Apossessive orktetic form (abbreviatedPOS orPOSS; fromLatin:possessivus;Ancient Greek:κτητικός,romanized: ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction indicating a relationship ofpossession in a broad sense. This can include strictownership, or a number of other types of relation to a greater or lesser degree analogous to it.[1]
Most European languages feature possessive forms associated withpersonal pronouns, like theEnglishmy,mine,your,yours,his and so on. There are two main ways in which these can be used (and avariety of terminologies for each):
Some languages, including English, also have possessive forms derived from nouns ornominal phrases, such asJane's,thecows' andnobody else's. These can be used in the same two ways as the pronoun-derived forms:Jane's office orthat one is Jane's.
Possessives are sometimes regarded as agrammatical case (thepossessive case), although they are also sometimes considered to represent thegenitive case, or are not assigned to any case, depending on which language is being considered. On the other hand, some languages, such as theCariban languages, can be said to have apossessed case, used to indicate the other party (the thing possessed) in a possession relationship. A similar feature found in some languages is thepossessive affix, usually a suffix, added to the (possessed) noun to indicate the possessor, as in theFinnishtaloni ("my house"), wheretalo means "house" and the suffix-ni means "my".
The concepts of possessive forms andgenitive forms are sometimes conflated, although they are not exactly the same. The genitive form, which does not exist in modern English as a productive inflection outside of pronouns (see below), represents anof relationship, which may or may not be possessive; in other words, the possessive is a subset of genitive. For example, the genitive construction "speedof the car" is equivalent to the possessive form "the car's speed". However, the genitive construction "packof dogs" is not the same as the possessive form "dogs' pack" (though it is the same as "dog pack", which is not possessive).
Thepersonal pronouns of many languages correspond to both a set ofpossessive determiners and a set of possessivepronouns. For example, theEnglish personal pronounsI,you,he,she,it,we andthey correspond to the possessive determinersmy,your,his,her,its,our andtheir and also to the (substantive) possessive pronounsmine,yours,his,hers,its (rare),ours andtheirs. In some instances there is no difference in form between the determiner and the pronoun; examples include the Englishhis (andits), and informalFinnishmeidän (meaning either "our" or "ours").
In some languages, possessive determiners are subject toagreement with the noun they modify and possessive pronouns may be subject to agreement with theirantecedent, ingender,number andcase. For example,French hasmon,ma,mes, respectively the masculine singular, feminine singular and plural forms corresponding to the English possessive determinermy, as well as the formsle mien,la mienne,les mien(ne)s corresponding to English possessive pronounmine.
Since personal pronouns may also agree in number and gender with their own antecedent orreferent, the possessive forms may consequently show agreement with either the "possessor" or the "possessed", or both. In French (and most otherRomance languages) the third-person singular possessives do not indicate the gender of the possessor, instead they agree with the possessed (son,sa andses can all mean "his", "her" or "its"). InSpanish the number is always indicated but the gender is only indicated for possessive pronouns, not possessive determiners;mi padre, mi madre, mis hermanos, mis hermanas (my father, my mother, my brothers, my sisters), butmío, mía, míos, mías when used as "mine" to refer to the previous. This contrasts with standardDutch and English, where the form of the possessives (zijn,haar;his,her,its) indicates the grammatical ornatural gender of the possessor, but does not depend on properties of the possessed. Additionally,German and severalDutch dialects[2] additionally inflect their possessives, thus giving agreement with both possessor and possessed; German hassein andihr meaning "his" and "her" respectively, but these inflect to give (for example) feminine forms likeseine andihre, depending on the gender (and number and case) of the thing possessed.
In languages that have agenitive case, the possessive forms corresponding to pronouns may or may not resemble the genitive of those pronouns. For example, inRussian, the genitive of яja "I" is меняmenya ("of me"), whereas the corresponding possessive is мойmoy ("my, mine", in masculine singular nominative form). InGerman the two sets of forms are quite similar (for example, the genitive ofich "I" ismeiner, the corresponding possessive pronoun is alsomeiner in the masculine singular nominative, and the possessive determiner ismein with various endings).
Some languages have no distinct possessive determiners as such, instead using a pronoun together with apossessive particle – agrammatical particle used to indicate possession. For example, inJapanese, "my" or "mine" can be expressed aswatashi no, wherewatashi means "I" andno is the possessive particle. Similarly inMandarin Chinese, "my" or "mine" iswǒ de, wherewǒ means "I" andde is the possessive particle.
An alternative to the pronominal possessive determiner, found in some languages, includingFinnish andHungarian, is thepossessive affix, usually a suffix, attached to the noun denoting the thing possessed. For example, in Finnish the suffix-ni means "my", producing forms such astaloni ("my house"), fromtalo ("house"). Hungarian possessive suffixes are used in a similar way, as inháza ("his/her house"), formed fromház ("house"). In Hungarian this affix can also be used when the possessor is represented by a full noun, as described in the next section.
Pronouns other than personal pronouns, if they have possessive forms, are likely to form them in a similar way to nouns (see below). In English, for example, possessive forms derived from other pronouns includeone's,somebody's andnobody's. There is however a distinct formwhose[3] for the possessive of theinterrogative andrelative pronounwho; other languages may have similarly functioning words, such as the Russian чейchey ("whose?"). Another possessive found in Russian and otherSlavic languages is the reflexive possessive, corresponding to the generalreflexive pronoun; the Russian form is свойsvoj (meaning "one's (own)", "my (own)", etc.).
In some languages, possessives can be formed from nouns ornominal phrases. In English, this is done using the ending-'s, as inJane's,heaven's,the boy's,those young men's, or sometimes just an apostrophe, as inworkers',Jesus',the soldiers'. Note that the ending can be added at the end of a noun phrase even when the phrase does not end with itshead noun, as inthe king of England's; this property inclines many linguists towards the view that the ending is aclitic rather than acase ending (seebelow, and further atEnglish possessive).
In languages that have a genitive case, the genitive form of a noun may sometimes be used as a possessive (as in GermanKarls Haus "Karl's house"). Languages such as Japanese and Chinese form possessive constructions with nouns using possessive particles, in the same way as described for pronouns above. An example from Japanese is:
In other languages, noun possessives must be formedperiphrastically, as in Frenchla plume de ma tante ("my aunt's pen", literally "the pen of my aunt"). InHungarian, the constructionMária háza is used ("Maria's house", literally "Maria her house", where the final-a inháza is thepossessive suffix meaning "her"). The possessor noun can carry an additionaldative marker, in which case anarticle appears before the noun. For example, "Peter's house" may be translated either as:
Péter
Peter
háza
his-house
Péter háza
Peter his-house
Péternek
of-Peter
a
the
háza
his-house
Péternek a háza
of-Peter the his-house
Possessive determiners are used in combination with a noun, playing the role of adeterminer orattributive adjective. In English and some other languages, the use of such a word implies thedefinite article. For example,my car impliesthe car that belongs to me oris used by me; it is not correct to precede possessives with an article (*the my car) or other definite determiner such as ademonstrative (*this my car), although they can combine with quantifiers in the same ways thatthe can (all my cars,my three cars, etc.; seeEnglish determiners). This is not the case in all languages; for example inItalian the possessive is usually preceded by another determiner such as an article, as inla mia macchina ("my car", literally "the my car") orquel tuo libro ("that book of yours", literally "that your book").
Some languages place the possessive after the noun, as inNorwegianboka mi ("my book").[4] Here again the equivalent of the definite article – in this case the definite ending-a on the nounbok – is used in addition to the possessive. However, the formsmin bok ormi bok, where the nounbok is in the indefinite form, are equally correct.
Possessive determiners may be modified with anadverb, as adjectives are, although not as freely or as commonly. Such modification is generally limited to such adverbs asmore,less, oras much ... as (comparative) ormostly (superlative), for example inThis is more my team than your team andThis is mostly my team.
Substantive possessive pronouns are used on their own and cannot be used to describe a noun, playing the role ofnoun phrases, somine may stand for "my cat", "my sister", "my things", etc. In some languages these may require articles or other determiners, as the Frenchle mien etc. In English, the-'s possessives formed from nouns or noun phrases can be used in the same way;the president's may stand for "the president's office", "the president's policies", etc., as determined by the context.
A related use is that of thepredicative expression, as in sentences likethe book is mine. Heremine may be considered to be apredicate adjective (likered inthe book is red) rather than a pronoun; in English, however, the same possessive form is used. Other languages may use differing forms; for example French may use...est à moi for "...is mine".
A particular use of possessive pronouns and noun forms in English is that illustrated in phrases likea friend of mine andthat coat of Fred's, used to form possessive expressions when the desired determiner is something other than the defaultthe implied in the usual possessive determiner.
The terminology used for possessive words and phrases is not consistent among allgrammarians andlinguists.
What some authors refer to aspossessives, others may callgenitives, and vice versa. Nowadays, however, the termgenitive is most commonly used in relation to languages with a developedcase system (in which the "genitive case" often has a wider range of functions than merely forming possessives), while in languages like English, such words are usually called possessives rather than genitives. A given language may have distinct genitive and possessive forms, as in the example of Russian given above. (The English possessive in-'s is sometimes called theSaxon genitive; this alludes to its derivation from the genitive case that existed inOld English. It may also be called theprenominal genitive; this also applies to analogous forms in languages such as German.)
Words like the Englishmy andyour havetraditionally been calledpossessive adjectives.[5][6] However, modern linguists note that they behave more likedeterminers rather than trueadjectives (see examples in the§ Syntax section above), and thus prefer the termpossessive determiner. In some other languages, however, the equivalent words behave more like true adjectives (compare the Italian example above, for instance). While for most authors the termpossessive pronoun is reserved (as in this article) for possessives likemine andyours that do not qualify an explicit noun,[7][8] the term is sometimes taken also to include all possessive forms that correspond to pronouns even though they behave as determiners.[9][10] Some authors who classify both sets of words aspossessive pronouns orgenitive pronouns apply the termsdependent/independent,[11]weak/strong[12] oradjectival/substantival to refer, respectively, tomy,your, etc. andmine,yours, etc. Thusmy is termed adependent (orweak oradjectival)possessive pronoun, whilemine is anindependent (orstrong orsubstantival)possessive pronoun.
According to theOED,[13] the first reference to possessive pronouns is found in 1530; the first use ofpossessive as a noun occurs in 1591, the first use ofpossessive case (which notes that it is like the Latin genitive, and may be called the genitive case in reference to English also) occurs in 1763, and the first use ofpossessive adjective dates from 1870.
The equivalent of Latinpossessivus in Ancient Greek is κτητικός (ktētikós); linguistic terminology also refers to possessives as ktetics, particularly ktetic (possessive) adjectives and names derived from ktetics (ktetic personal names).[14]
Nouns or pronouns with a possessive form are sometimes described as being in thepossessive case. A more commonly used term in describing the grammar of various languages isgenitive case, but that usually denotes a case with a broader range of functions than just producing possessive forms. (Some languages occasionally use thedative case to denote the possessor, as in theSerbo-Croatiankosa mu je gusta "his hair is thick" (literally "the hair to him is thick" in which "to him" is the dative pronounmu).[15])
Other theorists reject the idea that the possessive in languages like English represents agrammatical case since possessive forms do not generally behave in a parallel fashion to what are normally identified as cases. In particular, in English, as noted above, the-'s can attach to noun phrases even when they do not end with their head noun, as inthe king of Spain's, which is not typical behavior for a case ending. For further discussion of the issue, seeEnglish possessive § Status of the possessive as a grammatical case.
Some languages, such as theCariban languages, can be said to have apossessed case, which indicates the thing possessed.[16] In many Afro-Asiatic languages, such as Arabic, nouns take a form with similar significance called theconstruct state, sometimes even if the possessor is marked in the genitive case.Classical Nahuatl similarly presents an inflected possessed form (or case) in nouns, which contrasts with a non-possessed form (the absolutive).
The relationship expressed by possessive determiners and similar forms is not necessarily one of possession in the strict sense ofownership. In English, strict possession has been found to be expressed in only about 40% of the situations labeled as "possessive" by linguists, a fact which may incline some to prefer the more traditional term "genitive".[1] The "possessor" may be, for example:
For more examples, seePossession (linguistics) andEnglish possessive § Semantics.
Before the 18th century, the word possessive was not used, and was considered merely one of several uses of thegenitive case.[17] This began to change in 1762 withRobert Lowth, whose use ofpossessive was copied by subsequent writers.[17] One result of this shift in terminology is the mistaken belief that the possessive form is only used for actual cases of possession or ownership (e.g.,my book, thefamily's home) and not to indicate other, non-ownership forms of affiliation or association (e.g.,their neighbor, thetree's environs).[17]
