Possessive determiners (from la, possessivus, translit=; grc, κτητικός / ktētikós -
en. ktetic
Lallu) are
determiners which express
possession. Some
traditional grammars of English refer to them as possessive adjectives, though they do not have the same syntactic distribution as bona fide
adjective
In linguistics, an adjective (abbreviated ) is a word that generally modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes its referent. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives were considered one of the ma ...
s.
Examples in
English include possessive forms of the
personal pronouns, namely: ''my'', ''your'', ''his'', ''her'', ''its'', ''our'' and ''their'', but excluding those forms such as ''mine'', ''yours'', ''ours'', and ''theirs'' that are used as
possessive pronouns but not as determiners. Possessive determiners may also be taken to include possessive forms made from
noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for:
* Living creatures (including people, alive, ...
s, from other
pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase.
Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not c ...
s and from
noun phrase
In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
s, such as ''John's'', ''the girl's'', ''somebody's'', ''the king of Spain's'', when used to modify a following noun.
In many languages, possessive determiners are subject to
agreement with the noun they modify, as in the
French ''mon'', ''ma'', ''mes'', respectively the masculine singular, feminine singular and plural forms corresponding to the English ''my''.
Comparison with determiners
Possessive determiners, as used in English and some other languages, imply the
definite article
An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech.
In English, both "the" and "a(n)" a ...
. For example, ''my car'' implies ''the car that belongs to me/is used by me''. (However, "This is the car I have" implies that it is the only car you have, whereas "This is my car" does not imply that to the same extent. When applied to relatives other than parents or spouse, there is no implication of uniqueness – "my brother" can mean equally well "one of my brothers" as "the one brother I have".) It is not correct to precede possessives with an article (*''the my car'') or (in today's English) other definite determiner such as a
demonstrative (*''this my car''), although they can combine with quantifiers in the same ways that ''the'' can (''all my cars'', ''my three cars'', etc.; see
English determiners
English determiners (also known as determinatives)
are words – such as ''the'', ''a'', ''each'', ''some'', ''which'', ''this'', and ''six'' – that are most commonly used with noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name ...
). This is not the case in all languages; for example in
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
the possessive is usually preceded by another determiner such as an article, as in ''la mia macchina'' ("my car", literally "the my car").
Nomenclature
While some classify the words ''my'', ''your'', etc. as possessive adjectives, the differences noted above make others not consider them adjectives, at least not in English, and prefer possessive determiners. In some other languages, the equivalent parts of speech behave more like true adjectives, however.
The words ''my'', ''your'', etc. are sometimes classified, along with ''mine'', ''yours'' etc., as
possessive pronouns or genitive pronouns, since they are the
possessive (or
genitive) forms of the ordinary
personal pronouns ''I'', ''you'' etc. However, unlike most other
pronouns, they do not behave grammatically as stand-alone nouns but instead qualify another noun, as in ''my book'' (contrasted with ''that's mine'', for example, in which ''mine'' substitutes for a complete noun phrase such as ''my book''). For that reason, other authors restrict the term "possessive pronoun" to the group of words ''mine'', ''yours'' etc., which replaces directly a noun or noun phrase.
Some authors who classify both sets of words as "possessive pronouns" or "genitive pronouns" apply the terms dependent/independent or weak/strong to refer, respectively, to ''my'', ''your'', etc. and ''mine'', ''yours'', etc. For example, under that scheme, ''my'' is termed a dependent possessive pronoun and ''mine'' an independent possessive pronoun.
In linguistic terminology, possessive forms are also referred to as ktetic forms since la, possessivus has its equivalent in grc, κτητικός (ktētikós). Term ktetic is used in reference to ktetic (possessive) adjectives and also to other ktetic (possessive) forms, including names derived from ktetics (ktetic personal names).
In English
The basic
pronominal possessive determiners in Modern English are ''my'', ''your'', ''his'', ''her'', ''its'', ''our'', ''their'' and ''whose'' (as in ''Whose coat is this?'' and ''the man whose car was stolen''). As noted above, they indicate definiteness, like the
definite article
An article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech.
In English, both "the" and "a(n)" a ...
''the''. Archaic forms include ''thy'' and ''mine/thine'' (for ''my/thy'' before a vowel). For details, see
English personal pronouns.
Other possessive determiners (although they may not always be classed as such though they play the same role in
syntax) are the words and phrases formed by attaching the
clitic ''-'s'' (or sometimes just an
apostrophe after ''-s'') to other pronouns, to nouns and to
noun phrase
In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
s (sometimes called
determiner phrases). Examples include ''Jane's'', ''heaven's'', ''the boy's'', ''Jesus','' ''the soldiers','' ''those men's'', ''the king of England's'', ''one's'', ''somebody's''.
For more details of the formation and use of possessives in English, see
English possessive. For more details about the use of determiners generally, see
English determiners
English determiners (also known as determinatives)
are words – such as ''the'', ''a'', ''each'', ''some'', ''which'', ''this'', and ''six'' – that are most commonly used with noun
A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name ...
.
Other languages
Though in English the possessive determiners indicate definiteness, in other languages the definiteness needs to be added separately for grammatical correctness.
In
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
the phrase "my book" would be ''boka mi'', where ''boka'' is the definite form of the feminine noun ''bok'' (book), and ''mi'' (my) is the possessive pronoun following feminine singular nouns.
In some
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language ...
such as
French and
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
, the gender of the possessive determiners agrees with the thing(s) owned, not with the owner. French, for example, in the singular, uses ''son'' for masculine nouns and also for feminine noun phrases starting with a vowel, ''sa'' elsewhere; compare ''Il a perdu son chapeau'' ("He lost his hat") with ''Elle a perdu son chapeau'' ("She lost her hat"). In that respect, the possessive determiners in these languages resemble ordinary adjectives. French also correlates possessive determiners to both the plurality of the possessor and possessee, as in ''notre voiture'' (our car) and ''nos voitures'' (our cars). In
Modern Spanish, however, not all possessive determiners change to reflect the gender of the possessee, as is the case for ''mi'', ''tu'', and ''su'', e.g. ''mi hijo y mi hija'' ("my son and my daughter"). In the first and second person plural forms--''nuestra/nuestro'' and ''vuestra/vuestro''—possessive determiners do mark gender inflection in the singular, e.g., ''nuestra nuera y nuestro yerno'' ("our daughter-in-law and our son-in-law"). All possessive determiners mark the plurality of the possessee, e.g. ''Mi esposa tiene mis gafas'' ("My wife has my glasses"). Spanish possessive ''pronouns'' agree with the gender and plurality of the possessee, e.g. ''Esas niñas son nuestras. Ese bolígrafo es nuestro.'' ("Those girls are ours. That pen is ours.").
In
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
, constructions such as ''il tuo libro nero'' ("the your book black ", rendered in English as "your black book") and ''quel tuo libro nero'' ("that your book black", rendered in English as "that black book of yours") are grammatically correct. In Italian, possessive determiners behave in almost every respect like adjectives.
Some
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, E ...
, such as English and
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
, use different pronouns depending on the owner. English has the (uninflected) words ''his'' and ''her''; Dutch uses the (uninflected) ''zijn'' and ''haar''. Other Germanic languages, such as
German and several
Dutch dialects including
Limburgish and
Brabantian
Brabantian or Brabantish, also Brabantic or Brabantine ( nl, Brabants, Standard Dutch pronunciation: , ), is a dialect group of the Dutch language. It is named after the historical Duchy of Brabant, which corresponded mainly to the Dutch provi ...
, also use different forms depending on the grammatical gender of the object owned. German has ''sein'' (with inflected forms like ''seine'') for masculine and ''ihr'' (with inflected forms like ''ihre'') for feminine possessors; in German, the "hat" sentences above would be ''Er hat seinen Hut verloren'' (He lost his hat) and ''Sie hat ihren Hut verloren'' (She lost her hat) respectively. Brabantian also inflects ''zijn'' (his) and ''haar'' (her) according to the grammatical gender and number of the thing(s) owned.
Some languages have no distinctive possessive determiners and express
possession by declining personal pronouns in the
genitive or
possessive case
A possessive or ktetic form ( abbreviated or ; from la, possessivus; grc, κτητικός, translit=ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction used to indicate a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict own ...
, or by using
possessive suffix
In linguistics, a possessive affix (from la, affixum possessivum) is an affix (usually suffix or prefix) attached to a noun to indicate its possessor, much in the manner of possessive adjectives.
Possessive affixes are found in many languages o ...
es or
particle
In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass.
They vary greatly in size or quantity, from ...
s. In
Japanese
Japanese may refer to:
* Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia
* Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan
* Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture
** Japanese diaspor ...
, for example, ''boku no'' (a word for ''I'' coupled with the
genitive particle ''no''), is used for ''my'' or ''mine''. In
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language ...
, the possessive determiner and possessive pronoun take the same form as each other: the form associated with ''wǒ'' ("I") is ''wǒ de'' ("my", "mine"), where ''de'' is the possessive particle.
Some languages use the same word for both the possessive determiner and the matching possessive pronoun. For example, in
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
, ''meidän'' can mean either ''our'' or ''ours''.
On the other hand, some
Micronesian languages such as
Pohnpeian have a large number of possessive classifiers that reflect both the possessor and the possessum: ''nah pwihk'' means "his (live) pig;" ''ah pwihk'' means "his (butchered) pig;" and ''kene pwihk'' means "pork; his pig (to eat)." As a further example, ''tehnweren ohlo war'' (
POSSESSIVECLASS:HONORIFIC-CANOE-n that-man canoe) means "that man's canoe," referring to a person of high status.
Semantics
For possessive determiners as elsewhere, the genitive does not always indicate strict ''possession'', but rather a general sense of ''belonging'' or ''close identification with''. Consider the following examples involving
relational noun Relational nouns or relator nouns are a class of words used in many languages. They are characterized as functioning syntactically as nouns, although they convey the meaning for which other languages use adpositions (i.e. prepositions and postposi ...
s:
*''my mother'' or ''my people''
:Here, a person does not own his or her mother, but rather has a close relationship with her. The same applies to ''my people'', which means ''people I am closely associated with'' or ''people I identify with''.
*''his train'' (as in "If Bob doesn't get to the station in ten minutes he's going to miss ''his train''")
:Here, Bob most likely does not own the train and instead ''his train'' means ''the train Bob plans to travel on''.
*''my CD'' (as in "The kids are enjoying ''my CD''")
:''my CD'' could refer to a CD that I own, a CD owned by someone else but with music that I recorded as an artist, a CD that I have just given to someone here as a gift, or one with some other relation to me that would be identifiable in the context.
Forms
Possessive determiners commonly have similar forms to
personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it'', ''they''). Personal pronouns may also take dif ...
s. In addition, they have corresponding
possessive pronouns, which are also phonetically similar. The following chart shows the English,
German,
[Se]
canoonet: Possessivpronomen und Possessivartikel
/ref> and French personal pronouns
French personal pronouns (analogous to English personal pronouns, English ''I'', ''you, he/she, we'', and ''they'') reflect the grammatical person, person and grammatical number, number of their referent, and in the case of the third person, its g ...
, possessive determiners and possessive pronouns.
* * These forms are grammatically 3rd person plural, but refer to a naturally 2nd person.
References
Sources
* Biber, Douglas, ''et al.'' (1999) ''Longman Grammar of Spoken English.'' Harlow, Essex: Longman. .
*
* Jespersen, Otto. (1949) ''A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles.'' Part 2 (''Syntax,'' vol. 1). Copenhagen: Munksgaard; London: George Allen and Unwin.
* Payne, John, and Rodney Huddleston. (2002) "Nouns and Noun Phrases." Chap. 5 of Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum. ''The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. .
* Quirk, Randolph, ''et al.'' (1985) ''A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language.'' Harlow, Essex: Longman. .
{{lexical categories, state=collapsed
Grammar
Genitive construction