Personal pronouns and αὐτός

I, we, you, you all

The Lord's Prayer begins πάτερ ἡμῶν, "Our Father". English needs a separate word for "our"; Greek uses one form of a pronoun. This lesson is about the small words that stand for people: the personal pronouns.

Greek personal pronouns change shape by case, like nouns. First come "I, we" (1st person) and "you" (2nd person). The 원어 panel labels them "personal pronoun" and adds "1st" or "2nd". (We will explain person properly in the lesson on the verb εἰμί, "to be".)

You do not need to memorise the whole table. In the plural, ἡμ- means "we" and ὑμ- means "you all", and both take the same endings (-εῖς, -ῶν, -ῖν, -ᾶς). In the singular, ἐμ- is "me" and σ- is "you". The short forms (μου, μοι, με, σου, σοι, σε) are light and unstressed; the longer ones are used when the pronoun is emphasised, and usually after a preposition.

Now find them in verses. In John 6:35 Jesus says ἐγώ (egō) εἰμι, "I am the bread of life". The forms filed under the entry ἐγώ appear about 840 times. In the same verse, "whoever comes to Me" uses ἐμὲ, accusative, in its long form because it follows the preposition πρός. The lexicon entry "μέ" ("me") has about 1,940 occurrences across its forms, for example με in John 6:57. One quirk of the app's data is that it files many forms of "I/we", such as ἡμῶν, ἡμῖν, με and μου, under a separate entry "μέ", and the rest under "ἐγώ". Treat both as forms of "I/we".

"You" is σὺ (su) in Nicodemus's words in John 3:2. All its forms together occur about 2,980 times. In 1 John 1:3, ὑμεῖς (humeis) is "you" plural, nominative, and ὑμῖν earlier in the verse is "to you", dative. In John 17:3 Jesus says to the Father σὲ, "You", accusative.

A Greek verb already contains its subject (the next lessons show how), so writing ἐγώ or σύ out in the nominative usually adds emphasis. That is why ἐγώ εἰμι sounds like "I am the one".

The three jobs of αὐτός

αὐτοῦ (autou) comes in John 1:3, "through Him" (δι᾽ αὐτοῦ). αὐτός is the most common pronoun of all, about 5,570 times in its various forms. It has three jobs, and knowing them solves most cases.

First, usually it is just "he, she, it, they": the third-person pronoun. This αὐτοῦ points back to the Word (λόγος), and since λόγος is masculine, αὐτός is masculine singular genitive. A pronoun takes its gender and number from what it refers to, but that is grammatical gender and not always the gender of a person. In John 3:16 the αὐτὸν of "believes in Him" refers to the Son.

The feminine forms are αὐτή, αὐτῆς, and so on, and the neuter nominative is αὐτό. The case endings are those of the first and second declension nouns.

Second, next to a noun it means "himself". In John 2:24, αὐτὸς δὲ Ἰησοῦς is "Jesus himself", or, as the app glosses it, "On His part". Here αὐτός stresses the subject.

Third, straight after the article it means "the same". Hebrews 13:8 says:

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Hebrews 13:8

Here ὁ αὐτὸς is "the same". When αὐτός comes right after its article (ὁ αὐτός), read "the same". The panel still labels this αὐτός a "personal pronoun"; that is simply how the data files it, so let the position guide you.

Genitive pronouns as "my, our, your"

Greek does not usually have a separate word for "my" or "your". It puts a genitive pronoun after the noun. Remember that the genitive meant "of". In the Lord's Prayer πάτερ ἡμῶν is "our Father", and τὸ ὄνομά σου is "Your name". In 1 John 1:1 "with our own eyes" is ὀφθαλμοῖς ἡμῶν. These genitive pronouns usually follow their noun.

There is also a true possessive pronoun, which is rare. In 1 John 1:3 ἡμετέρα (hēmetera) means "our (own)". The panel calls it a "possessive pronoun, 1st person". In "this fellowship of ours is with the Father", the Greek is ἡ κοινωνία ... ἡ ἡμετέρα. You will not meet it often, so for now just recognise it as "our own".

The reflexive ἑαυτοῦ

The reflexive pronoun ἑαυτοῦ (heautou, about 320 times) means "himself, herself, themselves, ourselves". It refers back to the subject of the sentence, so it never has a nominative. In John 5:26, "the Father has life in Himself", the word is ἑαυτῷ, "in himself". In 1 John 1:8 ἑαυτοὺς is "ourselves", first person:

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

1 John 1:8

Summary

ἐγώ·ἡμεῖς are "I, we" and σύ·ὑμεῖς are "you, you all", and they change by case. A written-out nominative ἐγώ or σύ usually adds emphasis. αὐτός is "he/she/it" most of the time, "himself" beside a noun, and "the same" right after the article. Genitive pronouns give "my, our, your", and the reflexive ἑαυτοῦ means "oneself".

Words in this lesson

• ἐγώegōI/we1,702 times in the NT
• μέmeme1,081 times in the NT
• σύsuyou2,982 times in the NT
• αὐτόςautosit/s/he5,572 times in the NT
• ἑαυτοῦheautouthemself322 times in the NT

Practice