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Pronouns

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The pronouns are inflected in the Finnish language much in the same way that their referent nouns are.

Personal pronouns

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Somewhat like in English, the personal pronouns are used to refer to human beings only. The personal pronouns in Finnish in the nominative case are listed in the following table:

Personal pronouns
Finnish English
Singular
minä I
sinä you
hän she or he
Plural
me we
te you
he they
Polite
Te you

Since Finnish verbs are inflected for person, personal pronouns are not required for sense and are usually omitted in standard Finnish except where used for emphasis. In spoken Finnish, all pronouns are generally used. In the third person, the pronoun is needed: "hän menee" = he goes, "he menevät" = they go. This applies to both colloquial and written language.

In colloquial Finnish, the pronouns se and ne are very commonly used as the singular and plural third person pronouns, respectively. Use of hän and he is mostly restricted to writing and formal speech. Similarly, and are used colloquially to replace minä and sinä. Te, being formal, is never reduced. Some of the most common verbs, such as olen and tulla exhibit similar reduced colloquial forms:

Personal pronouns
Written/Formal Spoken/Colloquial
Singular
minä olen/tulen mä oon/tuun
sinä olet/tulet sä oot/tuut
hän/se on/tulee se on/tulee
Plural
me olemme/tulemme me ollaan/tullaan
te olette/tulette te ootte/tuutte
he/ne ovat/tulevat ne on/tulee
Polite
Te olette/tulette you

In common with some other languages, the second person plural can be used as a polite form when addressing one person. This usage is diminishing in Finnish society.

Demonstrative pronouns

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The demonstratives are used of non-human animate entities and inanimate objects. However, se and ne are often used to refer to humans in colloquial Finnish. Furthermore, the demonstratives are used to refer to group nouns and the number of the pronoun must correlate with the number of its referent.

Demonstrative pronouns
Finnish English
Singular
tämä this
tuo that
se it/that
Plural
nämä these
nuo those
ne they/those
Interrogative pronouns
Finnish English
kuka who, which (of many)
mikä what, which (of many)
ken who, which (of many) - (old or dialectal word)
kumpi which (of two)
kumpainen which (of two) - (old or dialectal word)

"Ken" is now archaic, but its inflected forms are used instead of those of "kuka": "ketä" instead of "kuta" ("whom"). "Ketä rakastat?" = "Whom do you love?"

Relative pronouns
Pronoun Example English
jonka (refers to preceding word) "hän on ainoa, jonka muistan" "[s]he is the only one whom (I) remember"
minkä (refers to preceding clause/
sentence or to a pronoun or a superlative that refers to a thing)
"se on ainoa asia, minkä muistan" "it is the only thing that (I) remember"
Reciprocal pronouns
Pronoun Example English
toinen "he rakastavat toisiaan" "they love each other" (plural)
"he rakastavat toinen toistaan" "they love one another" (double singular)
Reflexive pronouns
Pronoun Suffix Example English
itse plus corresponding possessive suffix "keitin itselleni teetä" "(I) made myself some tea"

A large group that entails all of the pronouns that do not fall into any of the categories above. Notice that there are no negative pronouns, such as "nobody", but the positive pronoun has to be negated with the negative verb "ei". No double negatives are possible.

Indefinite pronouns
Finnish English
joka (uninflected) every, each
jokainen every, everyone
joku some, someone (person)
jompikumpi either one
jokin some, something (animal, thing)
kukin each one
kumpainenkin both (old or dialectal)
kumpikin both
mikin each thing (dialectal)
kenkään anyone (old or dialectal)
kukaan (nom.), kene+..+kään (oblique) anyone
-> ei kukaan no one
kumpikaan either one
-> ei kumpikaan neither one
mikään anything -> ei mikään = nothing
mones (nom.), monente- (oblique) the ordinal pronoun (representing first, second, etc.)

Each pronoun declines. However, the endings -kAAn and -kin are clitics, and case endings are placed before them, e.g. mikään "any", miltäkään "from any". It should be noted that there are irregular nominatives. As indicated, kukaan is an irregular nominative; the regular root is kene- with -kään, e.g. kukaan "(not) anyone", keneltäkään "from (not) anyone".

English lacks a direct equivalent to the pronoun mones; it would be "that-th", or "which-th" for questions. For examples, Palkkio riippuu siitä monentenako maaliin tulee "The reward depends on as-which-th one comes to the finish", or explicitly "The reward depends on in which position one comes to the finish". It would be difficult to translate the question Monesko?, but, while far from proper English, the question How manyeth may give an English-speaking person an idea of the meaning.

Some indefinite adjectives are often perceived as indefinite pronouns. These include:

Indefinite adjectives
Finnish English
ainoa only
eräs some, certain, one
harva few
itse (non-reflexive) self
kaikki all, everyone, everything
molemmat both
moni many
muu other
muutama some, a few
sama same
toinen (non-reciprocal, non-numeral use) another