WORD CLASS: PERSONAL PRONOUNS

1. Personal pronouns are not exactly the same as clitics (see clitics). Personal pronouns is the other Catalan word class showing declension cases, basically two: nominative and oblique.

The oblique case is other than nominative and is always preceded by a preposition. Catalan is a quite special case among Romance languages, since it just distinguishes case in the first person singular

2. The table of Catalan pronouns is as follows. Courtesy forms have been left aside.

PERSON	NOMINATIVE	OBLIQUE
1PS	jo	mi
2PS	tu
3PSMasc.	ell
3PSFem.	ella
1PP	nosaltres
2PP	vosaltres
3PPMasc.	ells
3PPfem.	elles

If compared with Spanish, the second person singular offers two cases: nominative tú and oblique ti (Portuguese tu and ti respectively)

If compared with Italian, the second person singular also makes a difference between nominative tu and te)

3. Personal pronouns tend to be omitted in the discourse when unnecessary, like in most Romance languages. Their use in the sentence responds to a need of emphasis or contrast. Otherwise, its constant presence in the statement makes the sentence wrong.

tu no em coneixes, no?	you don’t know me, don’t you?
tinc un regalet per a tu	I’ve got a little present for you
mai no en parlem, d’ells	we never talk about them
mentre jo cuino, ella renta	while I cook, she cleans

4. The so-called courtesy pronouns, which are used to address someone with much more respect (observe French tu parles > vous parlez; German: du sprichts > Sie sprechen, Czech ty mluvíš > vy mluvite, Polish ty mówisz > pan/pani mówi, Italian: tu parli > lei parla, European Portuguese tu falas > você fala, etc.).

Catalan possesses two systems of courtesy pronouns, which can be used alike.

(a) The first one corresponds to a system similar to Spanish and Portuguese, with a third person-based system: vostè, plural vostès. That means that the verb is conjugated in the third person and the clitics to be used also correspond to the third person.

vostè no em coneix, no?	you don’t know me, don’t you?
tinc un regalet per a vostè	I’ve got a little present for you

(b) The second one possesses a unique form vós, with the clitic us, and is conjugates following the second person plural, valid for both singular and plural

vós no em coneixeu, no?	you don’t know me, don’t you?
tinc un regalet per a vós	I’ve got a little present for you

In the previous examples, both sentences might refer either to one person or to several.