# Pronoun dropping



## hadronic

I'd like to now in which circumstances it's allowed to drop pronouns in the present "tense" .
Possible examples :
לא מרגיש טוב
לא יודע מה אני צריך
חושב להכליף מקום עבודה?
רוצה למצוא את עצמך? 

I'm not talking about impersonal constructions like צריך ללכת or אומרים שזה קשה.


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## MaNitma

To my knowledge there's no rule regarding when dropping the pronoun is allowed or not allowed. Like many other things when it comes to language -- I guess it pretty much depends on your style and on the context.

However, trying to run as many examples through my head as possible got me to the conclusion that in 95% of the cases the pronoun is dropped in a question, the pronoun dropped is either for the 2nd person (plural or singular, "אתם", "אתן", "את", "אתה"), or for the 1st person plural ("אנחנו").

Another thing is that the pronouns tend to be omitted (and apparently DO get omitted in most cases) in questions that could be phrased using "האם". Omitting the pronoun in questions beginning with "למה", "איך", "מתי", "כיצד", etc. is grammatical, but usually doesn't sound very natural (in most cases).

As to WHEN it is okay to omit these pronouns --
It seems to me that any question which begins with a "האם" (or could be rephrased as such) will sound good and will stay grammatical if the pronoun is dropped. Other cases may still be grammatical, but as I said, may sound unnatural. The only exception I see to the latter is when the pronoun is "אנחנו". In that case the pronoun can be dropped without a problem in most cases (examples at the end of the post).

At the end of the day, it's a matter of personal preference and the formality of the tone.
Dropping these pronouns in formal talk/writing is not nearly as common as in the spoken language.

Examples of questions which sound good and keep their meanings when dropping the pronoun:

רוצה למצוא את עצמך? ~ *האם את/ה* רוצה למצוא את עצמך?
חושב להחליף מקום עבודה? ~ *האם אתה* חושב להחליף מקום עבודה?
הולכת לעבודה? ~ *האם את* הולכת לעבודה?
מוכר את האוטו? ~ *האם אתה* מוכר את האוטו?

הולכים לאכול? ~ *האם אנחנו/אתם* הולכים לאכול?
מחכים ליצחק? ~ *האם אנחנו/אתם* מחכים ליצחק?
יושבים על זה מחר? ~ *האם אנחנו* יושבים על זה מחר?


In the following examples, the questions are modified using other interrogative words.
Here, dropping the pronoun (but not the interrogative word!) is possible, but doesn't sound good in most cases (except for the "אנחנו" case, examples below):

*איך אתה* רוצה למצוא את עצמך?
*מתי אתה* חושב להחליף מקום עבודה?
*מדוע את* הולכת לעבודה?
*למה אתה* מוכר את האוטו?

*מתי אתם* הולכים לאכול?
*עד מתי אתם* מחכים ליצחק?
*עם מי אתם* יושבים על זה מחר?


Examples of questions which are NOT "האם" questions, but use the pronoun "אנחנו" which in this case can be omitted:

*מתי *הולכים לאכול? ~ *מתי אנחנו* הולכים לאכול?
*עד מתי* מחכים ליצחק? ~ *עד מתי אנחנו* מחכים ליצחק?
*עם מי* יושבים על זה מחר? ~ *עם מי אנחנו* יושבים על זה מחר?


I'm sure there are many other examples and exceptions, but since I'm not familiar with the official rules (if any), I hope these "by ear" examples help.


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## hadronic

Thank you very much for your insights 
Actually, I think there's no such "official" grammatical rules. It's only recently that some researchers try to investigate this field in the particular case of Hebrew.

And precisely, I read in one of those papers that in the past tense, 3rd person pronouns are not droppable. For instance, אכלתי is ok, but אכל is not, you have to say "הוא אכל", is that true ?


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## MaNitma

It sounds about right, although I can think of an exception.
Observe this exchange for example:

שאלה: "איפה אחותך?"
תשובה: "הלכה הביתה."

This is how this type of conversation would usually go (I'd say 90% of the time).
The pronoun in the response ("היא" for "אחותך") is obvious, and gets omitted.

I'll try to think of other exceptions, but it does sound as if in most cases the pronoun couldn't be dropped in the 3rd person in the past tense.


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## sawyeric1

What about in the future tense? How often are pronouns dropped then?

In a conversation about a slow laptop, one guy says he doesn't have the money to take it to a computer shop. So the other guy says: 

טוב, אני מניח שתצטרך לחיות עם זה​Well, I guess [you] will have to live with it


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## sawyeric1

I got the conversation from a native speaker, by the way


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## Drink

I think the situation with the future tense is exactly the same as with the past tense.


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## amikama

Yes, it's the same as with the past tense. Pronouns are indicated also by the verb prefixes, so they are often dropped.
In the case of תצטרך in the example above, it's obvious from the context that the pronoun is אתה and not היא, so it's naturally omitted.


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