which is the nominative plural form of the ambigeneric noun simbol (which, being ambigeneric and plural, has feminine agreement).
Note that, in spoken Albanian, it is more common to use invariant që (Geg qi) instead of the relative pronoun cili, e. This is much more common in the texts presented in these lessons, for example in the following phrase from Lesson 2:
When the object being described is not specified for gender, the default form of the pronouns is the feminine form. Thus, in an impersonal construction in which there is an adjective predicated of an understood (unexpressed) expletive subject along with a clausal complement (thus equivalent to English "extraposed" sentential subject), the adjective takes the feminine form, e.g. është e veshtirë të mesoni shqip '(it)-is difficult/FEM that you-learn Albanian' (that veshtirë is feminine is shown by the nyje e rather than masculine i -- see Lesson 1).
Forms of ai, ajo 'that' are used when the object being described is not near the speaker. These are also used as the third person personal pronouns.
When the object discussed is near the speaker, forms of ky, kjo 'this' are used.
As discussed above, the function of the 3rd person personal pronouns is filled by the distal demonstrative pronouns. Unlike 3rd person pronouns, the rest of the personal pronouns are not marked for gender.
|1st person||2nd person|
The following are the forms of the Albanian weak pronouns (also commonly called "clitic pronouns"):
|3rd person||e (acc.)||i (acc.)|
|i (dat.)||u (dat.)|
With the exception of imperatives (on which see below), weak pronouns always come before the verb, regardless of mood, tense, etc. For example, in the following examples meaning "I eat it" and "I have eaten it," the weak pronoun e comes directly before the verb.
When using a verb form obligatorily preceded by a particle of some sort, such as të in the subjunctive or do të in the future and conditional, the clitics still occur directly before the verb (i.e., between the particle and the verb). For example, in the sentence "I will eat it," the clitic e is positioned between the subordinator të and the verb ha. The combination of të and e actually gives a contraction ta (on such contractions, see below).
Weak pronoun placement is more complicated in the imperative, where there is some variability as to where they appear. In negative imperatives, weak pronouns still come directly before the verb (i.e., between the negator and the verb). In positive imperatives, weak pronouns can come either before or after the verb: if they come before the verb, they are written as separate words; if they come after the verb, the clitics are attached to the verb. If clitics come after a plural imperative, they are placed between the stem and the 2nd person plural imperative ending -ni. In the following examples meaning "Open the door for me!" from Newmark et al. (1982), where the weak pronouns are capitalized, the example on the left has the clitic combination ma (dative më plus accusative e) as a separate word placed before the verb, while the example on the right has the clitic combination ma attached to the end of the verb.
|for me-it||open!||the-door||open!-for me-it||the-door|
In the following examples meaning "Write to me!" the clitic either comes before the verb (as in the example on the left) or between the stem and the 2PL imperative ending -ni (as in the example on the right).
|to me||write!||write!-to me|
Direct object weak pronouns are not obligatory, but optional when the direct object is overtly expressed. For example, both of the following are acceptable for "I saw the dog."
If the direct object is not overtly expressed, then the weak pronoun is obligatory. For example, if saying "I saw it" (where 'it' is 'the dog'), the clitic must be present.
Indirect object weak pronouns are obligatory when there is an indirect object, even if it is overtly expressed. For example, in the sentence "I wrote to John," the indirect object weak pronoun is required.
Where the indirect object is a pronoun, an overt form of the pronoun is opti