Pronouns

What are pronouns?
Pronouns are words that ‘stand in’ for nouns and refer to persons, things or ideas. The most important ones are the personal pronouns (ich, du, er/sie/es etc.):
Georg ist noch klein, aber er kann schon lesen.
Georg is only small but he can already read.
Mir gefällt das Auto, aber es ist zu teuer.
I like the car, but it is too expensive.

Personal and other pronouns

Apart from personal pronouns there are several other words that can function as pronouns. In this unit we will deal with:
• demonstratives such as dieser ‘this’ etc.;
• possessives such as meine ‘my’ etc.; and
• indefinites such as man ‘one’/‘you’.
Personal pronouns

Different forms of personal pronouns

Personal pronouns can replace and refer to any kind of noun or noun phrase. They need to agree with the grammatical role of these nouns. This is often indicated by different forms of the pronoun. Here is an overview of personal pronouns in the nominative, accusative and dative case

Nominative		Accusative		Dative
ich	I	mich	me	mir	me
du	you (inf.)	dich	you	dir	you
Sie	you (form.)	Sie	you	Ihnen	you
er	he	ihn	him, it	ihm	him, it
sie	she	sie	her, it	ihr	her, it
es	it	es	it	ihm	it
wir	we	uns	us	uns	us
ihr	you (inf.)	euch	you	euch	you
Sie	you (form.)	Sie	you	Ihnen	you
sie	they	sie	them	ihnen	them

Note that the use of pronouns in the genitive case is quite rare
Demonstrative pronouns – dieser, der

Demonstrative pronouns refer to specific persons, things or ideas that usually have been mentioned before. There are two types of demonstra- tive pronouns which are quite similar in meaning: dieser, diese etc. and der, die etc.:
Siehst du die rote Jacke? ® Meinst du diese/die?
Do you see the red jacket? Do you mean this one?
These pronouns have to agree in gender, number and case with the noun they replace. Here are all their forms:

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nom.	der	die	das	die
	dieser	diese	dieses	diese
Acc.	den	die	das	die
	diesen	diese	dieses	diese
Dat.	dem	der	dem	denen
	diesem	dieser	diesem	diesen
Gen.	dessen	deren	dessen	deren
	dieses	dieser	dieses	dieser

Note that the adverbs hier ‘here’, da ‘here’/‘there’, dort ‘there’/‘over there’ are often added for clarification.

Möchten Sie diesen/den hier mitnehmen?

Would you like to take that one (here)?

Diese/die da hab ich noch nie gesehen.

These I have never seen before.

Indefinite pronouns – man, alle, viele etc.
Indefinite pronouns refer to persons, things or ideas that are not closely identified. The most commonly used indefinite pronoun is man.
Referring to people in a general sense – man
The pronoun man ‘one’ is used to refer to people/they or you in a general sense. It is mainly used in the nominative, as the subject of a sentence or clause:

Man tut das nicht.

You don’t do that./One does not do that.

Man sagt, dass Paris romantisch ist.

They say that Paris is romantic.

Occasionally, man can also appear as a direct or indirect object. Its accus- ative and dative forms are einen and einem:

Acc.  Manche Ärzte behandeln einen wie ein Kind.
                Some doctors treat you/people like children.
Dat.  Was sie einem alles verkaufen wollen!
                The things they try to sell you/people!

Referring to groups of people – alle, viele

The pronouns alle ‘all, everyone’ and viele ‘many’ are normally used to refer to a group of people:
Nom. Alle haben gelacht.
                Everyone laughed.
Acc.  Sie mochte alle.
                She liked all of them.
Dat.   Er redete mit vielen.
                He talked to many of them.
Note that alle and viele take the same plural endings as the pronoun dieser

Referring to things and ideas only – alles, etwas and nichts
Some pronouns in English and German refer to things and ideas only. The most important are alles ‘everything’, etwas ‘something’, nichts ‘nothing’:

Alles war zu teuer.

Everything was too expensive.

Mach doch etwas!

Do something!

Sie glaubt an nichts.

She doesn’t believe in anything.

Possessive pronouns

Possessives, indicating ownership, can also function as pronouns:

Ist das Ihr Buch?                   ®           Ja, das ist meins.

Habt ihr eure Joggingschuhe mit?    Ja, wir haben unsere mit.

Possessive pronouns have to agree in gender, number and case with the noun they refer to. As an example here are all forms of meiner ‘mine’:

	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural
Nom. Acc. Dat. Gen.	meiner meinen meinem meines	meine meine meiner meiner	meins meins meinem meines	meine meine meinen meiner

The above endings are also added to the basic forms of all other posses- sives dein-, Ihr-, sein-, ihr-, sein-, unser-, eu(e)r-, Ihr- and ihr-.