Subject Pronouns (stressed and unstressed)

One characteristic of Friulian which sets it apart from standard Italian is its use of unstressed pronouns (or, if you prefer, clitics, or ?pleonastic? pronouns). Consider how both Italian and Furlan translate ?Peter sings?:

Italian		Pietro canta.
Furlan		Pieri al cjante.

Now consider how ?Mary sings? is translated in both languages:

Italian		Maria canta.
Furlan		Marie e cjante.

Finally, consider the translations of ?He sings?:

Italian		Canta.
Furlan		Al cjante.

Notice that in all cases the Furlan translation uses one more word than the Italian: in the first and third examples the word al appears before the verb, while in the second example the short word e does. These are words that help indicate the subject of the verb: al tells us the subject is singular and masculine, while e tells us it is singular and feminine.
But these word are not really pronouns--they're words that are partnered with verbs: in a sense they belong to verbs. Precise English translations of the first two Furlan sentences might be ?Peter he-sings? and ?Mary she-sings?.
Verbs almost never appear without these short partner words helping to indicate the subject: in most Furlan dialects you will never hear ?Pieri cjante? or ?Marie cjante?.
These partner words are necessary even when the subject is represented explicitly by a real pronoun, such as lui (?he? pronounced like the Italian ?looey? and not like the French ?lwee?) and j� (?she?):

Lui al cjante.		?He sings.?
J� e cjante.		?She sings.?

Notice that Lui al cjante is translated as ?He sings?, which is also the translation given above for Al cjante. What's the difference? The ?true? pronoun, lui, is used when emphasis needs to be added to the subject; if no such emphasis is needed, then the simple Al cjante is sufficient. (The equivalent Italian statements would be Lui/egli canta and the simple Canta.)
Unlike true pronouns, words like al are never stressed or emphasized in speaking. Al cjante might be the answer to the question, ?What does he do?? He sings. But if the question is ?Who sings??, and you want to emphasize that ?He sings?, you have to use a real pronoun: Lui al cjante. What does she do? E scr�f, she writes. Who writes? J� e scr�f, She writes. And if a one-word answer is desired, it would be a true pronoun: you would never respond to the question ?Who?? with ?Al? -- it would be ?Lui?.

Because words like al and e indicate the subject but are never emphasized, it might be helpful to refer to them as unstressed pronouns (though you might find linguists referring to them as ?clitics?; in Italian sources they're often called ?pleonastic?, i.e. redundant, pronouns, a rather misleading name considering that the true pronouns, not these, are the optional ones: it is perfectly legitimate to say Al cjante, but completely incorrect to say Lui cjante). And, in contrast, the true pronouns can be called stressed pronouns, since they can be emphasized. If capital letters represent emphasis in speech pattern, then the sentences above would be

PIERI al CJANTE
MARIE e CJANTE
al CJANTE
e SCR�F
LUI al CJANTE
J� e SCR�F

Because of the use of unstressed pronouns, the rhythm of spoken Friulian is often quite different from that of Italian. Compare how the two languages would translate ?He comes, he eats, he drinks, and he leaves.?:

Italian		Viene, mangia, beve, e parte.
Furlan		Al ven, al mangje, al b�f, e al part�s.

The following table contains all the stressed and unstressed pronouns:

	Stressed	Unstressed
I	jo	o
you	tu	tu
he	lui	al
she	j�	e
we	n� or noaltris	o
you (pl.)	v� or voaltris	o
they	l�r	a

EXAMPLES


O feveli furlan.		?I speak Furlan.?
Jo o feveli furlan.		?I speak Furlan.?

Tu fevelis furlan.		?You speak Furlan.?
Tu tu fevelis furlan.		?You speak Furlan.?

Al fevele furlan.		?He speaks Furlan.?
Lui al fevele furlan.		?He speaks Furlan.?
Pieri al fevele furlan.		?Peter speaks Furlan.?

E fevele furlan.		?She speaks Furlan.?
J� e fevele furlan.		?She speaks Furlan.?
Marie e fevele furlan.		?Mary speaks Furlan.?

O fevel�n furlan.		?We speak Furlan.?
N� o fevel�n furlan.		?We speak Furlan.?
Jo e te o fevel�n furlan.		?You and I speak Furlan.?

O fevelais furlan.		?You (pl.) speak Furlan.?
Voaltris o fevelais furlan.		?You (pl.) speak Furlan.?
Tu e Marie o fevelais furlan.		?You and Mary speak Furlan.?

A fevelin furlan.		?They speak Furlan.?
L�r a fevelin furlan.		?They speak Furlan.?
Pieri e Marie a fevelin furlan.		?Peter and Mary speak Furlan.?

Note that the unstressed pronouns can vary significantly from dialect to dialect. The feminine third persen singular is often encountered as a rather than e: Marie a cjante. As well, the form i can often be found instead of o as thefirst person singular (jo i cjanti instead of jo o cjanti for ?I sing?), or as the first or second person plural (n� o cjant�n or n� i cjant�n for ?we sing?, voaltris o cjantais or voaltris i cjantais for ?you (pl.) sing?).

While unstressed pronouns are not used in standard Italian, they are not unknown in other Romance idioms. A folk song of Quebec begins,

Ma fille a veut se marier (?My daughter wants to marry?)

which would be translated into Furlan as

M� fie e v�l marid�si

where the the Q�b�cois a and Furlan e are equivalents. (As noted above, in many Furlan dialects this feminine unstressed subjective pronoun is actually a, exactly like the Q�b�cois: M� fie a v�l marid�si.)

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