Ainu pronominal clitics
irakarapte opitta, tanto a=eyaypakasnu ro~
It isn't quite simple to cover even the very basic pronominal clitics present in Ainu. It is deeply interwoven with qualities that may be difficult to understand, changing morpho-syntactic alignments, the 4th person, inclusivity, honorifics, and unique combined forms. Despite this, the rules are consistent and I hope to showcase each here.
To start, the persons, there are 4 persons, which is different to our usual understanding of grammatical person, however, it is not unique to Ainu, and in fact, has its own presence in English.
The first person (I/we)
Singular forms consist of the proclitics; the nominative ku=, or k= before all vowels except for <i> and the accusative en= While the plural (exclusive) forms consist of; the ergative ci=, or c= before all vowels the accusative un= and the intransitive enclitic =as
note 4th person; inclusivity
The second person (you/ye)
Singular form e=, and plural form eci= both of which do not change based on alignment.
note 4th person; honorific
The third person (he/she/they/it)
This form has a blank clitic, it is only an assumed pronoun.
The fourth person (one) or generic person
The most unique of the four, this person while only consisting of a single set of forms contains a much greater number of meanings. To begin with this clitic consists of the forms; ergative a=, accusative i= and intransitive =an It can act as; Fourth person First person plural inclusive Second person honorific Quotative first person as well as a valency decreasing operand, a passiviser in the ergative, and a null object in the accusative, which mirrors (e-) the valency increasing marker.
The combinations;
the final thing to note is how these interact with eachother. 2sg > 1sg & pl - drop 2sg clitic 2pl > 1sg & pl - no change, use both clitics 1sg & pl > 2sg & pl - use form eci= 4th person combines without change with the other clitics






