Genoese pronouns

Stressed personal pronouns

Personal pronouns are the parts of speech that denote grammatical persons. In Genoese Ligurian they are divided into stressed personal pronouns – which will be described in this section – and clitic personal pronouns.

The Genoese stressed personal pronouns are:

Person	Number	Masculine	Feminine
1st	sing.	mi  “I”
2nd	sing.	ti  “you”
3rd	sing.	lê “he”, “she”, “it”
1st	plur.	niatri  ~ , noiatri, noî  rare “we”	niatre, noiatre, noî  rare “we”
2nd	plur.	viatri , voiatri, voî  rare “you”	viatre, voiatre, voî  rare “you”
3rd	plur.	liatri, loiatri, lô “they”	liatre, loiatre, lô “they”

In most cases, using stressed personal pronouns is not mandatory when they function as a subject: information about the grammatical person is already provided by other parts of speech such as, for instance, the conjugated forms of verbs.

Stressed personal pronouns are however used for those cases where the emphasis on the subject is important, or when the subject is dislocated.

Polite forms

Stressed personal pronouns also have polite forms, which are used to show respect and deference towards an interlocutor.

• The form voscià  [vuˈʃa] is used between people of the same social status, or by people of a lower social status towards people of higher status: a prescidente a m’à dito ch’a ghe saià… e voscià? “the president told me she will be there… how about yourself?”
• The form voî  [ˈvwiː], once typical of rural areas, can be seen today as distant or even offensive. It underlines the fact that the voscià form was denied, and can therefore reveal a belief of superiority towards the interlocutor: òu, voî, no poei miga intrâ into tiatro vestio à sta mainea! “hey, you, you can’t expect to be allowed into the theater dressed in that way!”
• The form lê can sometimes be heard. It is an adaptation of the Italian “lei”.

Reflexive forms

Unlike with other Romance languages, third person personal pronouns don’t change when they are used reflexively or reciprocally. We therefore have lê “himself”, “herself”, etc. for the singular and liatri “themselves”, “each other” or its variant forms for the plural: a l’à fæto da pe lê “she did it herself”, parlavan fra de liatri “they were talking amongst themselves”.

Clitic personal pronouns

The second class of Genoese personal pronouns are the clitic pronouns (also called “unstressed”), which rely on another word for the stress. They are divided in turn into two categories: subject clitic pronouns and object clitic pronouns.

Subject clitic pronouns

As we’ve already seen in the page on verbs, a peculiarity of Genoese is the mandatory use of subject clitic pronouns in front of certain verb forms.

Person	Number	Masculine	Feminine
2nd	sing.	ti , t’
3rd	sing.	o , o l’	a , a l’

In front of the second person singular forms of verbs one must always use the pronoun ti. When the verb starts with a vowel, the form t’ is used, due to elision.

Example	Mistake
quande t’arrivi, ciammime  “when you get here, call me”	quande arrivi, ciammime
ti canti pròpio ben, ti!  “you sing really well, you!”	canti pròpio ben, ti!
ti ô veddi ti ascì?  “do you see it too?”	ô veddi ti ascì?

In front of third person singular verbs one must use the pronoun a for the feminine forms or o for the masculine (this last pronoun is also used when the grammatical gender is unclear or irrelevant). When the verb starts with a vowel, the euphonic particle l’ is inserted between the pronoun and the verb.

Example	Mistake
a professoa a ven doman  “the professor comes tomorrow”	a professoa vëgne doman
mæ barba o l’é anæto in Fransa  “my uncle went to France”	mæ barba é anæto in Fransa
e teu seu cös’a ne pensa?  “and what does your sister think about it?”	e teu seu cöse ne pensa?

Object clitic pronouns

When the clitic pronoun is accusative (i.e. it functions as direct object) or dative (i.e. it functions as indirect object), and also for pronominal verbs, the forms are as follows.

Person	Number	Case	Masculine	Feminine
1st	sing.	acc./dat.	me “(to) me”
2nd	sing.	acc./dat.	te  “(to) you”
3rd	sing.	acc.	ô, l’ “him”, “it”	â , l’ “her”, “it”
3rd	sing.	dat.	ghe “(to) him”, “(to) her”, “(to) it”
1st	plur.	acc./dat.	ne “(to) us”
2nd	plur.	acc./dat.	ve  “(to) you”
3rd	plur.	acc.	î  “them”	ê  “them”
3rd	plur.	dat.	ghe “(to) them”

The accusative forms of the third person singular and plural are declined according to gender. Additionally, for the singular forms, the form l’ is used whenever the pronoun comes before a verb that starts with a vowel: ghe ô pòrto mi “I (will) take it to him”, ghe l’accatto mi “I (will) buy it for him”.

Reflexive forms

The clitic personal pronouns in reflexive and reciprocal form are:

Person	Number	Masculine	Feminine
1st	sing.	me “myself”
2nd	sing.	te  “yourself”
3rd	sing.	se  “himself”, “herself”, “itself”
1st	plur.	se  “ourselves”, “one another”
2nd	plur.	ve  “yourselves”, “one another”
3rd	plur.	se  “themselves”, “one another”

Enclitic forms

In most cases, clitic object personal pronouns come before the verb, like clitic subject personal pronouns. However, when the verb is in the imperative, gerund, or infinitive, clitic object personal pronouns follow it, in enclitic form. Combinations of more than one pronoun can also be formed.

These forms are the same as the ones seen above, except for the accusative pronouns, which become -o, -a, -i, -e, or the more frequent variants -lo, -la, -li, -le.

Possessives

Possessive pronouns and adjectives denote the person that owns the entity which they refer to. Possessive pronouns have the same form as the adjectives, but are preceded by a determinate article.

For the first and second person plural forms, possessive pronouns and adjectives are declined according to the gender and number of the possessor: e vòstre ciave “your keys”, sto vin o l’é o nòstro “this wine is ours”.

Demonstratives

Demonstrative adjectives refer to an entity and specify its position in space, time, or within discourse. Proximal demonstratives are used for entities which are near the speaker, whereas distal demonstratives are used for entities which are far from the speaker.

Form	Position	Adjective
masc. sing.	proximal	sto, questo  rare “this”
		distal	quello  “that”
fem. sing.	proximal	sta , questa rare “this”
		distal	quella  “that”
masc. pl.	proximal	sti, questi rare “these”
		distal	quelli “those”
fem. pl.	proximal	ste, queste rare “these”
		distal	quelle “those”

The proximal adjective forms questo, questa, etc. are less frequent in Genoese compared to sto, sta, etc.

To emphasize the position of the entity, proximal demonstrative adjectives can be combined with the adverb chì  “(over) here” (mettilo inte sta cantia chì “put it in this drawer over here”); distal adjectives can be combined with the adverbs lì  or là  “(over) there” (pòrzime quello libbro là “pass me that book over there”).

Demonstrative pronouns, analogously, replace a noun and represent it according to its position. The forms are the same as for the adjectives, except for the forms sto, sta, etc. which in pronominal form are always followed by the adverb chì: o mæ o l’é sto chì “mine is this one”.

Form	Position	Pronoun
masc. sing.	proximal	sto chì, questo  rare “this (one)”
		distal	quello  “that (one)”
fem. sing.	proximal	sta chì, questa rare “this (one)”
		distal	quella  “that (one)”
masc. pl.	proximal	sti chì, questi rare “these (ones)”
		distal	quelli “those (ones)”
fem. pl.	proximal	ste chì, queste rare “these (ones)”
		distal	quelle “those (ones)”

Bibliography

F. Toso, Grammatica del genovese: varietà urbana e di koinè, Le Mani, 1997.

A. Guasoni, F. Toso, Il Genovese in tasca. Guida di conversazione, Assimil, 2010.

A. Acquarone, Parlo Ciæo. La lingua della Liguria. Grammatica, letteratura, storia, tradizioni, De Ferrari, 2015.