Introduction to Tonic Pronouns

Personal pronouns can be classified according to how they are used within a sentence. There are clitic pronouns (pronomes clíticos Slow audio Play audio ), which are unstressed, and tonic pronouns (pronomes tónicos Slow audio Play audio Noun, Plural, Masculine ), which are stressed. This learning note will serve as an introduction to tonic pronouns in Portuguese, however, let’s first see an overview of all the personal pronouns in order to compare them.

Subject Pronouns	Clitic Object Pronouns	Tonic Pronouns	Tonic Pronouns + “Com“
eu	me	mim Slow audio Play audio Pronoun, Singular	comigowith me Slow audio Play audio Pronoun, Contractions
tu	te	ti Slow audio Play audio Pronoun, Singular	contigowith you (informal) Slow audio Play audio Pronoun, Contractions
ele/ela	lhe, se	ele Slow audio Play audio Pronoun ela Slow audio Play audio Pronoun si Slow audio Play audio Pronoun, Singular	com elewith him Slow audio Play audio com elawith her Slow audio Play audio consigowith him, with her, with you (formal) Slow audio Play audio Pronoun, Contractions
nós	nos	nós Slow audio Play audio Pronoun	connoscowith us Slow audio Play audio Pronoun
vocês*	vos	vocês Slow audio Play audio Pronoun, Plural	convoscowith you (plural) Slow audio Play audio Pronoun, Contractions
eles/elas	lhes, se	eles Slow audio Play audio Pronoun, Plural elas Slow audio Play audio Pronoun, Plural, Feminine	com eleswith them (masc.) com elaswith them (fem.) consigowith them Slow audio Play audio Pronoun, Contractions

*We replaced vós (a formal, archaic pronoun) with vocês because vocês is the most common way of using the 2nd person plural subject. Grammatically, it is treated the same as 3rd person plural, so the verb is conjugated accordingly, as in the example below:
Vocês foram embora, e ela foi convoscoYou (pl.) left, and she went with you (pl.)

Clitic vs. Tonic Pronouns

Stressed? Unstressed? What’s the difference? When we talk about stress in the context of pronouns, we basically just mean how much emphasis is placed on the pronoun in the sentence. With clitic pronouns, which are unstressed, you will notice that they are attached to or right next to the verb. They seem to fill a more grammatical role, subtly modifying the verb. For example:
Eles deram-me os documentosThey gave me the documents Slow audio Play audio
Tonic pronouns, on the other hand, are stressed. More attention is drawn to them in the sentence. You’ll notice that many of the Portuguese tonic pronouns are exactly the same as the Portuguese subject pronouns. The most obvious difference between clitic and tonic pronouns is that tonic pronouns are always preceded by a preposition, such as a, de, para, por, até, and com.
In the table above, the words comigo, contigo, consigo, connosco and convosco are a combination of the preposition com and the tonic pronouns, so they are shown with the preposition already included.
Here are a few examples of other prepositions combined with tonic pronouns:
Ele tem medo de mimHe's scared of me
Eu fiz isto por tiI did this for you
A Joana correu até nósJoana ran to us

Syntactic Functions

Within a sentence, Portuguese tonic pronouns can represent three different functions. While clitic pronouns can only appear as a complemento diretodirect object Slow audio Play audio Noun, Singular, Masculine or complemento indiretoindirect object , tonic pronouns can be the indirect object, prepositional complement, or passive agent complement. Let’s dive into some grammar to get a quick overview of each of these functions:

1. Indirect Object

If you want to review the difference between direct and indirect objects, you can check out this previous Learning Note here. A simplified way to remember it is that a direct object answers the question quem?who? , while an indirect object answers the question a quem?to whom? . When used as indirect objects, tonic pronouns are always preceded by the preposition a Slow audio Play audio Preposition .
Ele não disse isso a mim.He didn't say that to me.
The sentence above using the tonic pronoun mim is technically correct, but people usually prefer using clitic pronouns here instead. So in this case, you would be much more likely to hear it as:
Ele não me disse issoHe didn't say that to me.
As such, tonic pronouns are commonly used when you want to reinforce the indirect complement already expressed by a clitic pronoun. If you found out a friend of yours said two different things to you and someone else, you could emphasize your point by using both and saying:
Ele não me disse isso a mim.He didn't say that to me.
Another example:
Eu entreguei-lhe o envelope a ele.I gave the envelope to him.

2. Prepositional Complement

A tonic pronoun can act as a complemento preposicionalprepositional complement when it is combined with a preposition. This forms what we would call a prepositional phrase in English. When it comes to tonic pronouns, the main prepositions used are de, para, por, até, and com. We mentioned some examples earlier, but here are a few more:
Eu gosto de tiI like you
Ela veio connoscoShe came with us
Eu olhei para vocêsI looked at you (pl.)

3. Passive Agent Complement

In a passive sentence, the group of words that follow the preposition porby Slow audio Play audio Verb is called the complemento agente da passivapassive agent complement . In the context of this learning note, instead of a group of words, it will be a tonic pronoun instead.
Este livro foi escrito por mimThis book was written by me Slow audio Play audio
If we rewrite that sentence in the active voice, the agent (mim/Eu) becomes the subject and este livro changes from the subject to the direct object:
Eu escrevi este livroI wrote this book
Here’s another example of a passive sentence construction:
A casa foi construída por nósThe house was built by us
Now that we’ve had an introduction to tonic pronouns in Portuguese, we’ll take a closer look at each one in the next Learning Note.