Slovene pronouns

The Slovene language has a range of pronouns that in some ways work quite differently from English ones. This page details their usage. For declensions, see Slovene declension#Pronouns.

Pronoun

Pronouns can replace a noun in a sentence; this is, as opposed to, say, an adjective or an adverb.

Personal pronouns

A personal pronoun denotes the speaker (I), the addressee (you) or a third person (it). Personal pronouns in Slovene are inflected in a somewhat unusual way, for there are many different forms for each of the pronouns.

Several of the pronouns have unstressed and clitic forms that are unstressed, and may attach to another word. For example:

The nominative forms of personal pronouns are not used in neutral sentences, only when emphasizing the subject, especially so for the first person singular jaz "I". This is because unlike in English, the form of the verb gives all applicable information such as the gender, grammatical number and person by itself.

The reflexive pronoun begins with s- and is used to refer back to the subject, or to some other word.

For example:

Similarly as in German and English, the reflexive pronoun can sometimes be replaced by the reciprocal phrase drug drugega "each other, one another". Thus:

The accusative se can bind with prepositional words just like other personal pronouns:

Other cases and examples:

Interrogative pronouns

The interrogative pronouns introduce direct and indirect questions. There are two nominative forms: kdo "who" and kaj "what".

Relative pronouns

The substantival relative pronoun is derived from the interrogative by adding -r: kdor "who, that", kar "which, that".

Negative pronouns

The negative pronoun is derived from the interrogative as well, and starts with ni-: nihče "nobody, anybody", nič "nothing, anything".

A negative pronoun demands a negative predicate, resulting in the so-called double negation:

Universal pronouns

The universal pronouns are vsakdo "everyone" and vse "everything, all".

Vsak "each, every" is an adjective that can function as a pronoun. Also in this category are vsakateri and vsakteri, both meaning "everyone", which are old-fashioned and not used in modern language.

Indefinite pronouns

The indefinite pronoun is derived from the interrogative, and starts with ne-: nekdo "someone, anyone", nekaj "something, anything". It refers to an unknown or deliberately untold person or object. The inflection follows the pattern of kdo and kaj.

The interrogatives kdo and kaj, can also refer to any unspecified person or object, or one that can be chosen at will.

Relative indefinite pronouns

The relative indefinite pronouns are kdorkoli or kdor koli (whoever) and karkoli or kar koli (whatever). The meaning conveyed is very similar to the unspecified pronoun. The inflexion follows the pattern of the relative pronoun with -koli or  koli appended. The space, as shown, is optional, but for sake of consistency, once one method has been adopted, one should not use the other.

Manifold pronouns

The manifold pronouns are marsikdo "many (people)" and marsikaj "many (things)". The inflexion follows the basic pattern of kdo and kaj. Although these pronouns refer to multiple people or things, they are grammatically singular. In addition to marsi-, other prefixes are possible, such as redko- (redkokdo "rarely anyone"), mnogo- (mnogokdo, same as marsikdo, although perhaps somewhat less usual) and malo- (malokdo "few (people)").

Determiners

See also: Determiner

Possessive determiners

These all inflect as regular adjectives.

Singular Dual Plural
1st person mój "my" nájin "our" nàš "our"
2nd person tvój "your" vájin "your" vàš "your"
Reflexive svój "one's (own)"
3rd person masculine njegôv, njegòv "his" njún "their" njíhov "their"
3rd person feminine njén "her"
3rd person neuter njegôv, njegòv "its"

Example sentences:

The reflexive determiner svoj is used much as the reflexive pronoun is used, to point back to the subject or another word.

The reflexive possessive and 'normal' possessive pronouns make some ambiguous English sentences perfectly clear in Slovene. The sentence "She has taken her towel into the bathroom" can be translated into the following two ways:

Other determiners

Qualitative (Kakovostni) Relational (Vrstni) Possessive (Svojilni) Quantitative (Količinski)
Interrogative (Vprašalni) kakšen, kolikšen (what kind of, to what extent)kateri (which, what)čigav (whose)koliko (how much, how many)
Relative (Oziralni) kakršen (the kind that)kateri, ki (which, that)čigar, katerega (whose)kolikor (as much)
Negative (Nikalni) nikakršen (of no kind)noben, nobeden (no one)nikogar, ničesar (of no one, of nothing)nič, noben (nothing, none)
Total (Celostni) vsakršen (of every kind)vsak (everyone)vsakogar, vsega (of everyone, of everything)ves, oba (all, both)
Indefinite (Nedoločni) nekak(šen) (some kind of)neki (some(one))nekoga, nečesa (someone's, something's)nekoliko (somewhat)
Unspecified (Poljubnostni) kak(šen)kateričigavkoliko
Relative Unspecified (Oziralni poljubnostni) kakršenkoli (whatever kind)katerikoli (whichever)čigarkoli (whosever)kolikorkoli (however much)
Mnogostni (Manifold) marsikak(šen) (of many kinds)marsikaterimarsičigavdokaj, precej (quite a bit, quite a lot)
Differential (Drugostni) drugačen (different)drug (someone else)drugega (of someone else)ne toliko (not that/as much)
Equal (Istostni) enak (of the same kind)isti (the same)istega (of the same one)enako (the same [amount])
Demonstrative (Kazalni) tak(šen) (of this kind)ta, tisti, oni (that one)tega (of that one)toliko (this much)

Quantitative adverbial pronouns are non-inflected at all times. All other pronouns are normally inflected.

Examples: