Snat Sajem Tan/Pronouns

This lesson will teach you how personal pronouns work in Sajem Tan.

Sajem Tan has 13 personal pronouns. Here are the first 12:

The 13th, žo, will be explained in link to whichever lesson this is.

First person pronouns refer to the speaker, like English "I" and "me". Second person pronouns refer to the person being addressed (English "you"). And finally the third person pronouns refer to everyone and everything else and are equivalent to the English "he", "she", and "it". Pronouns equivalent to "we", "us", "they", and "them" are derived from these and will be discussed in Lesson 2.

The distinction between the 4 animacies is like the difference between "he" and "it" in English: "he" can only refer to things are animals (or only humans, depending on the speaker) while "it" can only be used for other things. In Sajem Tan these differences are more detailed and apply to all pronouns. The inanimate pronouns are refer to things that are not alive. Some people restrict them further to only refer to things that are physical (so, rocks but not love or confusion). Vegetal pronouns, meanwhile, refer to anything that is alive but isn't an animal, so plants, fungui, Ents, and that vine which has been sneakily creeping up your left leg while you were reading this are all vegetal. Given the scope of the first two, it's probably not hard to guess that animate pronouns refer to things that are animals.

This leaves the neutral pronouns which, as the name might imply, are neutral with respect to animacy. They can be used to refer to absolutely anything and are particularly useful if you are referring to a mixed group or something that you don't know the animacy of, or if you've forgotten the other pronouns.

The neutrals also double as demonstrative pronouns, that is "this" and "that". The first person "dê" refers to things near the speaker ("this"), the second person "do" refers to something near the listener ("that, by you"), and the third person "du" refers to something which can be pointed at but isn't near either person ("that, over there").

Traditionally, members of the tribe who are animate refer to themselves in the third person and members who are vegetal use the second person. So if you asked a rock what it was the rock might respond "I am a rock." and if you asked a dog what it was it would tell you "He is a dog." and if you asked a vine it would tell you "You are a vine. Thank you for letting you curl around your leg.". As you can see, talking to plants can get somewhat confusing and you need to be somewhat careful to understand who is being addressed.

Now, practicing pronouns by themselves would be kind of boring, so here's some verbs to put them with:
 * dûdenfê - to distract
 * gajinfê - to salute
 * gynömfê - to proselytize on behalf of gynaecology
 * xanönfê - to greet
 * xögakfê - to be courageous
 * šizûtfê - to remember

You might notice that all of these end in -fê and indeed they do. We will explain why in Lesson 3.

The word order of sentences in Sajem Tan is somewhat different than in English. In English, the subject comes before the verb and the object comes after. In Sajem Tan the object comes first and the verb comes last. So while "Sê dûdenfê vo." may look like "I (an animal) distract you (a plant)." it actually means "You (a plant) distract me (an animal).". Note that English has a difference between "I" and "me", between "he" and "him", etc. Sajem Tan, meanwhile, doesn't distinguish between subject and object pronouns.

Example Sentences

 * Ţu dûdenfê du. - That distracts me (vegetal).
 * Sê gajinfê vu. - You (inanimate) salute me (animate).
 * Do xanönfê dê. - I (neutral) greet you (neutral).
 * Xögakfê vo. - You (vegetal) are courageous.
 * Dê šizûtfê sê. - I (animate) remember this.
 * Gynömfê sê. - I (animate) proselytize on behalf of gynaecology.
 * Gynömfê žu. - You (animate) proselytize on behalf of gynaecology.
 * Gynömfê xyt. - Everybody proselytizes on behalf of gynaecology.

And now I've slipped in a noun. Let's have some fun with it.


 * Sê dûdenfê xyt. - Everyone/everything distracts me (animate).
 * Xyt šizûtfê vu. - You (inanimate) remember everyone/everything.
 * Ţu gajinfê xyt. - Everyone salutes me.

Exercises
Translate these sentences:

Gynömfê do. You (neutral) proselytize on behalf of gynaecology.

or

That thing next to you proselytizes on behalf of gynaecology. Xögakfê zo. He/she/it (inanimate) is courageous. Žu šizûtfê zê. He/she/it (vegetal) remembers you (animate). Du dûdenfê dê. This distracts that.

or

I (neutral) distract him/her/it (neutral). Žu dûdenfê xyt. Everything distracts you (animate). Ro gajinfê vo. You (vegetal) salute him/her/it (animate).

Now go the other way: It (a chair) proselytizes on behalf of gynaecology. Gynömfê zo.

or

Gynömfê du. He (a cow) remembers me (a bush). Ţu šizûtfê ro. You (the vine still creeping up your leg) greet you (the human doing these exercises). (If you aren't human, substitute a pronoun of the appropriate animacy.) Žu xanönfê vo. This thing next to me proselytizes on behalf of gynaecology. Gynömfê dê. It (the vine on your leg) is courageous. Xögakfê zê. I (the author of this lesson, a rock) salute you (still presumed to be a human). Žu gajinfê ţê! Well done!