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Possessive determiners (from la, possessivus, translit=; grc, κτητικός / ktētikós - en. ktetic Lallu) are
determiners A determiner, also called determinative ( abbreviated ), is a word, phrase, or affix that occurs together with a noun or noun phrase and generally serves to express the reference of that noun or noun phrase in the context. That is, a determiner ...
which express possession. Some
traditional grammar Traditional grammar (also known as classical grammar) is a framework for the description of the structure of a language. The roots of traditional grammar are in the work of classical Greek and Latin philologists. The formal study of grammar base ...
s 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 English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
include possessive forms of the
personal pronouns 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 ...
, 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 pronoun 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 ...
s 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, d ...
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 Agreement may refer to: Agreements between people and organizations * Gentlemen's agreement, not enforceable by law * Trade agreement, between countries * Consensus, a decision-making process * Contract, enforceable in a court of law ** Meeting of ...
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 Demonstratives (abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular frame ...
(*''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 nouns to specify their referents. The determiners form a closed le ...
). 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 It ...
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 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 owne ...
or genitive pronouns, since they are the
possessive 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
genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...
) forms of the ordinary
personal pronouns 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 ...
''I'', ''you'' etc. However, unlike most other
pronouns 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 ...
, 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 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 ...
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 The English personal pronouns are a subset of English pronouns taking various forms according to number, person, case and natural gender. Modern English has very little inflection of nouns or adjectives, to the point where some authors describe ...
. Other possessive determiners (although they may not always be classed as such though they play the same role in
syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency ...
) are the words and phrases formed by attaching the
clitic In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a wo ...
''-'s'' (or sometimes just an
apostrophe The apostrophe ( or ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes: * The marking of the omission of one o ...
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 phrase In linguistics, a determiner phrase (DP) is a type of phrase headed by a determiner such as ''many''. Controversially, many approaches, take a phrase like ''not very many apples'' to be a DP, headed, in this case, by the determiner ''many''. This is ...
s). 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 In English, possessive words or phrases exist for nouns and most pronouns, as well as some noun phrases. These can play the roles of determiners (also called possessive adjectives when corresponding to a pronoun) or of nouns. For nouns, noun phra ...
. 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 nouns to specify their referents. The determiners form a closed le ...
.


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 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 fam ...
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 It ...
, 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 Spanish ( or , Castilian) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from colloquial Latin spoken on the Iberian peninsula. Today, it is a global language with more than 500 million native speakers, mainly in the ...
, 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 It ...
, 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, Engl ...
, 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 ...
, 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 German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
and several
Dutch dialects Dutch dialects are primarily the dialects that are both cognate with the Dutch language and are spoken in the same language area as the Dutch standard language. Dutch dialects are remarkably diverse and are found in the Netherlands and norther ...
including
Limburgish Limburgish ( li, Limburgs or ; nl, Limburgs ; german: Limburgisch ; french: Limbourgeois ), also called Limburgan, Limburgian, or Limburgic, is a West Germanic language spoken in the Dutch and Belgian provinces of Limburg and in the neig ...
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 prov ...
, 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 In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...
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 ...
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 In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...
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, ''meidän'' can mean either ''our'' or ''ours''. On the other hand, some
Micronesian languages The twenty Micronesian languages form a family of Oceanic languages. Micronesian languages are known for their lack of plain labial consonants; they have instead two series, palatalized and labio-velarized labials. Languages According to Jackso ...
such as
Pohnpeian Pohnpeian is a Micronesian language spoken as the indigenous language of the island of Pohnpei in the Caroline Islands. Pohnpeian has approximately 30,000 (estimated) native speakers living in Pohnpei and its outlying atolls and islands with ano ...
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 postposit ...
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 pronoun 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 ...
s, which are also phonetically similar. The following chart shows the English,
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...
,Se
canoonet: Possessivpronomen und Possessivartikel
/ref> and
French personal pronouns French personal pronouns (analogous to English ''I'', ''you, he/she, we'', and ''they'') reflect the person and number of their referent, and in the case of the third person, its gender as well (much like the English distinction between ''him'' an ...
, 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