Pronoun

Summary

A pronoun is a word that indirectly refers to a person or a thing. For example: “John” is a proper name, “man” is a common noun, and “he” is a pronoun; but all three terms can refer to the same person named “John”.

Article

In Biblical Aramaic, a pronoun can function as a noun (personal pronouns), an adjective (demonstrative pronouns), or a relative particle (relative pronouns).

Types

Biblical Aramaic contains the following five types of pronouns.

Demonstrative pronoun

A demonstrative pronoun refers to a specific person(s) or thing(s) in particular. In English, the following words are demonstrative pronouns: “this”, “that”, “these”, “those”.

Indefinite pronoun

An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun that refers to a person(s) or thing(s) in general but not to any specific person or thing in particular. In English, they are usually translated as “whoever” (in reference to persons) or “whatever” (when referring to things).

Interrogative pronoun

An interrogative pronoun is a pronoun that appears at the beginning of a clause/sentence and indicates that the clause/sentence is an interrogative question rather than an indicative statement.

Personal pronoun

In Biblical Aramaic, a personal pronoun is a word that indirectly refers to a particular person(s) or thing(s). In English, the following words are personal pronouns: “I”, “we”, “you”, “he”, “she”, “they”, “them”.

Relative pronoun

Relative pronouns are pronouns which function as a relative particle, that is, to introduce a phrase or clause that describes a noun.