Chinese pronouns - Chinese Language

March 8, 2014


		1 Introduction 2 The Possessive Pronoun 3 The Reflexive Pronoun 4 Pronouns in Imperial Times and Self-Depreciatory 5 Inclusive and Exclusive 6 See also

Chinese Chinese Language

Chinese pronouns

Wikipedia

There are seven basic Chinese language|Chinese pronouns in Vernacular Chinese:

Person	Characters	Pronunciation	Notes
First	我	Pronounced wǒ	Expresses "I", "me", etc.
Second	你, 妳	Both pronounced nǐ	Expresses "you", etc., masculine and feminine, respectively
Third	他, 她, 牠, 它	All pronounced tā	Expresses "he" / "she" / "it animate" / "it inanimate", respectively.

The difference between 你 and 妳 is not always maintained. The distinction between 他 and 她 is always maintained. 牠 is supposed to be used for nouns referring to animals (note the 牛 radical, which means ox) and 它 for inanimate objects, but this distinction is sometimes blurred. In Simplified Chinese, 妳 and 牠 are both antiquated.

The plural pronouns are formed by simply adding 们 / 們 m?n to the end of each pronoun; thus, 你们, 我们, 咱们, 他/她/牠/它们 or 你們, 我們, 他/她/牠/它們 would mean "you plural", "we" and "they" respectively. To indicate the Christian God in writing, 祂 is used.

The pronoun 您 n?n is used as a formal version of the second person pronoun, but does not have a feminine variant, and is not used in the plural.

As can be seen above, all pronouns for the second person are pronounced identically, and the same for the third person; the orthographic distinctions were only introduced after Westernizing influences came into China.

There exist many more pronouns in Classical Chinese and in literary works, although the ones listed above are the most common in colloquial speech.

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The Possessive Pronoun

To indicate possession 的 (de) is appended to the pronoun. In literature or in some daily phrases (especially ones about family or concepts very close to the owner) this is often omitted, e.g. 我妈/我媽 (wǒ mā); is a synonym for 我的妈妈/我的媽媽 (wǒ de māmā, "my mother").

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The Reflexive Pronoun

The singular personal pronouns (for humans) may be made reflexive by appending 自己 z?jǐ, "self".

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Pronouns in Imperial Times and Self-Depreciatory

In imperial times, the pronoun for "I" is commonly omitted when speaking politely or to someone with higher social status. "I" is usually replaced with special pronouns to address specific situations. Examples include 寡人 guǎr?n during History_of_China|early Chinese history and 朕 zh?n after the Qin dynasty.

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Inclusive and Exclusive

In Chinese, for the first person plural there are usually two forms:

咱们 / 咱們 z?nmen — the inclusive (i.e. "you and I", "we, including you")

我们 / 我們 wǒmen — the exclusive (i.e. "we, without you").

This distinction is not rigorously maintained by many speakers outside of the Beijing region, the tendency being to generalize the use of 我们.

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