Personal Pronouns: The 'ng' Set

01

The Forms

• ko — my; I (as doer)
• mo — your; you (as doer)
• niya — his, her; he, she (as doer)
• namin — our (not yours); we (as doer)
• natin — our (including yours); we (as doer)
• ninyo / niyo — your (plural or polite); you (as doer)
• nila — their; they (as doer)

02

Job One: Possession

Placed after a noun, the ng-pronoun shows who owns it. Note the order — Tagalog says "the name my", not "my name".

• Ang pangalan ko ay Alex.

  My name is Alex.

• Ito ang kaibigan ko, si Anna.

  This is my friend, Anna.

• Ito ang computer ko.

  This is my computer.

• Ang computer mo ay naroon.

  Your computer is over there.

• Ay! Ang bigat ng bag mo.

  Wow! Your bag is heavy.

03

Job Two: The Doer of an Object-Focus Verb

When the verb puts the object in focus, the person doing the action is demoted to the ng-set. English has to translate this with an ordinary subject, which hides what is going on.

• Ano ang ginagawa niyo ngayon?

  What are you doing now? (lit. what is the being-done by-you)

• Hindi nila ito nakikita.

  They don't see it.

• Dalhin mo ang iyong bag.

  Bring your bag. (lit. be-brought by-you the your bag)

• Tingnan mo, ito ang bago kong bahay.

  Look, this is my new house.

04

Why One Form for Both

The link is not an accident. Tagalog treats "the doer of an action" and "the owner of a thing" as the same kind of relationship: something that belongs to, or issues from, that person. Once you accept that ko means roughly "of me / by me", both uses fall out naturally.

• Kailangan ko ng isang litro ng gatas.

  I need a liter of milk.

One warning, because the marker ng has a job that the ng-pronouns do not share. In an actor-focus sentence the thing acted on is marked with ng too — but that slot only ever holds something indefinite, "some fruit", "a dozen eggs", and never a pronoun. Bumili ako niya is not Tagalog.

• Bumili ako ng isang dosenang itlog at isa ring candy bar para sa iyo.

  I bought a dozen eggs and a candy bar for you too.

A pronoun names somebody already known, and something known cannot sit in an indefinite slot. So to bring a person in, Tagalog does one of two things: switch to an object-focus verb, which turns them into the ng-doer described above, or move them into a sa phrase — which is what para sa iyo does in that sentence.

05

Position

These pronouns are enclitic and squeeze in right after the word they belong to — after the noun for possession, after the verb for the doer. They never take a marker of their own, and they never begin a sentence.

• Gusto kong mag-bake ng cake.

  I want to bake a cake.

• Kailangan kong mamili.

  I have to go shopping.

Here ko attaches to gusto and kailangan, and the linker -ng then joins on to introduce the following verb.

The demonstratives have ng-forms of their own and slot into exactly the same position: nito, niyan and niyon stand to ito, iyan and iyon as niya stands to siya, meaning "of this" or naming the thing doing the acting.