Declensions of Pronouns – 1

This case is particularly tricky and while the native Konkani speakers like me have no problem juggling the singular, plural, masculine, feminine and neuter on both sides of the pronouns — the inside as well as the outside (I’ll shortly explain what I mean), those who are learning Konkani are bound to feel lost in this little grammatical jungle. That is why I would like to insist once again that those who want to learn the language should not trundle along the grammatical path: use this grammar section only as a source of reference.

Here are the genitives of pronouns:

SINGULAR				PLURAL
Masc. & Neut.		Fem.
Mhozo, mhoji, mhojem…			my,  mine	amcho …	our(s)
Tuzo, tuji, tujem…			your, yours	tumcho…	your(s)
Tacho … .		Ticho …	his, her(s), its	tancho …	their(s)

Now, if you have not yet realized it yet,  that’s a potpourri of first, second and third persons; singulars and plurals; masculines, feminines and neuters.

Let’s take the third person feminine singular: she. The genitive is her. That’s simple enough in English. But let’s take the corresponding Konkani  (not word but) words. If you want to say, “her shoe”, it is ticho mocho 

(masc. sing.); but “her shoes” is tiche moche (masc. pl.). Now is ticho (her) masculine or feminine? Well it is both: the first part refers to a lady (her) so it is feminine, but cho refers to a shoe which is masculine in Konkani. So ticho is masculine!

Next, let us take a feminine possession of hers: sotri

(umbrella).  Sotri is feminine. “Her umbrella” is tichi sotri;  “her umbrellas” would be: ticheô sotreô .

And  what about the neuter like ful

(flower)? “Her flower” is tichem ful ; while “her flowers” would be tichim fulam .

This is a problem with genitives in other languages as well: Portuguese, Spanish, French, Marathi … The best way to tackle this problem is to consider the genitives as adjectives, as indeed they are. Take the case of the adjective, tambddo

= red. The word tambddo refers to a masculine noun, like tambddo kando = red onion. If kando is replaced by a neuter noun like ful, the adjective changes to neuter too, thus: tambddem ful . You have surely heard the Konkani song, Tambdde Roza tuje pole? Now Roza is a lady and she is singular alright (and probably single as well!). But pole is the plural of polo (= cheek)  which is masculine. Hence tambdde, which refers to her cheeks, is masculine plural.

So it is with all genitives in Konkani. They may be first, second or third person, singular or plural, masculine, feminine or neuter …  all that is immaterial to its ending, which will agree with the noun it qualifies.

But there is a better way at looking at genitives: all genitives are, after all, nothing but adjectives and are to be treated like the most regular adjectives. And just as adjectives in general agree with the nouns they qualify, so too do the genitives. And this applies to all genitives, not just the genitives of personal pronouns.