Hey it’s Professor Dave, let’s go over possessive adjectives and pronouns.
We’ve learned plenty of adjectives and pronouns, but let’s learn a new category, the possessives.
These are adjectives and pronouns that describe ownership.
It comes from Latin words meaning able to, to sit down, and pertaining to, because in
ancient times, the only people who were able to sit during social gatherings were emperors
and royalties, while the rest would stand or kneel out of respect, so the association
with the rich and powerful is how the verb got its current meaning.
Possessives can be adjectives when they are next to the noun they modify, but they become
pronouns if the noun is obvious and omitted.
Look at this sentence.
Your car is new, mine is old.
Your is an adjective that describes car.
Mine is a pronoun, because the other car is implied by context.
In Italian we don’t worry about this, as it’s all the same.
Let’s start with mio, which means mine.
We will need this word in both genders and numbers, so it has four forms.
Notice that we need an article before the possessive.
This might seem strange because it literally translates to: the my book, but that’s how
Italians do it.
Now let’s try tuo, which means yours.
Now we need his and hers.
This will be the same word no matter who we are referring to, because it must match the
gender of the noun, while the gender of the person is irrelevant.
Now let’s do nostro, which means ours.
Next is vostro, which means yours in the plural.
And lastly, loro, which normally means they, but in this context it means theirs.
This one is invariable, and will be the same for both genders and numbers.
Let’s try a few examples.
Naturally there are some exceptions.
We omit the possessive when it’s absolutely obvious who an object belongs to.
We assume Etta is removing her own shoes, since it would be bizarre if when she got
home she was removing someone else’s shoes.
Here’s another.
We don’t need to say il mio dito, because we are assuming that you cut your own finger.
If you are a psychopath that goes around cutting other people’s fingers, remember to use
the correct possessive so we know whose fingers you are cutting.
Also, when we are describing family relationships, we drop the article.
So it’s not il mio padre, it’s just mio padre.
This will be the case only if the noun is in the singular form, and unmodified by suffixes
or adjectives.
If that’s all well understood, let’s check comprehension.