klečat ćeš pred njim (ispred njega)'!



I wanted to write the exact same comment, but then I realized that the sentence is taken straight from the standard Croatian Catholic Bible (John 3, 28). The quality of language in this Bible translation is for the most part excellent, but in this case, I agree that they could have formulated it better.


----------



## Tagarela

Ahoj,

Slavic one, sorry, I wanted to know the translation of the sample phrase used by SeriusCanaria, but now I have realised by Athaulf message that it is from the Bible and I have already checked it. Thank you anyway =)

Na shledanou.:


----------



## Kolan

SerinusCanaria3075 said:


> a combination of the locative/prepositional “нём, něm” and the instrumental "им, jím” (which of course it is probably incorrect, just guessing), specially since I could not find them in any Grammar sources other than the online dictionaries.
> ...
> Russian: не я Христос, но я послан пред *Ним*.
> ...
> Is “Ним” a more widely used (popular / modern or older?) pronoun used in Russian after prepositions and if so does it count as a prepositional pronoun or not? Or is it simply "им" merged with a preposition?


It is not spoken Russian, for sure, but it is a way how it is written in the Bible. (The speaking subject is John the Baptist, apparently. In the modern Russian it would mean something like "я послан* до того (перед тем), как Он придёт"*). 

*(Н)им* stands for the instrumental case of *он*. However, some kind of broken direct speech (even in literature) would employ on purpose *им, ём* with prepositions - instead of *ним, нём.* E.g.,

"Царь на вид сморчок, башка с кулачок, а злобности *в ём* - огромадный объём. Смотрит на Федьку, как язвенник на редьку". (Леонид Филатов, Сказка про Федота-стрельца...)
zhurnal.lib.ru/a/alec_v/fed-rus-eng.shtml - 262k - 

"*В ём* ты можешь жить, я, другие люди. А царствие... вот крякнешь ты, к примеру, насовсем,..." (Тимофеев. Роман о придурках).
lit.lib.ru/t/timofeew_w_w/text_0290.shtml - 56k

Журнал Красная Бурда : П. П. Бажов
"Народишко *над им* смеётся, кто рупь даст, кто сто рублей старыми, а чтоб часы, ордена или протчу — шалишь! Дураков-то у нас в Полевском-Северском немного. *..."*
redburda.ru/view_text/id/38.htm - 27k


----------



## Athaulf

Kolan said:


> *(Н)им* stands for the instrumental case of *он*. However, some kind of broken direct speech (even in literature) would employ on purpose *им, ём* with prepositions - instead of *ним, нём.*



However, I wonder what the _exact_ rules in standard Russian really are. The textbooks I've seen simply say "use _него_, _ним_, etc. after a preposition that governs the pronoun directly, and _его_, _им_, etc. otherwise."* Frankly, this rule looks suspiciously simple to me , especially since the rules for the use of analogous forms in Croatian are so complicated. Is the rule for choosing between _его_/_него_ etc. really so simple in standard Russian?

* The "governs... directly" part accounts for cases such as e.g. _у его подруги_, of which I am aware.


----------



## Kolan

Athaulf said:


> However, I wonder what the _exact_ rules in standard Russian really are. The textbooks I've seen simply say "use _него_, _ним_, etc. after a preposition that governs the pronoun directly, and _его_, _им_, etc. otherwise."* Frankly, this rule looks suspiciously simple to me , especially since the rules for the use of analogous forms in Croatian are so complicated. Is the rule for choosing between _его_/_него_ etc. really so simple in standard Russian?


To my point of view, the main reason for a such simple rule is just euphony. Another reason is, as you mentioned, the difference between personal and possessive pronouns which collide in the speech quite often.

"на *неё*", but "на *её* счёт".

However, there is quite a few cases when there is no collision. Then it becames sometimes a word play and leaves out some room for a characteristic deformation of speech. The examples below and in my post #16 illustrate this kind of usage.

С.Логинов. О графах и графоманах или Почему я не люблю Льва *...*- 
Вспомните Чехова: "...и стала *ейной *мордой меня в харю тыкать". У селёдки – морда, у Ваньки – харя *...*
www.klassika.ru/read.html?proza/tolstoj/tolstoy.txt&page=1 - 15k

АНТОНИНА КАЛИНИНА, №3, 2007
Но выстрелил конвойный,
И падает княжна -
В грудь пулею *евойной*
Она поражена.
www.igraigr.com/kalinina-3.htm - 17k


----------



## tram-pam-pam

I’d also mention one case, a bit complicated (a bit off-topic ):

 "по *твоему *мнению" (его, её, вашему, их, ...) 
но
"будь *по-твоему*", ("будь *по-вашему"). *Adverb. 


Но: 
"Будь *по его*, гореть бы нам всем до скончания века." (с)
(Again, *по его*_ plays_ an adverb, but no hyphen here!)


----------



## Athaulf

tram-pam-pam said:


> "Будь *по его*, гореть бы нам всем до скончания века." (с)
> (Again, *по его*_ plays_ an adverb, but no hyphen here!)



Could you please explain the first part of this sentence? Does it mean "if things were how he thinks they are", or "if things were according to his wishes"? Or perhaps something altogether different?


----------



## tram-pam-pam

Athaulf said:


> Could you please explain the first part of this sentence? Does it mean "if things were how he thinks they are", or "if things were according to his wishes"? Or perhaps something altogether different?


In the above case – the second.

"Хороший  корабль, бристольский, только шкипер человек суровый, а в вере прямо-таки неистовый - он из плимутской общины. Знай орёт про пламя адово, дескать, молитесь и кайтесь, да только, по-моему, очень ему нравится, что кому-то огня этого не миновать. *Будь по его, гореть бы нам всем до скончания  века.* 
Ну, да я такой веры понять не могу.  Коли  "Аве,  Мария" человек не читает, какая же это вера?
© Дж. Стейнбек, "Золотая чаша" (перевод И.Гуровой)

But *будь по его* can also mean "_let_ things be/go according to his wishes, [otherwise…]" 
("Будь по его, а то/иначе <something undesired will happen>".)

The same for *будь* *по-вашему/твоему*. 
I'd even say that, perhaps, the 'let'-meaning (=пусть будет по-твоему) occurs more often than the 'if' one.

It's old-fashioned, though.


----------



## Duya

Athaulf said:


> Could you please explain the first part of this sentence? Does it mean "if things were how he thinks they are", or "if things were according to his wishes"? Or perhaps something altogether different?



I was about to say that Serbo-Croatian construct "po njegovom" carries exactly the same ambiguity -- and then I realized that there actually exists a difference:

- po njemu = according to him; what he thinks/says
- po njegovom = according to his wishes; what he'd like

But is the second construct, _njegovom_, (an oblique case of a 3-rd person possesive pronoun) even possible in Russian? My vague recollection says no... (unlike вашему/твоему... )


----------



## Athaulf

Duya said:


> But is the second construct, _njegovom_, (an oblique case of a 3-rd person possesive pronoun) even possible in Russian? My vague recollection says no... (unlike вашему/твоему... )



As far as I know, Russian doesn't have third-person possessive pronouns. It uses genitives of personal pronouns (_его_, _её_, and _их_) instead. These however behave syntactically very differently from their South Slavic equivalents, and resemble (kind of) indeclinable possessive pronouns:

N: _мой брат - его брат_
G: _моего брата - его брата
_D: _моему брату - его брату
_...


----------

