3. Pronouns
Pronouns refer to people or things and are often used to replace nouns (usually with the aim of avoiding repetition).
The table below shows German personal pronouns both in their basic, nominative form and in the accusative and dative forms. The use of cases was presented in detail in chapter 2.
| Nominative | Accusative | Dative |
|---|---|---|
| ich | mich | mir |
| du | dich | dir |
| er sie es | ihn sie es | ihm ihr ihm |
| wir | uns | uns |
| ihr | euch | euch |
| sie Sie | sie Sie | ihnen Ihnen |
Ich liebe dich.
I love you.
Kann ich Ihnen helfen?
Can I help you?
Possessive pronouns indicate ownership. Possessive pronouns are inflected in two different ways, depending on where they are situated in a sentence. If the pronoun is situated before its headword (i.e. the noun it refers to), it is inflected the same way as the indefinite article, ein, in the singular and the same way as the definite article in the plural.
The table below demonstrates this using the first-person singular (mein) and plural (unser) as an example:
| Masculine | Feminine | Neuter | Plural | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | mein / unser | meine / unsere | mein / unser | meine / unsere |
| Accusative | meinen / unseren | meine / unsere | mein / unser | meine / unsere |
| Dative | meinem / unserem | meiner / unserer | meinem / unserem | meinen / unseren |
| Genitive | meines / unseres | meiner / unserer | meines / unseres | meiner / unserer |
However, if the possessive pronoun appears independently in a sentence, it is inflected the same way as the definite article. In other words, the pronoun follows the noun’s gender, number and case that it is replacing.
The inflections in the table above change only slightly in this case. The masculine and neuter nominative forms change to meiner and meines, respectively and the neuter accusative form changes to meines:
Ist das dein Computer? – Nein, er ist nicht meiner.
Is that your computer? – No, it is not mine.