Portuguese personal pronouns
The Portuguese personal pronouns and possessives display a higher degree of inflection than other parts of speech. Personal pronouns have distinct forms according to whether they stand for a subject, a direct object, an indirect object, or a reflexive object. Several pronouns further have special forms used after prepositions.
The possessive pronouns are the same as the possessive adjectives, but each is inflected to express the grammatical person of the possessor and the grammatical gender of the possessed.
Pronoun use displays considerable variation with register and dialect, with particularly pronounced differences between the most colloquial varieties of European Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese.
Subject, object, and complement
Basic forms
The personal pronouns of Portuguese have three basic forms: subject, object, and prepositional.| number | person | subject | object of verb | object of preposition |
| singular | 1st | eu | me | mim |
| singular | 2nd | tu | te | ti |
| singular | 3rd | ele, ela | o, a1; lhe2; se3 | ele, ela; si3 |
| plural | 1st | nós | nos | nós |
| plural | 2nd | vós | vos | vós |
| plural | 3rd | eles, elas | os, as1; lhes2; se3 | eles, elas; si3 |
Subject pronouns
Forms of address
Like most European languages, Portuguese has different words for "you", according to the degree of formality that the speaker wishes to show towards the addressee. In very broad terms, tu, você and vocês are used in informal situations, while in formal contexts o senhor, a senhora, os senhores and as senhoras are preferred. However, there is considerable regional variation in the use of these terms, and more specific forms of address are sometimes employed.Generally speaking, tu is the familiar form of address used with family, friends, and minors. Você indicates distance without deference, and tends to be used between people who are, roughly, social equals. O senhor / a senhora are the most ceremonious forms of address. English speakers may find the latter construction akin to the parliamentary convention of referring to fellow legislators in the third person, although the level of formality conveyed by o senhor is not as great. In fact, variants of o senhor and a senhora with more nuanced meanings such as titles as o professor, o doutor, o colega and o pai are also employed as personal pronouns. In the plural, there are two main levels of politeness, the informal vocês or vós and the formal os senhores / as senhoras.
This threefold scheme is, however, complicated by regional and social variation. For example, in many communities of Brazilian Portuguese speakers, the traditional tu/você distinction has been lost, and the previously formal você tends to replace the familiar tu in most cases. On the other hand, in Portugal it is common to use a person's own name as a pronoun more or less equivalent to você, e.g., o José, o senhor Silva, which is rare in Brazil. The explicit use of "você" may be discouraged in Portugal because it may sound too informal for many situations.
When addressing older people or hierarchical superiors, modern BP speakers often replace você/tu and vocês with the expressions o senhor and a senhora, which also require third-person verb forms and third-person reflexive/possessive pronouns. The expressions o senhor and a senhora are also used in formal contexts in modern EP, in addition to a large number of similar pronominalized nouns that vary according to the person who is being addressed, e.g. a menina, o pai, a mãe, o engenheiro, o doutor, etc.
Historically, você derives from vossa mercê via the intermediate forms vossemecê and vosmecê
''Nós'' vs. ''a gente''
A common colloquial alternative to the first-person-plural pronoun nós "we" is the noun phrase a gente, which formally takes verbs and possessives of the third person singular. Although avoided in the most formal registers, it is not considered incorrect, unless it is accompanied by verbs conjugated in the first person plural, as in "*A gente moramos na cidade", instead of the normative "A gente mora na cidade" "We live in the city".There is a tendency in usage for the pronouns nós and a gente to be differentiated according to "clusivity". When including the addressee, nós is preferred. Meanwhile, a gente more often denotes only a third person with the first person. This is not a grammatical rule, but is just the most common usage.
''Vós''
In nearly all Portuguese dialects and registers, the second-person plural subject pronoun vós is usually replaced by vocês and in many cases it is no longer in use, as is the case with its corresponding verb forms. Currently, vós is only frequently employed:- In some dialects of northern Portugal.
- In some speeches of northeastern Brazil
- In some forms of address
- In religious texts and services.
- In old texts.
- In formal registers being used as a singular second-person pronoun, for archaism.
- In historical fiction.
Instead, the word vocês is used, or equivalent forms of address which take verbs and possessives of the third-person plural. See the "Forms of address" section, above, and also the notes on colloquial usage, at the bottom of the page.
Object pronouns
Proclisis, enclisis, and mesoclisis
As in other Romance languages, object pronouns are clitics, which must come next to a verb, and are pronounced together with it as a unit. They may appear before the verb, after the verb, linked to it with a hyphen, or, more rarely, within the verb, between its stem and its desinence.Enclisis and mesoclisis may entail some historically motivated changes of verb endings and/or pronouns, e.g. cantar + o = cantá-lo "to sing it". The direct and indirect object pronouns can be contracted, as in dar + lhe + os = dar-lhos "to give them to him"; cf. Spanish dar + le + los = dárselos.
When a verb conjugated in the 1st person plural, ending in -s, is followed by the enclitic pronoun nos, the s is dropped. Examples: "Vamo-nos embora amanhã", "Respeitemo-nos mutuamente".
Allomorphs
Third person direct object clitic pronouns have several forms, depending on their position with relation to the verb and on the verb's ending. If the pronoun is enclitic and the verb ends with a consonant, or if the pronoun is mesoclitic and the root of the verb ends with a consonant, then that consonant is elided, and an l is added to the beginning of the pronoun. If the pronoun is enclitic and the verb ends with a nasal diphthong, an n is added to the beginning of the pronoun. The same happens after other clitic pronouns, and after the adverbial particle eis.| default | after a consonant | after a nasal diphthong |
| o | lo | no |
| a | la | na |
| os | los | nos |
| as | las | nas |
The third person forms o, a, os, and as may present the variants lo, la, los, las, no, na, nos, and nas:
- The variants lo, la, los, and las are used after verbal forms ending with a consonant, which is elided. Examples: seduz + a = sedu-la, faz + o = fá-lo, diz + o = di-lo, destróis + os = destrói-los, comes + a = come-la, apanha-las, amá-lo, fazê-lo, partire-lo, tem-la. Exceptionally, quer + o gives quere-o, rather than *qué-lo.
- * This also occurs when the pronoun is in mesoclitic position: matá-lo-ás, fá-lo-ias, feri-lo-ias, comê-lo-ias.
- The variants no, na, nos and nas are used after a verbal form ending with a nasal diphthong. Examples: põe-no, tem-na, comeram-nos.
- The pronouns o, etc. present the same forms as above when they follow other clitic pronouns, such as nos and vos, or the adverbial particle eis. Examples: ei-lo aqui, deram-no-lo, "Não vo-lo quero dar a entender."
Contractions between clitic pronouns
These contracted forms are rarely encountered in modern Brazilian usage.
Syntax
Apart from the pronouns that act as subjects of a sentence, and from the stressed object pronouns which are employed after prepositions, Portuguese has several clitic object pronouns used with nonprepositional verbs, or as indirect objects. These can appear before the verb as separate words, as in ela me ama, or appended to the verb after the tense/person inflection, as in ele amou-a or ele deu-lhe o livro. Note that Portuguese spelling rules require a hyphen between the verb and the enclitic pronoun.In West Iberian-Romance, the position of clitic object pronouns with respect to the verbs which govern them was flexible, but all Romance languages have since adopted a more strict syntax. The usual pattern is for clitics to precede the verb; e.g. Sp. Yo te amo, Fr. Je t'aime "I love you"; Fr. Tu m'avais dit "You had told me". The opposite order occurs only with the imperative: Sp. Dime, Fr. Dis-moi "Tell me". Spoken Brazilian Portuguese has taken more or less the same route, except that clitics usually appear between the auxiliary verb and the main verb in compound tenses, and proclisis is even more generalized: Eu te amo "I love you", but Me diz "Tell me", and Você tinha me dito "You had told me".
In European Portuguese, by contrast, enclisis is the default position for clitic pronouns in simple affirmative clauses: Eu amo-te "I love you", Diz-me "Tell me". In compound tenses, the clitic normally follows the auxiliary verb, Você tinha-me dito "You had told me", though other positions are sometimes possible: Você vai dizer-me "You are going to tell me", Você não me vai dizer "You are not going to tell me". Still, in formal Portuguese the clitic pronouns always follow the verb in the infinitive. The Brazilian proclisis is usually correct in European Portuguese, though nowadays uncommon and emphatic. Only sentences that begin with a clitic pronoun, such as Te amo or Me diz, are considered unacceptable in European Portuguese.
With verbs in the future indicative tense or the conditional tense, enclitic pronouns are not placed after the verb, but rather incorporated into it: eu canto-te uma balada "I sing you a ballad" becomes eu cantar-te-ei uma balada "I will sing you a ballad" in the future, and eu cantar-te-ia uma balada "I would sing you a ballad" in the conditional.
This is because these verb forms were originally compounds of the infinitive and haver: cantarei = cantar hei, cantarás = cantar hás. In spoken Brazilian Portuguese, where proclisis is nearly universal, mesoclisis never occurs. Although the mesoclisis is often cited as a distinctive feature of Portuguese, it is becoming rare in spoken European Portuguese, since there is a growing tendency to replace the future indicative and the conditional with other tenses.
Although enclisis is the default position for clitic pronouns in European Portuguese, there are several instances in which proclisis will be used due to certain elements or words that "attract" the pronoun to appear before, rather than after, the verb. For example, a simple affirmative sentence or command will be enclitic. However, the following elements attract the pronoun and cause proclisis even in European Portuguese: negative words, interrogative words, conjunctions/dependent clauses, certain common adverbs such as ainda, já, sempre, etc., and indefinite pronouns such as todos. Since proclisis is already the normal default position for clitic pronouns in Brazilian Portuguese, this marking between enclisis and proclisis does not exist.
Prepositional pronouns
Governance
The personal pronouns labelled "object of preposition" above are always employed after a preposition, and most prepositions govern those pronouns, but a few of them require subject pronouns. For example, prepositions denoting exception, such as afora, fora, excepto, menos, salvo, and tirante. In those cases, the subject pronouns eu, tu, ele, ela, eles and elas are used. Examples: Todos foram ao cinema excepto eu, Ele referiu toda a gente excepto ele mesmo, but Ele referiu-se a toda a gente excepto a si, Falaste a todos menos a mim, Falaste com todos menos comigo.Contractions with the prepositions ''de'' and ''em''
The following 3rd person pronouns contract with the prepositions de "of/from" and em "in/on/at".| pronoun | contracted with de | contracted with em |
| ele | dele | nele |
| ela | dela | nela |
| eles | deles | neles |
| elas | delas | nelas |
Contractions with the preposition ''com''
The following prepositional pronouns contract with the preposition com "with".| pronoun | contracted form |
| mim | comigo |
| ti | contigo |
| si | consigo |
| nós | conosco |
| vós | convosco |
| si | consigo |
The form connosco is used in European Portuguese, while conosco is used in Brazilian Portuguese.
These contractions are derived from the Latin practice of suffixing the preposition cum "with" to the end of the ablative form of personal pronouns, as in mecum or tecum. In Vulgar Latin, enclitic cum became fossilized and was reanalysed as part of the pronoun itself. Then, a second cum began to be used before those words, and finally cum mecum, cum tecum, etc. contracted, producing comigo, contigo, and so on.
Reflexive pronouns
Reflexive pronouns are used when one wants to express the action is exercised upon the same person that exercises it or refers to such person. Examples:- EP: Eu vi-me ao espelho. BP: Eu me vi no espelho.
- Não te levas muito a sério.
- EP: De repente, vimo-nos perdidos na floresta. BP: De repente, nos vimos perdidos na floresta.
- EP: Hoje ele levantou-se cedo. BP: Hoje ele se levantou cedo.
- EP: Eles lavam-se sempre muito bem. BP: Eles se lavam sempre muito bem.
- O gato sabe cuidar bem de si.
- Os ladrões levaram consigo tudo o que puderam.
Sometimes, especially in the spoken Portuguese, ele mesmo, ela mesma, com ele mesmo, com eles mesmos, etc. may be used instead of si and consigo. Example: "Eles têm de ter confiança neles ' mesmos'" or Eles têm de ter confiança em si ''.
Possessive pronouns and adjectives
The forms of the possessives depends on the gender and number of the possessed object or being.The possessive pronouns are identical to possessive adjectives, except that they must be preceded by the definite article For the possessive adjectives, the article is optional, and its use varies with dialect and degree of formality.
Clearing ambiguity in the 3rd person
Due to the use of seu, sua as 2nd-person possessive pronouns, dele and dela are normally used as 3rd-person possessive markers in lieu of seu/sua to eliminate ambiguity, e.g. Onde está o seu carro vs. Onde está o carro dele?. Seu/Sua used as 3rd-person possessive pronouns are still frequent, especially when referring to the subject of the clause or when the gender is unknown and ambiguity can be solved in context, e.g. O Candidato Geraldo Alckmin apresentou ontem a sua proposta para aumentar a geração de empregos no Brasil.Colloquial usage
In European Portuguese
In European Portuguese, si and consigo can also be used to refer to the person to whom the message is directed in the formal treatment by o senhor, etc. or in the treatment by você. They are employed in the same circumstances ti and contigo would be used in the treatment by tu. Actually, in those circumstances você and com você is uncommonly used and considered incorrect.Examples:
- Se você não se importar, eu vou consigo. "I'll go with you, if you don't mind."
- Quando estava a passar pela Praça do Chile, lembrei-me de si. "When I was going through the Praça do Chile, it reminded me of you."
| Subject | Register | Object of verb | Object of preposition | Reflexive | Possessive |
| você "you", sing. | classical | o, a; lhe, você | você, com você | se, si, consigo | seu, sua, seus, suas; de você |
| você "you", sing. | colloquial | o, a; lhe, você | si, consigo | se, si, consigo | seu, sua, seus, suas; de você |
| vocês "you", plur. | classical | os, as; lhes; vocês | vocês, com vocês | se, si, consigo | seu, sua, seus, suas; de vocês |
| vocês "you", plur. | colloquial | vos | vocês, convosco | se, si, consigo | vosso, vossa, vossos, vossas |
Se, si, and consigo are used in standard written BP exclusively as reflexive pronouns, e.g. Os manifestantes trouxeram consigo paus e pedras para se defenderem da violência policial, or Os políticos discutiam entre si o que fazer diante da decisão do Supremo Tribunal. In colloquial language, those reflexive forms may be replaced however by subject pronouns. Note also that in both standard and colloquial BP, it is considered wrong to use se, si, consigo in non-reflexive contexts. Therefore, unlike in modern colloquial EP, para si for example cannot ordinarily replace para você, nor can consigo ordinarily replace com você.
In Brazilian Portuguese
For modern Brazilian Portuguese, one could propose the following chart :| Subject | Register | Object | Possessive | Verb | ||
| tu "you", sing. fam. | classical | te, ti, contigo | teu, tua, teus, tuas | és | ||
| tu "you", sing. fam. | colloquial | te, ti, tu, contigo; você, você, com você | teu, tua, teus, tuas; seu, sua, seus, suas | é | ||
| você "you", sing. | classical | o, a; lhe; você, com você; si, consigo | seu, sua, seus, suas; de você | é | ||
| você "you", sing. | colloquial | você ; você, com você; si, consigo; te, ti, tu, contigo | seu, sua, seus, suas; de você; teu, tua, teus, tuas | é | ||
| ele, ela "he", "she" | classical | o, a; lhe; si, consigo | seu, sua, seus, suas; dele, dela | é | ||
| ele, ela "he", "she" | colloquial | ele, ela ; si, consigo | seu, sua, seus, suas; dele, dela | é | ||
| nós "we", "us" | classical | nos; conosco | nosso, nossa, nossos, nossas | somos | ||
| nós "we", "us" | colloquial | nos; conosco; a gente, com a gente, con nós | nosso, nossa, nossos, nossas; da gente | somos, é, nos; com a gente, conosco, com nós | da gente, nosso, nossa, nossos, nossas | é, somos |
| vocês "you", plur. | classical | os, as; lhes, vocês; si, consigo | seu, sua, seus, suas; de vocês | são | ||
| vocês "you", plur. | colloquial | vocês ; si, consigo | seu, sua, seus, suas; de vocês | são | ||
| eles, elas "they", masc. and fem. | classical | os, as; lhes; si, consigo | seu, sua, seus, suas; deles, delas | são | ||
| eles, elas "they", masc. and fem. | colloquial | eles, elas ; si, consigo | seu, sua, seus, suas; deles, delas | são |
''Tu'' vs. ''você''
Although the 3rd person pronoun você tended to replace the classical 2nd-person pronoun tu in several Brazilian dialects and, especially, in the media communication, the use of tu is still frequent in several Brazilian Portuguese dialects. Most of the dialects that retain tu also use accordingly te, ti, contigo, and the possessive teu, tua, teus, and tuas. The use of tu is dominant in the South and Northeast, and it is also very frequent in the Northern region and Rio de Janeiro.However, even in some of the regions where você is the prevailing pronoun, the object pronoun te and ti and the possessive pronoun teu/tua are quite common, although not in most of São Paulo, Brazil's most populous state. In fact, in the city of São Paulo the pronoun tu is almost nonexistent.
That distinction, object and possessive pronouns pattern likewise, is still maintained in the South and in the area around the city of Santos and in the Northeast. In Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina, for instance, você is rarely used in spoken language—in most occasions, o senhor/a senhora is employed whenever tu may sound too informal.
In most of the Northeast, você is frequently used only in semi-formal and formal conversations, mostly with people whom one does not know well or when a more polite or serious style is required. As for Rio de Janeiro and the North of Brazil, both tu and você are used with no clear distinction in their use.
However, when one talks to older people or people of higher status, most Brazilians prefer to use o senhor and a senhora.
In standard Portuguese, você and vocês are always accompanied by 3rd-person verb forms, whereas tu requires 2nd-person verb forms. However, in tuteante BP dialects like gaúcho, tu is almost always accompanied by 3rd-person verb forms, e.g. tu é, tu bebeu vs. standard tu és, tu bebeste. That particular usage is considered ungrammatical by most Brazilian speakers whose dialects do not include tu.
The você / te combination, e.g. Você sabe que eu te amo, is a well-known peculiarity of modern General Brazilian Portuguese and is similar in nature to the vocês / vos / vosso combination found in modern colloquial European Portuguese. Both combinations would be condemned, though, by prescriptive school grammars based on the classical language.
When Brazilians use tu, it is mostly accompanied by the 3rd-person verb conjugation: Tu vai ao banco? — "Will you go to the bank?". The pronoun tu accompanied by the second-person verb can still be found in Maranhão, Piauí, Pernambuco and Santa Catarina, for instance, and in a few cities in Rio Grande do Sul near the border with Uruguay, with a slightly different pronunciation in some conjugations, which also is present in Santa Catarina and Pernambuco.
2nd person singular conjugation in Brazilian Portuguese
The table for 2nd person singular conjugation in Brazilian Portuguese is presented below:''O(s)'' and ''a(s)''
In Brazil, the weak clitic pronouns -o and -a are used almost exclusively in writing or in formal speech. In colloquial speech, ele and ela replace the clitics as direct objects. The standard written variants -lo and -la are more frequent though in the speech of polite speakers, but seem to be losing ground as well. Note, however, that ele or ela are never used as direct objects in formal writing, such as newspaper articles, academic papers, or legal documents. The use of -lo, -la, etc. replacing "você" as direct object is restricted mostly to the written language although it occurs frequently in a few fixed expressions like Prazer em conhecê-lo or Posso ajudá-lo?.''Lhe(s)''
The use of lhe and lhes as indirect object forms of você and vocês is currently rare in General BP, where lhe is often replaced as noted above by te or, alternatively, by para você. On the other hand, lheísmo, i.e. the use of lhe not only as an indirect object, but also as a direct object is frequent in Northeastern Brazilian dialects, especially in Bahia.In standard written BP, it is common to use lhe as indirect object forms of ele/ela, e.g. O presidente pediu que lhe dessem notícias da crise na Bolívia. In the colloquial language, 'lhe' in that context is frequently replaced by para ele, etc., although educated speakers might use lhe in speech as well.