Sanskrit pronouns and determiners behave in their
declension largely like other declinable classes such as
nouns,
adjectives and
numerals, so that they can all be classed together under
nominals. However, pronouns and determiners display certain peculiarities of their own compared to the other nominal classes. Furthermore, personal pronouns have an additional dimension not present in the other nominals, but shared by verbs:
person. Pronouns are declined for
case,
number, and gender. The pronominal declension applies to a few adjectives as well. Many pronouns have alternative enclitic forms. The official list of Sanskrit pronouns is:
sarva,
viśva,
ubha,
ubhaya,
utara,
utama,
anya,
anyatara,
tvat,
tva,
nema,
sama,
sima,
pūrva,
para,
avara,
dakṣiṇa,
uttara,
apara,
adhara,
sva,
antara;
tyad,
tad,
yad,
etad,
idam,
adam;
eka,
dvi,
yuṣmad,
asmad, and
kim.
First- and second-person pronouns Sanskrit pronouns in the first and second person are theoretically termed
asmad and
yuṣmad respectively. They resemble one another in how they are declined, and similarly do not mark gender. These pronouns have shortened,
enclitic forms in the
accusative,
dative, and
genitive cases (parenthesized in the table below). The forms
mad,
asmad,
tvad and
yuṣmad can be used in derivation and composition:
mát·kṛta,
mát·sakhi,
tvát·pitṛ, etc.
Demonstratives Sanskrit does not have true third person pronouns, but its
demonstratives play this role when they stand independently of a substantive. The four different demonstratives in Sanskrit are: •
tad,
adas •
idam,
etad Both
tad and
adas are used for objects of reference that are far away, the latter being more emphatic. Both are translated by the English distal demonstrative
that. By contrast,
idam and
etad are used for nearby objects, and, again, the latter is more emphatic and has a strong
deictic meaning. These two pronouns are translated by the English proximal demonstrative
this. The masculine singular nominative form of
tad,
sas exhibits irregular
sandhi behaviour — before consonants
saḥ becomes
sa, giving, for instance,
sa gajaḥ rather than the expected
*so gajaḥ.
etad, is declined almost identically to
tad. Its paradigm is obtained by prefixing
e- to all the forms of
tat. Consequently the masculine and feminine nominative singular forms of this pronoun are '
and '. The declension of
idam is somewhat irregular because it is formed from two different stems,
i- and
a-. The nominative and accusative forms, except the three singular nominatives, are regularly formed with the stem
im-, and the remaining forms from
a-; an extra
-n- is infixed should the ending start with a vowel. Most of the forms for
adas are regularly formed using the stem
u- the same way as if it were
a-, with the combination
*ui- becoming
ī- in the plural. The nominative dual and instrumental singular are formed like u-stem nouns.
Possessive pronouns The personal pronouns
asmad and
yuṣmad allow the following forms of possessive pronouns: •
madīya-,
māmaka-,
māmakīna- (my, mine) •
asmadīya-,
asmāka-,
asmākīna- (our/s) •
tvadīya-,
tāvaka-,
tāvakīna- (thy, thine) •
yuṣmadīya-,
yauṣmāka-,
yauṣmākīṇa- (your/s) The feminines are in
-ā, and so are
tadīya- and
etadīya- for
tad and
etad respectively. But in the
-aka forms, it is
-akī. These are all conjugated like regular a-, ā and ī-stem forms.
Polite pronoun Technically a noun,
bhavant literally means 'Your Honour' and is treated like a third-person subject. It carries, however, a second person meaning and connotes politeness. This is declined very much like any
vant-stem adjective. This use of
bhavant is common enough to suggest that the word should be treated as a polite variant of the second person pronoun, rather than as a more elaborate honorific construction.
Bhavant declines like all stems ending in
-ant. In talking of someone not present, one may use
tatrabhavant, and conversely for someone present,
atrabhavant, whether being addressed or not.
Enclitic pronouns The enclitic pronoun
enam is found only in a few oblique cases and numbers. It is unemphatic and mostly refers to persons.
The k-y-t series of interrogative, relative, and correlative pronouns In Sanskrit,
interrogative and
relative pronouns are formed analogously to
tat. The interrogative pronoun
kim is declined like
tat, replacing the initial
t or
s with
k. The only exception to this rule is the neuter nominative/accusative singular form, which is
kim rather than the expected
*kat. The relative pronoun
yat is declined like
tat, without exception replacing the initial
t or
s with
y. The demonstrative
tat functions as a correlative pronoun when used in "independent clauses that 'complete' relative clauses to form complex sentences"—unlike in English (where one can say, for example, "The girl
with whom you were speaking is my sister"), relative pronouns must be accompanied by correlative pronouns (which, if applied to the previous example, would be: "The girl
with whom you are speaking,
she is my sister"). For a Sanskrit example of a complex sentence using corresponding relative and correlative pronouns, consider: ('In the forest where Rāma lives, there are no demons'). In that example, the pronouns are alike in gender, number, and case, but matching relative–correlative pronouns need not be alike in case—for example:
yena puruṣeṇa saha bhāṣate nṛpaḥ sa muniḥ ('The man with whom the king is speaking is a sage').
Indefinite and absolute negative phrases Aside from their primary uses, the interrogative and relative pronouns are also used to form indefinite phrases. The two ways of forming indefinite phrases are: • placing a relative pronoun before its corresponding interrogative pronoun, which in turn is followed by the
particle api (for example:
yat kim api, which means 'something or another'), and • placing one of
api,
cana, or
cit after the interrogative pronoun (for example:
kiṃcit, which means 'something'). As is evident in the examples, the first method of indicating indefiniteness is stronger, while the latter is more subtle and can simply be translated by an
indefinite article in English. The absolute negative, semantically functioning as the negation of
existential quantification, is formed by negating an indefinite phrase.
Reflexive pronouns There are a number of words in Sanskrit that function as
reflexive pronouns. The indeclinable
svayam can indicate reflexivity pertaining to
subjects of any person or number, and—since subjects in Sanskrit can appear in the nominative, instrumental, or genitive cases—it can have the sense of any of these cases. The noun
ātman ('self') and adjective
svaḥ ('own'; cf. Latin ) decline so as to express reflexivity in any case, person, and number. The former is always in the masculine, even when used in relation to a female subject, but the latter declines for gender.
Pronominal adjectives Several adjectives in Sanskrit are declined pronominally. That is, their declension differs from ordinary adjectival declension of
a-stems and instead follows the declension of
tat in certain respects. •
anya ('other'),
anyatara ('either'),
itara ('other'),
katara ('which of two?'),
katama ('which of many?'), and
ekatama ('one of many') all follow the
tat paradigm exactly. •
sarva ('every', 'all'),
ubhaya ('both'),
eka ('one'), and
ekatara ('either') follow the
tat paradigm except in the neuter nominative/accusative singular, ending in
-m rather than
-t. •
pūrva ('prior', 'east'),
avara ('posterior', 'west'),
adhara ('inferior', 'west'),
uttara ('subsequent', 'north'),
dakṣiṇa ('south'),
para ('subsequent', 'other', 'opposite'),
apara ('other', 'inferior'),
antara ('outer'), and
sva ('own') follow the
tat paradigm except (1) in the neuter nominative/accusative singular, ending in
-am rather than
-at; (2) in the masculine/neuter ablative and locative singular, sometimes (though not necessarily) ending in
-āt and
-e rather than
-asmāt and
-asmin; and (3) in the masculine nominative plural, sometimes (though not necessarily) ending in
-āḥ rather than
-e. •
ardha ('half'),
alpa ('little'),
katipaya ('some'),
prathama ('first'),
carama ('last'), and
dvaya/
dvitaya ('twofold') generally follow the regular adjective declension for
a-stems but sometimes (though not necessarily) follow
tat in the masculine nominative plural, ending in
-e rather than
-āḥ. •
dvitīya ('second') and
tṛtīya ('third') optionally follow the declension of
tat in the forms of the
oblique cases in the singular. Note that when any of these adjectives are at the end of a compound, they decline exactly like ordinary
a-stem adjectives. ==Nominal derivation==