Personal Pronouns

Personal pronouns make more distinctions in number than nouns do. Where nouns have merely a singular and a plural (the collective and distributive being independent of number), pronouns come in singular, dual, paucal (or collective), and plural (or distributive). The dual is used for pairs and dyads. The paucal is generally used to refer to a set of closely bonded individuals, such as in a marriage or small kingroup, and other groups that act collectively. The plural is used to refer to larger unrelated groups of people. Thus the paucal has lost its strict numerical value and become a collective plural, while the plural remains a non-collective plural. Kēlen culture approves of collectives, so the paucal is actually more widespread than the plural.

Furthermore, the first person pronouns come in both exclusive and inclusive varieties. Exclusive excludes 2nd person, and inclusive includes it. Or, first person exclusive refers to "me & him or her, but not you", or first person plus third person, and first person inclusive refers to "me and you and maybe him or her, too", or first person plus second and/or third person.

	Singular	Dual		Paucal		Plural
1p	liēn	liēnne	1 + 3	lēim	1 + (3 + 3)	liēþ	1 + 3 + 3
	(inclusive)	liēr	1 + 2	ñēim	1 + (2 + 2)	ñiēþ	1 + 2 + 3
2p	riēn	riēnne	2 + 2	rēim	2 + (2 + 2)	riēþ	2 + 3
3p	sāen	sāenne	3 + 3	sāim	3 + (3 + 3)	sāeþ	3 + 3 + 3

These pronouns can be used wherever nouns are used. They are always used in the topic position, and rarely used in any oblique positions, unless emphasis is required or politeness rules dictate their usage. Otherwise, the reduced pronouns are more commonly seen. There are four of these:

1p	le
2p	ri
3p	ma (animate)
	ja (inanimate)

le is often used in place of singular, dual, and paucal forms of 1p, exclusive and inclusive. This is considered a polite usage. ri can be used in place of singular, dual, and occasionally paucal forms of 2p, but is considered impolite. ma is often used in place of any of the 3p animate forms, and ja is the inanimate pronoun and makes no distinction for number whatsoever.

Demonstrative Pronouns

There are three deictic demonstratives. The three are: þō, which is used to refer to things near the speaker; xō, which is used to refer to things near the hearer; and āke, which is used to refer to things away from both the speaker and the hearer. There is also a non-deictic or generic demonstrative jāo.

pa jacēla þō anūña;
'This bowl (by me) is blue.'

pa jacēla xō anmāλa;
'That bowl (by you) is green.'

pa jacēla āke annēla;
'That bowl (by them) is red.'

These can also be rendered:

pa þō anūña;
'This one (by me) is blue.'

pa xō anmāλa;
'That one (by you) is green'.

pa āke annēla;
'That one (by them) is red.'

On the other hand, jāo is less definite and cannot be used in conjunction with a regular noun:

pa jāo anēkke;
'Something is brown.' or 'That is brown'.

*pa jacēla jāo anēkke;
*'Something bowl is brown.'

In order to say 'Some bowl is brown.', one needs to use a quantifier.

Quantifiers

Quantifiers are those words that denote 'some', 'many', 'every', etc. Kēlen has ten of these. They are nār 'every, all, each', nā 'many, most', nāpie 'too much, too many', ām 'enough', āmīwe 'almost enough' wiē 'half, about half', pē 'some, few', wā 'none, no', ñe 'same, same one', and īþa 'other'.

pa jacēla pē anēkke;
'Some bowl is brown'. or 'Some of the bowl is brown.'

pa jacēli pē anēkke;
'Some bowls are brown'. or 'Some of the bowls are brown.'

pa jacēla nār anēkke;
'All of the bowl is brown.'

pa jacēli nār anēkke;
'All bowls are brown'. or 'All of the bowls are brown.'

These quantifiers can also be used anaphorically by adding noun affixes to them:

pa jīþa anūña;
'The other one is blue.'

pa janā anmāLa;
'Many are green'.

pa jām annēla;
'Enough are red.'

jīþa 'the other (thing)', japē 'something', and janā 'many' often occur as animates mīþa 'the other (person)', mapē 'someone', and manā 'many (people)'.

Indefinite Pronoun Series

The series pronouns are laid out in the following table:

	bare	nahan	wae	naren	-nnarien
person	ma	manahan	mawae	manaren	mannarien
thing	ja	janahan	jawae	janaren	jannarien
time	il	ilnahan	ilwae	ilnaren	ilnarien
place	sū	sūnahan	sūwae	sūnaren
direction from	rū	rūnahan	rūwae	rūnaren
direction to	rā	rānahan	rāwae	rānaren
manner/kind	ho	honahan	howae		honnarien
reason	tō	tōnahan	tōwae		tōnnarien

Both the -naren and the -nnarien series correspond to 'every' as in 'everyone', 'everything', 'always/everytime', 'everywhere', etc. The difference is that the -nnarien series is distributive. So manaren refers to 'everyone at once' and mannarien to 'everyone, but not all at once'. Furthermore, ilnaren is properly the equivalent of 'always' seen as eternal, and ilnarien is the equivalent of 'always' seen as a cycle. The last two -nnarien words, honnarien and tōnnarien, essentially mean 'every-kind' and 'every-reason' respectively.

For example:

ōrra ñi manaren rā jamāra;
'Everyone went home.' (all at once)

ōrra ñi mannarien rā jamāra;
'Everyone went home.' (a few at a time, not all at once)

pa jatāsa þō jannarien;
'This market has everything.'

pa jatāsa þō anmū honnarien;
'This market has every kind of thing.'

ilnarien ñalla jawāci japōññi sū jajēla āke;
'I always find mushrooms in that forest.'

The -wae words are all negative, as in no-one, nothing, never, nowhere, from nowhere, to nowhere, no-way, and no-reason.

āl pa sāim jawae;
'They now have nothing.'

pa mawae antēla jāttēna;
'Nobody knows the answer.'

The -nahan series is more difficult to explain. It is used in most of the places English 'some'- or 'any'- is used.

il antielen sele janahan il ñi rā jamāra;
'After I buy something/anything, I'm going home.'

tarra jakerōña mo riēn to janahan kēñ;
'Did you see anything/something?'

te jakerōña to riēn mo manahan kēñ;
'Did anyone/someone see you?'

ñi riēn rānahan īþa cī;
'Go somewhere/anywhere else.'

pa jasōþa þō anāŋŋeren nā ñe sūnahan īþa;
'This place is more beautiful than anywhere else.'

ñi riēn malāsa rū ilnahan cī;
'Come visit anytime.'

The bare series is used as relative pronouns, and in some contexts, can be prefixed to the interrogative marker kēñ to form the question words: who, what, when, where, where from, where to, how, and why. For more on this, see [xxxx]

Possession and Association

Possession in Kēlen is necessarily inalienable. The term "association" is used for alienable possession as well as simple association. Possession only occurs with body parts and products. Association is for everything else.

Body parts and other obligatorily possessed nouns are inflected by replacing the expected prefix ja-, used with singular nouns, with the following possessive prefixes:

1p	le-
2p	ri-
3p	sa-

as in:

lerōña	'my eyes'
risāra	'your ears'
sakū	'his/her hand(s)'
sāim sakū	'their hand(s)'
maxāna sakū	'a friend's hand(s)'

Association is expressed with the words nīkan and jē. nīkan is used when associating someone with a stative or an inanimate. It inflects for person as follows:

jaxūra nīkanle	or	jaxūra-nle	'my door'
jaxūra nīkanrie	or	jaxūra-nrie	'your door'
jaxūra nīkamma	or	jaxūra-mma	'his/her door'
jaxūra nīkamma sāim	or	sāim jaxūra-mma	'their door'
jaxūra nīkan maxāna	or	maxāna jaxūra-mma	'a friend's door'

jē is used for associating someone with another animate. It inflects for person as follows:

maxāna jē liēn	or	maxān-ēle	'my friend'
maxāna jē riēn	or	maxān-ēri	'your friend'
maxāna jē sāen	or	maxān-ēma	'his/her friend'
maxāna jē sāim	or	sāim maxān-ēma	'their friend'
maxāna jē maxāna	or	maxāna maxān-ēma	'a friend's friend'