# All Slavic languages: Shortening of Personal Pronouns



## Diaspora

Does you language shorten personal pronouns? In Serbo-Croatian we do as in njega=ga (him), njemu=mu (him) etc.


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## sokol

Slovene does (I think most Slavic languages do, but we'll know soon I hope):

1st person singular: mene/me, meni/mi
2nd person sg.: tebe/te, tebi/ti
3rd person sg:: njega/ga, njemu/mu (m./n.) and nje/je, njo/jo (f.); this could be shortened to -nj: za njo ima > zanj (in this case it is not possible to use "jo" - either "za njo" or "zanj", but never "za jo")
3rd dual: njiju/ju or jih, njima/jima
3rd plural: njih/jih, njim/jim

The short form is used in unstressed position (clitic pronoun).


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## Azori

Slovak has long and short forms of personal pronouns: jeho, neho = ho; jemu, nemu = mu; teba = ťa; tebe = ti; mne = mi; mňa = ma; nich = ich; nim = im; ne = ich. The long forms are always used at the beginning of a sentence, when the pronoun is emphasized and after prepositions. If the preposition ends in a vowel, "neho" can be shortened by combining with the preposition. The form depends on the gender of the noun.

When the noun is animate masculine:
za neho - zaňho
pre neho - preňho
na neho - naňho
do neho -doňho

When the noun is inanimate masculine or neuter:
za neho - zaň
pre neho - preň
na neho - naň
do neho -doň


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## sokol

That's amazing, lior, how Slovene and Slovak share that feature of combining the clitic personal pronoun with prepositions. 
The animate-masculine distinction also exists in Slovene (animate-masculine sg. uses the form of genitive for accusative too), but if I remember correctly (and according to a short Slovene grammar which might omit such fine detail) no such distinction is made when forming preposition + pronoun: za + njega = always zanj.


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## TriglavNationalPark

sokol said:


> this could be shortened to -nj: za njo ima > zanj (in this case it is not possible to use "jo" - either "za njo" or "zanj", but never "za jo")


 
Right, but "zanj" is masculine/neuter only; the feminine equivalent is "zanjo".



sokol said:


> That's amazing, lior, how Slovene and Slovak share that feature of combining the clitic personal pronoun with prepositions.
> The animate-masculine distinction also exists in Slovene (animate-masculine sg. uses the form of genitive for accusative too), but if I remember correctly (and according to a short Slovene grammar which might omit such fine detail) no such distinction is made when forming preposition + pronoun: za + njega = always zanj.


 
Correct. Standard Slovenian always uses "zanj", but some dialects use "zanga". It's common in Ljubljana, for instance. I never noticed that it's only used for animate nouns, but that _could_ be the case.


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## Duya

TriglavNationalPark said:


> Correct. Standard Slovenian always uses "zanj", but some dialects use "zanga". It's common in Ljubljana, for instance. I never noticed that it's only used for animate nouns, but that _could_ be the case.



The feature also exists in (Serbo-)Croatian, but it is considered very old-fashioned. It is spelled separately (_za nj, u nj_), and the accent shifts to the preposition and lengthens. I'm not sure if it was ever part of Serbian idiom, and today it can mostly (even if there) be encountered in Croatian literature.


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## robin74

Polish has strong and weak forms of several personal pronouns in genitive (ciebie/cię; jego/go), dative (mnie/mi; tobie/ci; jemu/mu) and accusative (mnie/mię; ciebie/cię; jego/go).


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## sokol

TriglavNationalPark said:


> Right, but "zanj" is masculine/neuter only; the feminine equivalent is "zanjo".


 Thanks for the additional information, I've forgotten about that one. 



TriglavNationalPark said:


> Correct. Standard Slovenian always uses "zanj", but some dialects use "zanga". It's common in Ljubljana, for instance. I never noticed that it's only used for animate nouns, but that _could_ be the case.


Fascinating!
Probably someone can confirm if there's an animate/non-animate distinction in those dialects with the short clitical form of the pronoun; I always find it amazing when details on such a level are similar or probably identical (we don't know that yet) between languages separated by such distances as Slovene and Slovak are.


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## trance0

sokol said:


> 3rd dual: njiju/ju or jih, njima/jima



Just a tiny correction of your typo.


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## Egrorian

Bulgarian is no exception, there's a shortening of personal pronouns: мен (мене) - ме, теб (тебе) - тe, него - гo (му), нея -я (й).


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## texpert

sokol said:


> Fascinating!
> Probably someone can confirm if there's an animate/non-animate distinction in those dialects with the short clitical form of the pronoun; I always find it amazing when details on such a level are similar or probably identical (we don't know that yet) between languages separated by such distances as Slovene and Slovak are.


 
I'm not aware of any such rule in Czech. Moreover, the short clitical form (zaň, naň, proň) survives only in bookish style. 
But having said that I somehow can envision using zaň or naň for animate objects (_ptali jsme se naň - na Petra_), while the same clitic shortening for inanimate objects (_bojovali jsme zaň - za svobodný stát_) sounds somewhat weird these days.


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## Azori

texpert said:


> I'm not aware of any such rule in Czech. Moreover, the short clitical form (zaň, naň, proň) survives only in bookish style.


In Slovak the long forms are used more often and many people use them for inanimate objects as well (though this is not grammatically correct), but in spite of that, the short forms are still very common and are used _exclusively _for inanimate masculine or neuter nouns. I can't imagine them being used for animate nouns. After all, one can google them and will find many examples.


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## .Jordi.

In Polish such contraction in possible only with masculine nouns (and in Accusative case): o niego = oń, przez niego = przezeń, z niego = zeń, za niego = zań, od niego = odeń and so on...
If someone knows any Polish, then may read this article.


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