PERSONAL AND POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS

Learning The Personal And Possessive Pronouns

Learning the personal pronouns (me, you, he, she, etc.) and the possessive pronouns (mine, yours, theirs, etc.) is a fundamental part of your ʻōlelo progress. To practice, you could put some stuffed animals on the bed to serve as the "other" people. Set them up like the people in the graphic below. Next, point to one or more stuffed animals, and say the pronouns out loud, until you memorize them!

In Hawaiian grammar, personal pronouns are referred to as "papani" and possessive pronouns are referred to as "kaʻi nonoʻa".

Personal Pronouns (Papani)

Personal pronouns (Papani) refer to individuals (people) or entities (dogs, cats, etc.) who are doing something, being spoken to, or being spoken about. In the graphics below, the red person is speaking. He either implies that he is not included in the reference (the X through the person) or that he is included in the reference (no X). When the speaker is excluded (on the left) he's saying, "You, but not me", "Both of you (2 people), not not me", or "All of you (3 or more people), but not me". When the speaker is included he's saying, "Me", "We (both of us)", "All of us, including me". Youʻll often see "(2)" or "(3+)" after the English word "you" or "we" meaning 2 people or 3-or-more people.

Personal pronouns generally follow verbs, as in:

• Hele au i ka hale kūʻai - I go to the store
• ʻIke ʻolua i ka pōpoki - You (2) see the cat
• ʻAo kākou i ke kai - We all (3+) swim in the ocean
• Pāʻani ʻo ia me ka ʻīlio - She plays with the dog

Possessive Pronouns (Kaʻi Nonoʻa)

Possessive pronouns (Kaʻi Nonoʻa) generally precede the noun that is possessed. You'll see there are two forms for each possessive pronoun, one uses the letter "a" and the other uses "o". These are for the two forms of possessed things: A-Class and O-Class. There is some nuance in the distinction but, essentially, a thing is A-Class if you control it and you can choose to get rid of it. A chicken, a pen, a coconut, and money are all examples of A-Class nouns. Interestingly, children are also considered A-Class.

O-Class things are "inalienable"; you can't get rid of them. Your name, your mother, father, and grandparents, are examples of O-Class nouns. Also, interestingly, things that you get into or on top of, or which protect you, are O-Class. These include your house, your car, your horse, and your clothes. Don't worry if the A-Class / O-Class distinction isn't immediately obvious - that will come in time.

Notice that when I posses something it's not "au" (it's kaʻu or koʻu), when you possess something it's not "ʻoe" (it's kāu or kou), and when he, she, or it possess something it's not ʻo ia (it's kāna or kona). All the other pronouns simply take the leading possessive markers "kā" or "ko" in front of the simple pronoun form (ko makou mea ʻai - "our (3+) food").

Possessive pronouns generally precede the noun that is possessed, as in:

• kaʻu pōpoki - my cat
• ko lākou hale - their (3+) house
• kona kaʻa - his car

Some complete sentence examples with both personal pronouns and possessive pronouns include:

• ʻIke au i kona kaʻa - I see his car
• Makemake ʻo ia i kaʻu pōpoki - She likes my cat
• ʻAi lākou i kā lakou mea ʻai - They (3+) eat their (3+) food

K-Possessives Versus K-Less Possessives

The K-Possessives are those discussed above - they start with the letter "k": kāu, kou, kaʻu, koʻu, kona, ko lakou, etc. Another form of these same possessives drops the leading "k" and these are called "k-less possessives". They mean exactly the same thing but without the leading "k". Thus, the k-less possessives are as follows:

More details regarding how these k-less forms are used is found in the sections describing the grammar in which they're found. Some examples of where K-Less Possessives are used include:

Number Statements: He ʻilima aʻu mau keiki - I have five children

Relative Clause (Kāhulu Pēpeke): Ua ʻike maua i ka pōpoki ōna i hānai ai - We saw the cat that she fed

General Possession: Ua ʻike maua i nā mea pāʻani ā nā keiki - We saw the children's toys (We saw the toys of the children)

Using K-Possessives and K-Less Possessives

There are, as noted above, two forms for marking possession, K- and K-Less. In most cases you'll encounter kā versus ā and ko versus o, as in these examples:

Ua ʻike au i ka mea pāʻani ā nā keiki - We saw the toy of the children

Ua ʻike au i kā keiki mea pāʻani - We saw the children's toys

Nui ka hale o lakou - Their house is big (Big is the house of them)

Nui ko lakou hale - There house is big (Big there's house)

In these straightforward possession examples above you would never see the K-less form of kāu, kou, kaʻu, koʻu, kāna, or kona. In the examples, these would always remain K-Possessives:

Ua ʻike au i kāu mea pāʻani - I saw your toy

Nui koʻu hale - My house is big

The use of k-Less possessives becomes more complicated in number statements and when constructing a relative clause (Kāhulu Pepeke). Consider the following examples.

Number Statement Examples:

• He ʻilima mau makahiki ōna - She is five years old (Five years are possessed by her; k-less kōna becomes ōna)
• ʻEhia makahiki ou? - How old are you? (How many years do you possess?; k-less kou becomes ou)

Relative Clause Examples:

• Ua ʻike au i ka pōpoki ana i hanai ai - I saw the cat that she fed (kana became ana possessing the action of hanai, feeding)
• Ua ʻike au i ka pōpoki ā lakou i hanai ai - I saw the cat that they fed (kā becomes ā)

For perspective, the k-possessive form could be used in a relative clause (kāhulu pepeke), but it's not as straightforward.

Ua ʻike au i kā lakou pōpoki i hanai ai - I saw the cat the they fed (Here, the mistake would be to assume that the pōpoki is possessed by lakou rather than the feeding. The language clue that this is a relative clause is the "ai" marker at the end of the phrase.