Pronouns
Դերանունք

Personal Pronouns

Classical Armenian has six basic personal pronouns: first, second and third person, with singular and plural forms. These are declined as follows:

The pronoun նա, “he, she, it”, is also used as the deictic pronoun “that (one)” (see below).

Reflexive Pronouns

The pronoun ինքն (-self, -selves) may be used as a reflexive for all of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Person pronouns, e.g., Եւ Պետ­րոս կանգ­նեաց զնա եւ ասէ. Յոտն կաց, եւ ես ինքն մարդ եմ, “And Peter stood him up and said, ‘Stand up, I myself am also a man’” (Acts 10:26). Ինքն may also be used in an intensive sense. There is also a separate 3rd Person reflexive pronoun իւր (himself, herself, itself).4 The noun անձն (person, self) may be used in a reflexive role. These reflexives are inflected as follows:

Possessive Pronouns – Adjectives

The genitive forms of the personal pronouns, including the reflexive իւր, are also the nominative forms of the corresponding possessive pronouns – adjectives. For example, քո = “of you” (gen.) = possessive “your” (nom.), and մեր = “of us” (gen.) = possessive “our” (nom.). These possessives are inflected as follows:

It is important to note that the inflected case and number (singular or plural) of the possessive adjective matches the case and number of the noun to which it refers. For example, compare the different forms of իմ, “my”, in these two sentences: Պօղ­ոս է զան­ունն որդւոյ (gen.sg.) իմոյ (gen.sg.), “Paul is my son’s name” (lit. “… the name of my son”); and Պօղ­ոս եւ Միք­այէլ են զան­ունսն որդւոց (gen.pl.) իմոց (gen.pl.), “Paul and Michael are my sons’ names” (lit. “… the names of my sons”).

Deictic Pronouns

The deictic pronouns express the spatial relationships of Speaker → Listener, and Speaker → Third Party.

The pronoun նոյն, “that same (one)”, can also be used as the reflexive pronoun “himself, herself, itself”. Նոյն is also used as the adjective – adverb “even(ly), equal(ly), identical(ly)”.

1 Substantives in Classical Armenian have no distinction of gender.

2 The accusative forms of pronouns often occur with the definite object prefix զ-.

3 The secondary ablative forms may be used in an intensive role, e.g., … որպէս եւ դուք իսկ ձեզէն վկայ­եցէք, “… as you yourselves have borne witness” (Eznik Kogh­bats‘i, Refutation of the Sects). When used as intensives, these ablative forms do not need to match the case as the pronoun which they emphasize, but they must agree in number.

4 The reflexive pronoun իւր (himself, herself, itself) is often rendered “his own, her own, its own”, or simply “his, hers, its”.