Pronouns ‘ta’ and ‘eta’
In Unit 11 we learnt about the personal pronouns for first and second person – amha and tumha. Now we will study two pronouns used for third person – ta and eta. There are some more pronouns which are used for third person, and we will learn about some of them in the coming units.
One important distinction between amha – tumha and ta – eta is that the pronouns amha and tumha (first and second person) are not governed by gender. ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘my’, ‘with you’ etc. can be applied to any gender. Thus, the declension of the pronouns amha and tumha remains the same irrespective of the gender to which they are applied.
In the third person however, the personal pronouns take up different forms depending on the gender of the noun to which they are applied. Thus, we have he, she and it as the third person personal pronouns.
These forms (he, she, it) of pronoun ta are called as – so (masc), sā (fem) and taṃ (neut). We will be studying declension of each of these forms.
Similarly, the forms of pronoun eta are – eso (masc), esā (fem) and etaṃ (neut).