Chapter 2: People and Pronouns
Second person singular pronouns are pronouns used to refer directly to the person being spoken to — the listener. In English, the second person singular pronoun is you, but it has different forms (types) depending on grammatical case and function. Here’s the breakdown:
Subject Pronoun: “You”
Usage: When the listener does the action
Example: You are learning Konkani.
Object Pronoun: “You”
Usage: When an action is done to the listener
Example: I am teaching you.
Possessive Adjective: “Your”
Usage: To describe something the listener owns
Example: This is your book.
Possessive Pronoun: “Yours”
Usage: To replace a noun that shows the listener’s ownership
Example: This book is yours.
Tuv (thoov), Tukka (thu-kkah)
English has just one word “you” in both subject and object case. However, in Konkani, similar to “Haav” and “Makka”, we have Tuv and Tukka to distinguish between subject you and object you respectively.
Tuv Konkani shikthasa = You are learning Konkani
Haav Tukka Shikaithasa = I am teaching you
Note: Lesson 1 of Chapter 2 has more details about the sentence structure and verbs used in these examples
Tugele (thu-gel-leh)
Just like first person case in Konkani, there is only one second person possessive pronoun. Tugele shows possession, functioning as both:
a possessive adjective (your), and
a possessive pronoun (yours).
For example:
He tugele book = This is your book
He book tugele = This book is yours.
“You are”— Identity vs. Condition in Konkani
In English, “You are” can indicate both identity and condition:
You are David (identity)
You are cold (condition)
In Konkani, similar to first person pronoun case, there is a distinction between identity and condition second person pronouns. We use Tuv for identity and Tukka for condition
Tuv David
Tukka Shinkkartha (sheenk-kar-tha)