# Omitting subject pronouns



## panjabigator

In your language, do you have to include the pronoun with the verb, or is it the speaker inherent with the verb.  For example, english is not a pronoun drop (pro-drop) language:

Eg:  I sang.

Spanish on the other hand is:

Eg:  Canté

The only place where a pronoun is not needed in English is in comands.

Eg:  Do it. 

The speaker is implied.  It is the same in Spanish.

Eg:  Hazlo.

In Spanish, a pronoun can be used to add emphasis or to distinguish.

Eg:  Limpiaba los platos mientras que yo hice mi tarea.  

I am uncertain as to how I would qualify Panjabi and Hindi/Urdu here.  They are both identical in this aspect.  In commands, you dont HAVE to use the pronoun, but you may.  I do not know if it creates a different tone or not.  But in general, you do need the pronoun, even though the speaker can sometimes be infered by the verb tense.  

What are your languages like?  Can you post some examples?  We just studied this topic in one of my classes and it got me to thinking!!


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## Outsider

You're asking about subject pronouns, right? They could be omitted in Latin, and they can be omitted in most Romance languages. French is an exception.



panjabigator said:


> I am uncertain as to how I would qualify Panjabi and Hindi/Urdu here.  They are both identical in this aspect.  In commands, you dont HAVE to use the pronoun, but you may.


Spanish is the same: "Hazlo" / "Hazlo tú" (Do it / You do it).


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## sound shift

As far as I am aware, the personal subject pronoun can be omitted in Turkish. If I wanted to say _I don't understand _I could say _ben anlamiyorum_, but _anlamiyorum _alone is sufficient.


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## alitza

Outsider said:


> You're asking about subject pronouns, right? They could be omitted in Latin, and they can be omitted in most Romance languages. French is an exception.


 That's right, Romanian is the same as Spanish and all the other Romance languages that drop the personal pronouns.
I guess that's because we have different verbal forms for each person, as opposed to English, for example, that has the same form of the verb for every person except 3rd singular (that only has an extra s), so it would probably be confusing if they dropped the pronouns as well.
Examples:
 (Eu) citesc - I read
 (Tu) citesti - You read
(El/ea) citeste - He/she reads
(Noi) citim - We read
(Voi) cititi - You read
(Ei/ele) citesc - They read.


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## parakseno

In Greek it's the same. The pronoun can be skipped since there are specific endings for each person:

(verbs of first class - ending in ω)
κάν*ω*   - I do
κάν*εις*  - you do
κάν*ει*   - he/she/it does
κάν*ουμε* - we do
κάν*ετε*  - you do
κάν*ουν*  - they do

(verbs of second class - ending in ώ)
αγαπ*ώ* - I love
αγαπ*άς* - you love
αγαπ*ά* - he/she/it loves
αγαπ*άμε* - we love
αγαπ*άτε* - you love
αγαπ*άν* - they love

The same goes for other tenses; ley's consider the aorist:

έκαν*α*  - I did
έκαν*ες* - you did
έκαν*ε*  - he/she/it did
κάν*αμε* - we did
κάν*ατε* - you did
έκαν*αν* - they did

αγάπησ*α*   - I loved
αγάπησ*ες*  - you loved
αγάπησ*ε*    - he/she/it loved
αγαπήσ*αμε* - we loved
αγαπήσ*ατε* - you loved
αγάπησ*αν*  - they loved


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## Abu Bishr

However, is it possible that all these sentences belong to the caterory of VSO (Verb-Subject-Object) and not SVO (Subject-Verb-Object) in which case the subject has not been dropped? In other words, is it not possible that subject is second, and comes after the verb unlike English where the subject almost always comes first making it an SVO language? Could it not be that all these endings at the end of these Greek verbs are actually pronouns suffixed rather than prefixed to the verb?

In Arabic we have the same situation:

fa'al*tu *(I did)
fa'al*naa* (We did)
fa'al*ta* (You masc. sing. did)
fa'al*ti* (You fem. sing. did)
fa'ala*a* (They dual did)
fa'al*u* (They masc. pl. did)
etc.

However, in Arabic the sounds marked in bold are actually pronouns so that these are complete sentences of the type VS(O).

A verb where the pronoun is dropped is "fa'ala" - (he) did - as it has none of these endings, so the (he) is implied.


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## Outsider

*Abu*, in Romance languages there are independent words, besides the verbs, which may or may not be used. See Alitza's examples; the words between parentheses are what we call the pronouns.


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## Etcetera

In Russian, we normally use subject pronouns, even though our language allows us to omit them. There are specific endings for each person, but still we use subject pronouns, especially in the written speech. In the spoken speech, subject pronouns may be omitted when the ending shows the person clearly. 

The Finnish usually omit subject pronouns when the ending shows the person. Basically the same with Polish (but I'd like to hear of the real state of affairs from native speakers of Finnish and Polish!)

In Piedmontese, it's possible to omit subject pronouns almost everywhere - verbal pronouns are used to show the person, as well as endings. 

I can give you examples of the actual use of subject pronouns in Russian and Piedmontese, if you want.


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## Abu Bishr

Hi Outsider

In Arabic you can do the same. You could do the following:

(Ana) fa'al*tu *(I did)
(Nahnu) fa'al*naa* (We did)
(Anta) fa'al*ta* (You masc. sing. did)
(Anti) fa'al*ti* (You fem. sing. did)
(Humaa) fa'ala*a* (They dual did)
(Hum) fa'al*u* (They masc. pl. did)

I suppose it depends how you look at it. From a traditional Arabic grammatical perspective it would be possible to regard the enclitics of both the Greek & Spanish as pronominal suffixes having the status of full pronouns. From a modern linguistic perspective they might be no more than suffixes or enclitics.

Question: Do pro-drop languages have a flexible word and non-pro-drop languages (like English) a fixed one. In other words, do Spanish & Greek have flexible word orders being pro-drop?


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## parakseno

The bolded parts in Greek are ENDINGS of the verb, they are not pronouns. The Greek (personal) pronouns are:

εγώ - I
εσύ - you
αυτός / αυτή / αυτό - he/she/it
εμείς - we
εσείς - you
αυτοί / αυτές / αυτά - they (masculine/ feminine/ neuter plural).

Both in Romanian and Greek, the pronouns can be skipped since, as alitza explained, the person is inferred from the endings of the verb. Therefore, their use is optional and usually using the pronouns may emphasize the person doing the action.

"Ai găsit soluţia" - You found the solution.
"*Tu* ai găsit soluţia" ~ It's you, the one who found the solution. _*You*_ found the solution.

In Romanian, though there are some situations when not using the pronoun may lead to confusion:
"Am găsit soluţia." - can mean either "I found the solution" or "We found the solution" because this past tense (called "perfectul compus" similar to the French "parfait compose") has the same forms for 1st person singular and plural.
So to make this statement clear, we must use the pronouns. But usually, if it's not an isolated sentence, the person can be deduced from the context.

Haven't found this problem in Greek yet...


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## Outsider

I would say that word order is generally a little more flexible in Spanish than in English, but neither of them compares to languages like Latin, for example. I think that flexibility in word order is more related to noun declension than to verb conjugation. (Both English and Spanish have lost declensions.)


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## konungursvia

Another point is that the pronouns were in many cases just there for emphasis (me? I didn't do it), and that the verb endings were the original pronominal locutions ("pensé.... pens + ego" a long long while back), that sort of thing. Thus there is also the question of what is idiomatic. In English we can't omit the  pronouns because only third person singular verbs have distinct endings. In other languages such as the Romance and northern Indian languages, it's perfectly possible to be understood without them (except French) and is more a question of norms of style than grammar proper, in my view.


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## parakseno

Abu Bishr said:


> Question: Do pro-drop languages have a flexible word and non-pro-drop languages (like English) a fixed one. In other words, do Spanish & Greek have flexible word orders being pro-drop?



Well, Greek and Romanian (which is a Romance language too) have a flexible word order, some adding a bit of emphasis on different parts of the sentence.


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## Abu Bishr

Yes, Outsider, you are right with declension determining the flexibility of word order. In Arabic because of declension you can have: SVO, VSO, VOS & OVS. However, in Spanish or Greek can you have SV and VS, as declension is only really required to distinguish between Subject & Object (and possibly other verbal dependants)?


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## Outsider

Abu Bishr said:


> A verb where the pronoun is dropped is "fa'ala" - (he) did - as it has none of these endings, so the (he) is implied.


Is that some sort of past participle, as in English "to talk, talking, *talked*"?


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## Outsider

Abu Bishr said:


> Yes, Outsider, you are right with declension determining the flexibility of word order. In Arabic because of declension you can have: SVO, VSO, VOS & OVS. However, in Spanish or Greek can you have SV and VS, as declension is only really required to distinguish between Subject & Object (and possibly other verbal dependants)?


In Romance languages and English, the most common word order is SVO, possibly with the subject omitted (but indicated by the verb endings), (S)VO. In some rarer cases, you may find other orders, either for syntactic reasons (Romance languages often have (S)OV when the object is a clitic pronoun; e.g. Spanish _(Yo) lo vi_, "I saw him"), or if the context allows you to infer which is the subject and which is the object from semantic considerations.


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## Abu Bishr

Outsider said:


> Is that some sort of past participle, as in English "to talk, talking, *talked*"?


 
It's a main verb and could be a past participle but without the auxilliary.


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## Outsider

I'm afraid I don't know enough Arabic grammar to follow you. What we call past participles are "verbs" (I suppose this is arguable) which usually appear together with other verbs, forming compound tenses ("I have talked"), and may also be used as adjectives ("He is well spoken").

Regarding Spanish and other Romance languages, sometimes you also see the word order VS, especially with intransitive verbs.


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## ireney

Abu Bishr said:


> Yes, Outsider, you are right with declension determining the flexibility of word order. In Arabic because of declension you can have: SVO, VSO, VOS & OVS. However, in Spanish or Greek can you have SV and VS, as declension is only really required to distinguish between Subject & Object (and possibly other verbal dependants)?



In both modern Greek and ancient you can have SVO, VSO, VOS, OVS whatever. Greek is a nonconfigurational language. 

Saying that a language has declensions just to distinguish between subject and object is a bit simplistic to my mind


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## DrWatson

Finnish:

Finnish has the same characteristic as most Romance languages, we can omit the pronouns when they're the subject. Sometimes it's even recommended as it makes the text feel eloquent. In some cases one can't even use a pronoun or the sentence becomes grammatically incorrect. For example:

In English, you say: It rains.
In Finnish, you say: Sataa. If you place se "it" into the sentence, it becomes incorrect. I've understood that this lack of expletive pronouns is also common in other null subject languages, yes?


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## Outsider

DrWatson said:


> In English, you say: It rains.
> In Finnish, you say: Sataa. If you place se "it" into the sentence, it becomes incorrect. I've understood that this lack of expletive pronouns is also common in other null subject languages, yes?


Yes, in Portuguese it's _Chove_. _*Ele chove_ or _*Ela chove_ (we have no pronoun for "it") are incorrect.


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## ronanpoirier

In Hungarian the subject pronoun is dropped 95% of the times. It's used to give emphasis when needed.


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## Frank06

Hi,

In *Persian*, the pronoun can be omitted too.
A very simple example:
man khoubam 
>man: pronoun
>khoub: good
>1S

'Khoubam' can be used too.

If I am not wrong, pronouns can be dropped in colloquial, spoken English too, no?
- What time is it?
- Dunno.

Also in Chinese, which doesn't have any kind of inflection, pronouns can be dropped, depending upon the context.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## ireney

DrWatson said:


> Finnish:
> 
> Finnish has the same characteristic as most Romance languages, we can omit the pronouns when they're the subject. Sometimes it's even recommended as it makes the text feel eloquent. In some cases one can't even use a pronoun or the sentence becomes grammatically incorrect. For example:
> 
> In English, you say: It rains.
> In Finnish, you say: Sataa. If you place se "it" into the sentence, it becomes incorrect. I've understood that this lack of expletive pronouns is also common in other null subject languages, yes?




Question: is it the same for cases where the English doesn't use a dummy pronoun?

Would it be a mistake to put the pronoun in sentences like "I ate", "it decided" ?

In Greek, in cases such as "it rains" we use a verb form called 'impersonal verb' and it's a special case (in which you cannot have a subject really since the verb is impersonal). In all other cases (when there relly is a subject, the pronoun can be dropped or not, it's your choice -although we usually drop it)


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## Outsider

Ireney, dummy pronouns are a very special case. It does not include all instances where pronouns are omitted. See weather verbs.

P.S. And I see that they are indeed called "expletive pronouns".


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## ireney

Outsider I know (although the dummy pronoun is still a valid term even when other terms have been suggested and are still used, even if linguists such as Chomsky say that it is not in fact a "dummy" pronoun) 

I was asking if it is only in these special cases that putting the pronoun is wrong in Finish or if it is  so in other cases too.

If it wasn't clear I apologise


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## DrWatson

ireney said:


> Question: is it the same for cases where the English doesn't use a dummy pronoun?
> 
> Would it be a mistake to put the pronoun in sentences like "I ate", "it decided" ?
> 
> In Greek, in cases such as "it rains" we use a verb form called 'impersonal verb' and it's a special case (in which you cannot have a subject really since the verb is impersonal). In all other cases (when there relly is a subject, the pronoun can be dropped or not, it's your choice -although we usually drop it)



No, the cases in which you can't put a pronoun, are the ones that in English demand the so called dummy pronoun. I think e.g. to rain is an impersonal verb in Finnish, too.

So it wouldn't be a mistake to use a pronoun in the sentences you described. There's however a slight difference between sentences with and without the pronoun. I'll give an example:

*Söitkö omenan?* = Did (you) eat the apple? (subject omitted)
*Söitkö sinä omenan? = *Did you eat the apple?

The first sentence stresses little more the process of eating the apple, whereas the latter is more interested about the eater, you. This difference is still very vague and even two native Finns may argue if there actually is a difference. If one wishes to clearly stress a certain part of a sentence, it's best to change the word order.


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## Whodunit

In German (and I think this goes for the other Germanic languages, too), the pronoun has to be used:

lieben:

ich liebe
du liebst
er/sie/es liebt
wir lieben
ihr liebt
sie lieben

If we omitted the pronoun, "er liebt" and "ihr liebt" could be confused. However, in colloquial speech, it is not an uncommon occurence to avoid the pronoun "ich:"

Hab' grad an dich gedacht. (I just thought of you)

There's really no confusion, because "hab" can only be used for the 1st person singular. In questions, the pronoun "du" can be omitted - again, only colloquially:

"Hast das gehört?" (Did you hear that?)

Imperatives are usually formed without subject pronouns; they may, however, be used to emphasis the order:

Gib mir das Buch! (Give me the book.)
Gibst du mir das Buch! (Will you give me the book!)


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## Whodunit

Outsider said:


> I'm afraid I don't know enough Arabic grammar to follow you.


 
Outsider, verbs in Arabic are a hard matter to master. I still don't understand the concept of some verbs, especially their extended stems. Anyway, the infinitive is usually given as the 3rd person singular in the past tense:

to write - kataba (literal translation: he wrote)

Subject pronouns are always implied; they are only used for emphasis:

Kataba haadhaa 'r-risaalata. (He wrote this letter.)
Katabtu haadhaa 'r-risaalata. (I wrote this letter.)
Naktabu haadhaa 'r-risaalata. (We are writing this letter.)

You can always put a pronoun in front of these sentence, however, you will sound either ridiculous or as if you wanted to emphasize something:

Huwa kataba haadhaa 'r-risaalata. (He, and no one else wrote this letter.)
Ana katabtu haadhaa 'r-risaalata. (It's me who wrote this letter.)
Na7nu naktabu haadhaa 'r-risaalata. (We are, and no one else is writing this letter.)

Do you understand the concept now? I guess it's the same in Portuguese.


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## Outsider

Whodunit said:


> Anyway, the infinitive is usually given as the 3rd person singular in the past tense:
> 
> to write - kataba (literal translation: he wrote)


You mean the so-called dictionary form, right?



Whodunit said:


> Do you understand the concept now? I guess it's the same in Portuguese.


What you have written is like in Portuguese, yes, although it's a bit of an oversimplification to say that we only include subjects for emphasis. Suppose I'm telling a story with two female characters, Ann and Ben. I can't just use the verbs in the third person singular, or my audience will not know to which of them I am referring (although often context can clarify that, and in that case I am allowed to omit the subject). Also, in long sentences or texts with many clauses, it may be sensible to make some strategically placed subjects explicit for clarity sake.


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## Whodunit

Outsider said:


> You mean the so-called dictionary form, right?


 
Correct. I didn't even know there was a linguistic term for "citation form." 



> What you have written is like in Portuguese, yes, although it's a bit of an oversimplification to say that we only include subjects for emphasis. Suppose I'm telling a story with two female characters, Ann and Ben. I can't just use the verbs in the third person singular, or my audience will not know to which of them I am referring (although often context can clarify that, and in that case I am allowed to omit the subject).


 
This problem wouldn't arise in Arabic, because there are two different 3rd persons:

She wrote the letter. = Katabat ar-risaalata.
He wrote the letter. = Kataba 'r-risaalata.



> Also, in long sentences or texts with many clauses, it may be sensible to make some strategically placed subjects explicit for clarity sake.


 
Yes, it was an oversimplification. You know that you can't explain grammar of any language in less than 10 pages.


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## Honour

Outsider said:


> Yes, in Portuguese it's _Chove_. _*Ele chove_ or _*Ela chove_ (we have no pronoun for "it") are incorrect.


 
I have just noticed that we neither say <*it is raining>* orjust <*raining>. *We always say stg like <*rain is raining**> because both actions are covered by the verb yağmak which means hail/fall from the sky.

Anyway, if i should return on track;in turkish we don't use subject pronouns unless we want to emphasize stg. In daily speech, we only use them to avoid ambiguity. 


Order of a regular sentence is SOV however a sentence should be composed in any order according to the emphasize. The word just before the verb is always emphasized.
Ben bugün sinemaya gittim. (I - today - to cinema - went) (sinema is emphasized.
Bugün sinemaya ben gittim (<I> is emphasized)
Ben sinemaya bugün gittim (<today> is emphasized)


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## Etcetera

DrWatson said:


> So it wouldn't be a mistake to use a pronoun in the sentences you described. There's however a slight difference between sentences with and without the pronoun. I'll give an example:
> 
> *Söitkö omenan?* = Did (you) eat the apple? (subject omitted)
> *Söitkö sinä omenan? = *Did you eat the apple?
> 
> The first sentence stresses little more the process of eating the apple, whereas the latter is more interested about the eater, you. This difference is still very vague and even two native Finns may argue if there actually is a difference. If one wishes to clearly stress a certain part of a sentence, it's best to change the word order.


In Piedmontese, subject pronouns are often used just for emphasis. It seems to me that it may be the same in Finnish...


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## Abu Bishr

ireney said:


> In both modern Greek and ancient you can have SVO, VSO, VOS, OVS whatever. Greek is a nonconfigurational language.
> 
> Saying that a language has declensions just to distinguish between subject and object is a bit simplistic to my mind


 
If you reread my post you will notice that I placed between brackets (and possibily other verbal dependants)  .

Now, the notion of case or declension being used to distinguish between subject and object (called the core arguments of the verb) is not new to modern linguistics. In certain types of grammar the verb is central to the proposition and everything else revolves around it giving rise to the verbal or verb arguments with the core arguments being the subject and object, and languages make use of case (or declension), word-order or a mixture of both to often distinguish between the two. If you follow this link you will find that that is in fact the case despite you calling it simplistic.

Depency Grammar makes use of the same priniciple: a head (often the verb) and connected to it are a number of dependants (or arguments) which are roles defined by the verb. The same applies to government-binding version of Universal Grammar even though Chomsky has given the former up for his new Minimalist Programme. The bottom line is that in Arabic you have a governor that governs or controls one or more words. The primary form of the governor is the verb which governs both the subject in the Nomminative and the object in the accusative. Other governors of a lesser nature are prepositions and even nouns themselves.

So your claim that "saying that a language has declensions just to distinguish between subject and object is a bit simplistic" is implausible with all due respect  . Subject and Object are major almost indespensable parts of a sentence, and languages throghout the world have developed strategies for distinguishing between them, one of these strategies being "Case" (or Declension) and another being "Word Order".

In Arabic if you say: 

Zayd*u*n sa'ala Samir*a*n (SVO)

Samir*a*n sa'ala Zayd*u*n (OVS)

sa'ala Zayd*u*n Samir*a*n (VSO)

sa'ala Samir*a*n Zayd*u*n (VOS)

they all have the basic meaning of "Zayd asked Samir" notwithstanding the word order, because the *u*-case ending signifies the Subject and *a*-case ending signifies the Object.

Should you change the case-endings around as in "Samir*u*n" & "Zayd*a*n" then all the sentences will basically read "Samir asked Zayd". In English though whichever one is first is the Subject and the other one the Object. Other verbal dependants, in Arabic, will have *a*-case ending as well but their roles in the sentence are determined by textual, contextual and semantical considerations.

Anyhow, I hope I have'nt not come across too strongly in my post. If so, excuse me my appalling manners.


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## cherine

Whodunit said:


> Anyway, the infinitive is usually given as the 3rd person singular in the past tense:
> to write - kataba (literal translation: he wrote)


Correct, this is the way we mention the verbs in their infinitive forms.

Dear Whodunit, allow me few corrections please 


> Kataba haadhihi 'r-risaalata. (He wrote this letter.) As the word risaala is feminine, you should say haadhihi and not haadha.
> Katabtu haadhihi 'r-risaalata. (I wrote this letter.)
> Naktabu haadhihi 'r-risaalata. (We are writing this letter.)
> ...
> Huwa kataba haadhihi 'r-risaalata. (He, and no one else wrote this letter.)
> Ana katabtu haadhaa 'r-risaalata. (It's me who wrote this letter.)
> Na7nu naktabu haadhaa 'r-risaalata. (We are, and no one else is writing this letter.)


Besides what Abu Bishr explained, I'd like to add something :
The pronouns in Arabic *are* used. But they are not separated. This may be confusing, even I myself was going to say that we ommit the subject pronouns in Arabic, but then I told myself that the fact that these pronouns make parts of the verbs doesn't mean we really omit them. Maybe it's not to be compared to another language, or maybe it's me who don't get the question right


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## Whodunit

cherine said:


> Dear Whodunit, allow me few corrections please


 
 How stupid!



> Besides what Abu Bishr explained, I'd like to add something :
> The pronouns in Arabic *are* used. But they are not separated. This may be confusing, even I myself was going to say that we ommit the subject pronouns in Arabic, but then I told myself that the fact that these pronouns make parts of the verbs doesn't mean we really omit them. Maybe it's not to be compared to another language, or maybe it's me who don't get the question right


 
They are implied, because the verb is conjugated. This is comparable to Spanish, where you can't feel any confusion:

veo = yo veo (= I see)
ra2aytu = ana ra2aytu (= I see)

This would be complicated in English, because verbs usually don't get conjugated, except in the 3rd singular:

see = I/you/we/you/they see

While it might be confusing in English, it is used in Japanese this way:

miru = watashi/anata/kare/kanojo/watashitachi/anatatachi/karera/konojotachi miru (= I/you/he/she/we/you/they see)

I'm still asking myself how the Japanese understand who's acting.


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## Thomas F. O'Gara

Whodunit:

It's not nearly as difficult to tell who's doing what in Japanese as you might think, although a battery of different tools are being used to express it.

First of all, most things that are said and almost everything that is written is in the third person - this is true of all languages. When you're dealing with first person or second person situations in Japanese, whether or not the doer of the action is the first or second person will be expressed by the type and level of honorifics used with the verb.

As a result, personal pronoun forms are almost an afterthought in Japanese, and their use can provide a nuance of meaning that isn't there in other languages. The first person can be "watashi", watakushi", "atashi", "boku" and probably a number of other forms, each of which says something about the speaker and to whom he/she is speaking. In modern Japanese the second person form "anata" is actually a little (but just a little) uncomplimentary - a strange development, since the form originally meant something like "valuable presence." When addressing a superior, frequently no pronoun is used at all, and the honorific forms of the verb would be used to express the sense.  As for a form like "kanojo" for "she", this was actually an invented form in the Meiji era, when the Japanese realized that they had no word for "she"!  It literally means "that woman."

For that matter, Japanese has several other forms that are not commonly expressed by one word in western languages, such as "jibuntachi" (you and me) and "wareware" (all of us - as opposed to all of you).

In Japanese (and in fact in other east Asian languages as well) the standard forms of the personal pronouns are not heavily embedded forms in the language, and the pronomial forms have tended to change over time. The current word for the third person in Chinese was the common word for "other" several centuries ago. The Chinese classics also normally use a totally different character for "I" than is used in the modern language. 

This has been a very interesting thread, taking us far into the vagaries of linguistic analysis.


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## Whodunit

Thanks, Thomas, for this interesting reply. 



Thomas F. O'Gara said:


> As for a form like "kanojo" for "she", this was actually an invented form in the Meiji era, when the Japanese realized that they had no word for "she"! It literally means "that woman."


 
Wow, I didn't know that! However, this makes me ask another question: Why do they use "-tachi" then? Isn't this plural indicator, or better attachment "reserved" for the pronouns only? I don't think "jotachi" would make much sense. So, what I infer from these conclusions is that "kanojo" is treated like a normal pronoun without knowing that it means "that woman," right?



> The Chinese classics also normally use a totally different character for "I" than is used in the modern language.


 
Are you talking about the Mandarin "wu" or Cantonese "ngo" (both 我)? And what do you mean by that there can be used different characters for them? By the way, talking about Chinese, I don't think pronouns can be omitted there. Do you agree?


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## Christhiane

In Norwegian you always need to include the pronoun with verbs, unless the verb is in imperative. 

In Norwegian one does't inflect a verb according to person, only in time. 

I am quite certain this is also the case in Swedish and Danish.


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## Thomas F. O'Gara

Whodunit:

Regarding _kanojo _I have to admit that I've never heard it used outside the classroom, much less _kanojotachi. _I'd appreciate it if some sympathetic native speaker would sort this out.

As far as classical Chinese goes, the commonest first person pronoun I've run across is 吾 (wu). Not a common character nowadays - in fact, I think it's generally used only to transliterate foreign names any more. for the second person the commonest is 汝 (ru).  Third person:  伊 (yi - also common in transliterations in modern Chinese) or maybe 此 (ci), althought the latter is not primarily used for persons.

I agree that you normally can't leave out personal pronouns in Chinese without doing violence to the meaning of the sentence. Having said that, of course, in Chinese you can usually leave anything you want out if the context makes the meaning clear.


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## ceann-feachd

In Gaelic, verbs do not conjugate for person. One verb form is the same for all persons. So the pronoun must be included. Except in the case of the conditional first person, where the endings _-(a)inn_ and -_(e)amaid_ indicate the first person singular and plural respectively. The pronouns are not needed in this case.


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## neli

Slovene:
Jaz grem (I go)
Ti greš (You go)
On/ona gre (He/she goes)
_Midva greva (I and you go)_
_Vidva gresta (You and you go)_
_Onadva gresta (He and she go)_
Mi gremo (We go)
Vi greste (You go)
Oni grejo (They go)

Slovenian language have dual too.


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## Whodunit

Neli, you didn't answer the question. Can personal pronouns be omitted in Slovenian? I'm also curious about your reply, because in Czech they can, whereas in Russian you have to use them (both are Slavic languages).


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## suma

Abu Bishr said:


> In Arabic we have the same situation:
> 
> fa'al*tu *(I did)
> fa'al*naa* (We did)
> fa'al*ta* (You masc. sing. did)
> fa'al*ti* (You fem. sing. did)
> fa'ala*a* (They dual did)
> fa'al*u* (They masc. pl. did)
> etc.
> 
> However, in Arabic the sounds marked in bold are actually pronouns so that these are complete sentences of the type VS(O).
> 
> A verb where the pronoun is dropped is "fa'ala" - (he) did - as it has none of these endings, so the (he) is implied.


 
well Abu Bishr as you know the endings above in bold are not free standing words to themselves, so they can't be considered pronouns but instead subject markers.


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## vince

I heard that in Brazilian, subject pronouns are rarely omitted whereas in Portuguese it is done much more often.

Another question: Did Old French and Old English allow subject dropping, since these languages once had distinct verb conjugations for different persons?



			
				Whodunit said:
			
		

> Are you talking about the Mandarin "wu" or Cantonese "ngo" (both 我)? And what do you mean by that there can be used different characters for them? By the way, talking about Chinese, I don't think pronouns can be omitted there. Do you agree?



Chinese languages do not inflect verbs for person, so pronouns can't be omitted. However, sentences can be constructed analogous to English:

Cantonese: (Nei) Sik-zo faan mei? - (Have you) eaten yet? (My attempt at Mandarin translation: (Ni) chi-le fan mei-you? (please correct if wrong))
Cantonese: Sik-jyun je sin ho-ji waan - Only after eating can one play. (Mandarin? : chi-yuan dong-xi xian ke-yi wan)

In regards to the Chinese character for "I/me", I believe that Hakka is an example of a Chinese language that preserves the original character (ngai).

Don't forget that many Chinese languages do not have the simple suffix ending for converting "I/me" to "we/us" (Mandarin: wo --> women; Cantonese: ngo --> ngodei)

I believe that Min Nan (Taiwanese/Chaozhou/Hainan-hua) and Wu (Shanghai/Suzhou-nese) use a vowel change that necessitates the use of entirely different character(s) compared to "I/me".
e.g. Shanghainese: ngu --> ala
Taiwanese: (g)ua --> (g)ueng


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## BlueWolf

vince said:


> I heard that in Brazilian, subject pronouns are rarely omitted whereas in Portuguese it is done much more often.


 
Well, in Brazilian you need to distinguish often between você (you, sing.) and ele/a [(s)he], which have the same form of the verb.

In Italian, you can almost always not use the personal subject, we don't usually use them very much. The word order, even if the language hasn't the cases, can be quite free, until you can distinguish between object and subject. So the OVS order, for example, can't be used, unless S and O have different numbers (in that case the verb ending shows which is the subject). So a sentence like: 
The cat eats the mice, _can_ be translated as:

Il gatto mangia i topi
Il gatto i topi mangia
Mangia il gatto i topi
I topi il gatto mangia
Mangia i topi il gatto
I topi mangia il gatto

Many of this sentence however needs to be read with a particular intonation in order to avoid confusion, and however many of them are almost never used. If S and O are both singular and plural, many of those constructions can't be used.


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## Outsider

vince said:


> I heard that in Brazilian, subject pronouns are rarely omitted whereas in Portuguese it is done much more often.


As BlueWolf has said, that's mostly in the third person, to avoid confusion between _ele/ela_ and _você_. See this discussion, too.


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## MingRaymond

BlueWolf said:


> The cat eats the mice, _can_ be translated as:
> 
> Il gatto mangia i topi
> Il gatto i topi mangia
> Mangia il gatto i topi
> I topi il gatto mangia
> Mangia i topi il gatto
> I topi mangia il gatto
> however many of them are almost never used.


 
Ciao! BlueWolf. I am learning Italian. I would like to know which of them are almost never used. Thank you.


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## BlueWolf

BlueWolf said:


> Il gatto mangia i topi. SVO, standard construction.
> Il gatto i topi mangia. SOV, in 2nd position.
> Mangia il gatto i topi. VSO, very used, especially for emphasis on the subject.
> I topi il gatto mangia. OSV, not very used, and often not correct.
> Mangia i topi il gatto. OSV, sometimes used, for emphasis on the object.
> I topi mangia il gatto. OVS, almost never used, often not correct.


 
However I'd suggest you to use only SVO, SOV and VSO, the most used.  
SOV usually is used only with accusative and dative pronouns, and VSO for emphasis on the subject.


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## Marga H

In Polish is even better to omit subject pronouns ,the endings are different for each grammatical perrson.If you use them the effect is like in French with  les pronoms personnels toniques.
Example:
(ja) mówię -I speak,je parle . Ja mówię = Moi,je parle.


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## Tisia

In Persian as well as Kurdish, the subject pronoun is inherent within the verb so no need to use the subject pronoun if you dont want unless in case of emphasis.

Persian: mirav*am* (I go), the -*am* stands for the subject pronoun '*man*' (I).
Kurdish: danus*em* (I write), the -*em* stands for the subject pronoun 'men' (I).

Regards
Tisia


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## MingRaymond

BlueWolf said:


> However I'd suggest you to use only SVO, SOV and VSO, the most used.
> SOV usually is used only with accusative and dative pronouns, and VSO for emphasis on the subject.


 
Thank you.


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## kanojo_

Whodunit said:


> Can personal pronouns be omitted in Slovenian?



Yes they can and it is more natural to use sentences without them, esp. in every-day speech. For example:

_Mi gremo na morje_- (We are going to the sea). In English it is necessary to add "we" whereas in Slovene it sounds perfectly OK if you just say:
"Gremo na morje". That is because "gremo", the verb for go, can only be used with 1st person plural and therefore no personal pronoun is needed.

Personal pronouns are usually used when you want to emphasize you're talking about someone- _TI mi nisi všeč_- It is YOU that I do not like.


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## bb3ca201

In Gaelic we don't have that option; since there is one form of the verb for all persons, we have to include who we're talking about.  For example

tha mi, tha thu, tha e, tha i, etc...
I am, you are, he is, she is, etc...


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## papillon

Whodunit said:


> ...Can personal pronouns be omitted in Slovenian? I'm also curious about your reply, because in Czech they can, whereas *in Russian you have to use them* (both are Slavic languages).


(emphasis is mine).
Just a little clarification. In Russian you _don't need to _use personal pronouns, and in most cases they can be left out. Stylistically, more often than not they are used, though sometimes a little less in casual conversation.

Interestingly, quite often learners of Russian will post a phrase or a paragraph translated into Russian, with personal pronouns completely left out. I tend to add a styslitic suggestion to include the pronouns, although I note that the phrase is also OK wthout them.

Knowing when to use /not to use pronouns in Russian  is a bit of an art, and sometimes leaving a pronoun adds a certain nuance to the sentence.


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## avalon2004

To add to what has already been said about Greek...
Subject pronouns are for the most part superfluous and therefore they aren't used. If you don't omit the pronoun, you are placing emphasis on the person doing the action, rather than the actual action itself:

Θέλω να πάω αύριο - I want to go tomorrow
*Εγώ* θέλω να πάω αύριο - *I* want to go tomorrow (even though you've said I can't or you haven't asked me; I also want to go)

As the verb endings indicate the person, pronouns are just added extras most of the time.
In some circumstances, however, you more or less have to use the pronouns in order to make the meaning of your sentence clear:

*Εκείνη* μεν ήθελε να φύγει, *εγώ* όμως αποφάσισα να μείνω.
Whilst *SHE* wanted to leave, *I* _(on the other hand)_ decided to stay.

Without the pronouns, there would be no emphasis on the fact that the two people wanted to do different things.


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## Maja

Whodunit said:


> Can personal pronouns be omitted in Slovenian? I'm also curious about your reply, because in Czech they can, whereas in Russian you have to use them (both are Slavic languages).


In Serbian (also a Slavic language), personal pronouns can be omitted, and such  form is frequently used.


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## MarX

Hi!

Indonesian verbs don't change according to number, person, tense, nor aspects, yet the personal pronouns are often omitted altogether.

This is hard to believe for many people, but it works pretty well somehow. 

Salam,


MarX


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