Pronouns & Cases
Like most languages, Spanish has three persons (first, second, third) and their respective singular and plural forms, totaling six "persons". However, the Español latino we are learning generally uses the honorific form of the second person plural (ustedes, you all) to replace the informal second person plural (vosotros, you all). Grammatically, ustedes is merged into the third person plural (and the honorific singular usted is merged into the third person singular), so this tutorial will not teach the second person plural (vosotros) and various related conjugations. We will see later that this reduces the number of verb conjugations in any group from 6 to 5, reducing the memory burden.
Note: Using the honorific ustedes to replace vosotros is purely a linguistic habit and does not necessarily imply a "respectful" attitude. This is somewhat similar to the fact that the English "you" originally meant "formal you" (while "thou" was the real informal "you" in English), but as usage habits changed, the honorific "you" became more and more widely used, and finally became the meaning of "you", losing its original "honorific" color.
Trivia: Why is the honorific in the third person?
Usted = Vuestra Merced (Your Mercy)
The "daily honorifics" in Spanish are literally equivalent to "high-level honorifics" in English: they do not directly refer to "you" yourself, but refer to an attribute of yours: Your Majesty, Your Excellency, Your Grace, Your Mercy. Spanish just made the high-level honorific form "Your Mercy" in English into daily usage.
Spanish assigns 6 kinds of "cases" to a subject according to its role in the sentence, see the table below. Since this is the first comprehensive introduction to Spanish pronouns, this table lists the "family portrait" including all six persons. The second person plural vosotros is only for introduction. In all places involving "person" later, we will only cover the 5 persons other than vosotros. Note that the blank space in the table indicates the same as the case on the left.
| Nominative | Accusative | Dative | Reflexive | Prepositional | Genitive | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| English | I do | see me | give me | myself | with me | mine |
| I | yo | me | mí | mío/... | ||
| You | tú | te | ti | tuyo/... | ||
| He/She/You(formal) | él/ella/usted | lo/la | le | se | Same as Nom. | suyo/... |
| We | nosotros, as | nos | Same as Nom. | nuestro/... | ||
| You all | vosotros, as | os | Same as Nom. | vuestro/... | ||
| They/You all | ellos/ellas/ustedes | los/las | les | se | Same as Nom. | suyo/... |
Among these six cases, Nominative, Accusative, Reflexive, and Genitive are what everyone has encountered in English. Only Dative and Prepositional are not separately distinguished in English — these two cases are merged into Accusative in English.
Please note the ellipsis in the Genitive column. This is because the Genitive case needs to change the ending according to the gender and number of the "possessed object", that is, adding s (plural) or o/a/os/as ("Gender-Number Four-Piece Set"). In actual use, a definite article is added before the genitive pronoun according to gender and number (el/la/los/las, "Article Four-Piece Set"). See the table below for details.
| Possessive Pronoun | Adjective Possessive Pronoun | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Masc. Sing. | Fem. Sing. | Masc. Pl. | Fem. Pl. | ||
| yo | el mío | la mía | los míos | las mías | mi(s) |
| tú | el tuyo | la tuya | los tuyos | las tuyas | tu(s) |
| él/ella/usted | el suyo | la suya | los suyos | las suyas | su(s) |
| nosotros, as | el nuestro | la nuestra | los nuestros | las nuestras | nuestro,a(s) |
| ellos/ellas/ustedes | el suyo | la suya | los suyos | las suyas | su(s) |
Although this table looks complex, in fact, the only roots that need to be memorized for the Genitive are mí-, tuy-, suy-, nuestr-, and then attach the "Gender-Number Four-Piece Set" (-o/-a/-os/-as) ending mentioned earlier according to gender and number. Note that the Genitive for the third person is all the same.
The table also lists the corresponding Adjective Possessive Pronouns (corresponding to English my/your/his/her/its). Only the adjective possessive pronoun for nosotros/as needs to undergo "Four-Piece Set" changes, while the others only have singular/plural changes.
Based on what does the "Gender and Number" of Possessive Pronouns change?
Please note: all "Gender and Number" changes in the above table are based on the gender and number of the possessed object, not the owner's own gender and number. For example:
My friends: mis amigos, los míos
His female friends: sus amigas, las suyas
Our (one) female cat: nuestra gata, la nuestra
Their (one) male cat: su gato, el suyo
Long-tail Adjective Possessive Pronouns
Normally, we place the adjective possessive pronoun (e.g. mi) before the noun to express ownership, but we can also place the noun possessive pronoun (genitive) after the noun to express emphasis on ownership, corresponding to the English of mine structure:
Un amigo mío (a friend of mine)
¡Dios mío! (My God!)
¡Amor mío! (My love!)
This expression is called Long-tail Adjective Possessive Pronoun.