Palauan Language Online: Palauan Pronouns

Quick links:

• Personal pronouns
  
• Relative pronouns
  
• Demonstrative pronouns
  
• Indefinite pronouns
  
• Reflexive pronouns
  
• Interrogative pronouns
  
• Possessive pronouns
  
• Affix pronouns
  

Palauan Pronouns

Note about this page: this is a short attempt to list some of the simple rules for Palauan pronouns. For a much longer and comprehensive explanation, please refer to Lewis Josephs' definitive Palauan grammar book.

According to this website, English has at least these following types of pronouns: personal, relative, demonstrative, indefinite, reflexive, interrogative, and possessive pronouns. As such, this page attempts to list the corresponding Palauan pronouns for these same types.

Personal pronouns

Here are the personal pronouns for both English and Palaun:

	English Personal Pronouns		Palauan Personal Pronouns
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
First Person	I, me	we, us	ngak, ak	kid, kede
				kemam, aki
Second Person	you	you	kau, ke	kemiu, kom
Third Person	he, him, she, her, it	they, them	ngii, ng	tir, te

There are at least a few differences:

• Palauan is less ambiguous in the 2nd person as it distinguishes between singular and plural whereas English does not.
• Palauan is less ambiguous in the 1st person plural as it distinguishes between one which includes the listener (kid, kede) and one which excludes (kemam, aki).
• English is less ambiguous in the 3rd person singular as it has separate forms for male (he,him), female (she,her), and non-human (it) whereas Palauan combines these into ngii and ng.
• The rules for choosing between the multiple forms within each (e.g. I/me and ngak/ak) are not the same. For English, the difference is object/subject whereas in Palauan the difference is emphatic/nonemphatic. In the table above, the emphatic form of each Palauan pronoun is indicated with boldface font.

Relative pronouns

The English relative pronouns include the following:that, which, who, whom, whose, whichever, whoever, whomever.

The Palauan relative pronouns include the following: ngara, keskelel, ker, keltang, oingarang, se el, se er a, techa, tela.

Demonstrative pronouns

The English demonstrative pronouns are that, this, those, and these. They are split by count (i.e. singular or plural) and by distance from the speaker (i.e. near or far). For these four English pronouns, there are 16 Palauan equivalents which further split by distance from listener and by human, animal, or thing. Here is a table showing both the English and Palauan demonstrative pronouns:

Count Dstnc Spkr Dstnc Lstnr Describes this sing near n/a any that sing far n/a any these plur near n/a any those plur far n/a any tiang sing near near thing tiei sing near far thing tilechang sing far near thing sei sing far far thing ngikang sing near near human,animal ngilei sing near far human,animal ngilechang sing far near human,animal ngikei sing far far human,animal aikang plur near near thing,animal ailei plur near far thing,animal ailechang plur far near thing,animal aikei plur far far thing,animal tirkang plur near near human tirelei plur near far human tirilechang plur far near human tirkei plur far far human

Some observations about the Palauan demonstrative pronouns: The singular forms group humans and animals together but keep things separate. The plural forms group animals and things together but keep humans separate. This organization shows some identifying suffix patterns: The ti- stem identifies the singular thing form. The ngi- stem identifies the singular human,animal forms. The ai- stem identifies the plural thing,animal forms. The tir- stem identfies the plural human forms. sei does not fit the above patterns.

A different organization along the distance axes reveals identifying patterns in the suffixes:

Count Dstnc Spkr Dstnc Lstnr Describes tiang sing near near thing ngikang sing near near human,animal aikang plur near near thing,animal tirkang plur near near human tiei sing near far thing ngilei sing near far human,animal ailei plur near far thing,animal tirelei plur near far human tilechang sing far near thing ngilechang sing far near human,animal ailechang plur far near thing,animal tirilechang plur far near human sei sing far far thing ngikei sing far far human,animal aikei plur far far thing,animal tirkei plur far far human

More observations about the Palauan demonstrative pronouns: The -(k)ang suffix is for near, near The -lei suffix is for near, far The -lechang suffix is for far, near The -kei- suffix is for far, far sei and tiei do not fit this pattern

Indefinite pronouns

The English relative pronouns include the following: anybody, anyone, anything, each, either, everybody, everyone, everything, neither, nobody, no one, nothing, one, somebody, someone, something, both, few, many, several, all, any, most, none, some.

Some Palauan equivalents are ngdiak a tal chad, bekel, ngii di el chad, rokir, rokiu, ngdiak a ngarang, kesai, bebil, oumesingd.

Reflexive pronouns

The English reflexive pronouns include the following: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves.

There are no Palauan equivalents. To express a similar idea, the word di is typically used. E.g. Ng di mle ngak el sobekak. translates figuratively to "I kicked myself."

Interrogative pronouns

The English interrogative pronouns include the following: what, who, which, when, why, whom, whose, how.

Some Palauan equivalents include the following: ngerang, techang, mekesakl, oingarang, engerang, makerang, ngara meng, ngara uchul, keskelel, kuskelii.

Possessive pronouns

The English possessive pronouns include the following: my, your, his, her, its, our, their, mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs.

Palaun possessive pronouns do not typically exist as independent words but rather as suffixes on nouns. Please refer to the nouns grammar page for more information. For foreign words, however, possession uses the linking work er and an emphatic personal pronoun (e.g. chert er kau).

Affix pronouns

Both Palauan nouns and verbs can have pronoun stems affixed as a prefix identifing the subject. Verbs can additionally have pronouns as a suffix identifying the object. Examples:

• Ng diak lsensei. He's not a teacher.
• Ng diak kimodengelterir. We (exclusive) do not know them.

Here is a list of affix pronouns:

pal	eng

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