Pronouns
Pronouns are the little stand-in words like I, you, she, and theys that let you talk about people and things without naming them. OVP's subject pronouns are where you first encounter the language's habit of marking distance.
Subject pronouns
Subject pronouns are the pronouns that do an action (the "doer" of a sentence). Unlike nouns, pronouns don't take a subject suffix (see Nouns). They stand on their own.
| Paiute | English |
|---|---|
| nüü | I |
| taa | you & I (the two of us) |
| üü | you |
| ihi | this (one), nearby |
| mahu | he / she / it (visible, nearby) |
| uhu | he / she / it (not visible, far) |
| nüügwa | we (but not you; exclusive) |
| taagwa | we (all of us; inclusive) |
| üügwa | you all |
| mahuŵa | they (visible, nearby) |
| uhuŵa | they (not visible, far) |
| ihiŵa | these |
Distance, not gender
Look at mahu and uhu. Both translate as "he," "she," or "it". OVP simply doesn't encode gender the way English does. What it does encode is where the person or thing is: mahu is someone you can see or who's close by; uhu is someone out of sight or far away.
So a single short sentence carries information an English speaker might not expect:
Uhu tüka-ti → "He is eating," "She was eating," "It is eating"… (six English sentences in all)
What "Uhu tüka-ti" actually tells you is: someone is (or was) eating, and that someone is not visible or far off. Nothing about gender; everything about distance.
It can feel surprising that "he is eating" doesn't specify he. A helpful way to think about it (put beautifully in Through the Language Glass by Guy Deutscher): a language doesn't limit what you can say but it does shape what you must say. In simply forming a sentence, English makes you commit the gender of the subject: he or she. OVP, on the other hand, makes you commit to near or far. Learning OVP gently retrains your attention toward where things are in the world around you. This is what people mean when they say that language is more than just words!
Singular, dual, and plural
OVP distinguishes not just "I" and "we" but a middle step: just the two of us:
- nüü: I
- taa: you and I (a pair)
- taagwa: all of us, including you (inclusive "we")
- nüügwa: us, but not you (exclusive "we")
That -gwa / -ŵa ending is the plural marker, and you'll see the same near/far split carried all the way through: mahuŵa (they, nearby) vs. uhuŵa (they, far).
Examples!
If you're following the suggested reading path, you've already learned about Verbs and the verb suffixes that mark tense and aspect. Now you can combine pronouns with verbs to form simple sentences:
| OVP | English |
|---|---|
| Nüü katü-ti | I am sitting |
| Üü hibi-ku | You drank |
| Mahu tüka-ti | He/she (nearby) is eating |
| Uhu mia-wei | He/she (far) will go |
| Taa mia-ti | You and I are going |
| Nüügwa katü-pü | We (but not you) have sat down |
| Taagwa hibi-ti | We (all of us) are drinking |
| Mahuŵa tüka-ku | They (nearby) ate |
| Uhuŵa mia-wei | They (far) will go |
Notice there's no separate word for "is," "are," or "will". The pronoun and the verb's ending do all the work. And, as ever, the he/she/it forms don't tell you gender, only distance.
What's next
If you're following the suggested reading path, read about Object Prefixes next, the little words that mark what an action is done to.