Cherokee Grammar & Syntax
Cherokee Pronoun Prefixes Part II
Now, we get into the fun part, complex pronouns.
Unlike European languages, Cherokee has pronouns that specify who did what to whom. They are bi-lateral, in that one single pronoun describes how A did what to B and how B did what to A. This simplifies things greatly by not having a need for different grammatical cases.
In English we would say:
I spoke to him. (I did something to him)
He looked at me. (he did something to me)
We listened to them. (we did something to them)
They saw me. (they did something to me)
These "who did what to whom" actions would be described via a single pronoun prefix in Cherokee depending on who initiated the action and in whose direction. Understanding subject->object relationships clearly (in other words, the direction of the action of who to whom) is very important when choosing the correct Cherokee pronoun prefix.
So when we look at the word ᏍᏆᎵᏍᎪᎸᏓᏏ sgw-alsgoldasi "let me, permit me, allow me" you can see the pronoun here is sgw- which is the pronoun for "you do something to me" before verb stems beginning with vowels. In other words, "you (singular) let me", versus "they let me" or "you (plural) let me" would all be different pronoun prefixes altogether.
Consider:
ᏍᏆᏛᏓᎲᎦ sgw-atvdahvga - you ask me something.
ᏍᏆᏁᏝᏅ sgw-anehlanv - you are my creator, you created me.
Some words you may already know, which use the "sgi-" form. It's the same pronoun as "sgwa-" but is used with verb stems beginning with a consonant and meaning you do something to me.
ᏍᎩᏍᏕᎳ sgi-sdela - you help me (the -sdel- verb stem "help" begins with
the consonant 's')
ᏍᎩᏃᎯᏏ sgi-nohisi - you tell me
ᏍᎩᏙᎵᎨ sgi-dolige - you forgive me, "I'm sorry" (I am asking for you to
pardon me, you do it to me.)
Now, let's reverse the direction of who does what to whom. In the following verb forms ᎬᏍᏕᎳ "gvsdela", ᎬᏃᎯᏏ "gvnohisi", and ᎬᏯᏓᏪᏙᎥᏍᎦ "gvyadawedo'vsga", the pronoun prefix is "Ꭼ" gv- which means "I do something to you".
Let's not be concerned with tense, we need first to see the prefixes.
gv- I am doing something to you
ᎬᏍᏕᎳ gv-sdela - I help you. (compare with sgisdela, you help me.)
ᎬᏃᎯᏏ gv-nohisi - I tell you. (compare with sginohisi, you tell me.)
ᎬᏙᎵᎨ gv-dolige - I pardon you. (compare with sgidolige, you pardon
me.)
ᎬᏯᏓᏪᏙᎥᏍᎦ gv-yadawedo'vsga - I am kissing you. (compare with
sgiyadawedo'vsga, you are kissing me.)
We're still only scratching the surface of pronoun prefixes. Once you begin to learn how to read the pronoun prefixes it will start to make a lot of things clearer in determining what is going on between whom and who is doing what to whom.
Click here to go back to Pronouns I.
To explore the Cherokee bound pronouns that indicate that the object
of the verb is animate/living, click the following link to go
to Cherokee Pronouns Part III
An excellent application for drilling the entire set of Cherokee bound
pronouns in small bites was produced by ᎹᎦᎵ and can be found here: Cherokee
Bound Pronouns
and also is available from the Apple Store, Google's Play Store, and
Amazon.