We don’t need to use pronouns when conjugating a verb. The endings can tell us who the subject is.
Personal pronouns have a lot of other functions, though, and you need to learn them in order to express yourself clearly.
In this lesson we will focus on three of these functions: to stress a difference, to reply to “who” questions and to talk about the verb object.
When replying to “How are you?”, we use the nominative. The pronoun is the subject of the verb.
When replying to “What is your name?”, we use the accusative. In Greek, the question is “How do they call you?”. The pronoun is the object of the verb.
verb + σε + pronoun / verb + pronoun
Try to learn this type of sentences directly in Greek, or else you will get confused. The translation is practically the same for both parts.
For this function, we use what we call the “strong” types of the pronoun (Handbook, Part III). The “weak” types that may exist in the sentence (example 2) have a different function.
Again, we use the “strong” types of the pronoun.
We use the pronouns to talk about the verb object.
After a preposition, we use the ” strong” type. We also remove the intial “ε”, eg “σε μένα” instead of “σε εμένα”.