1. There are two types
of possessives in Catalan: unstressed and stressed.
2. Unstressed possessives have a restricted
use. They are mainly to be found with family nouns and some given expressions.
This is its paradigm, foremost used with one
possessor:
1PS
MASC.
mon
FEM.
ma
1PP
MASC.
mos
FEM.
mes
2PS
MASC.
ton
FEM. ta
2PP
MASC.
tos
FEM.
tes
3PS
MASC. son
FEM. sa
3PP
MASC.
sos
FEM.
ses
3. Examples thereof:
|
sa mare treballa a una
empresa americana
|
Her mother works at an American firm
|
|
mon pare s’ha comprat un cotxe nou
|
My father has bought a new car
|
|
tos fills són molt simpàtics
|
Your children are
pretty nice
|
|
en ma casa (just Valencian;
otherwise: a casa meva) tenim de tot
|
In my house we have everything
|
|
No ho he vist en ma
vida
|
I have never seen
it (literally: in
my life)
|
Anyway, the last
example may be used with the stressed possessive, as well.
4. Stressed possessives are used in the rest
of the cases. Besides, even the previous type of possessives may substituted by
these ones. Stressed possessives may be used either predicatively or
attributively.
Besides, these possessives are preceded by the
definite article when used attributively
|
el meu cotxe no
arranca
|
my car doesn’t start
|
|
ho deixo tot en les seves mans
|
I leave everything in his/her hands
|
|
qui és la vostra amiga
|
who is your friend?
|
|
han perdut el nostre equipatge
|
they’ve lost our luggage
|
Unlike English or German, Catalan –like the rest
of Romance languages– does not distinguish the possessor’s gender in the third
person singular (comp. EN his, her, its; DE sein, ihr).
5. Its paradigm for
one possessor is as follows:
1PS
MASC. meu
FEM. meva
1PP
MASC. meus
FEM. meves
2PS
MASC. teu
FEM. teva
2PP
MASC. teus
FEM. teves
3PS
MASC. seu
FEM. seva
3PP
MASC. seus
FEM. seves
6. The forms meva,
meves, teva, teves, seva, seves may be found under the variant meua,
meues, teua, teues, seua, seues foremost in Valencia.
7. The paradigm for several
possessors is as follows:
1PS
MASC. nostre
FEM. nostra
1PP
MASC. nostres
FEM. nostres
2PS
MASC. vostre
FEM. vostra
2PP
MASC. vostres
FEM. vostres
3PS
MASC. seu
FEM. seva
3PP
MASC. seus
FEM. seves
8. There exist the forms
llur (sing.) and llurs for the 3rd
person, but they turn up to be quite literary, even archaic, not to be found in
the spoken language.
9. The current trend is
that stressed possessives tend to replace unstressed ones in Catalan.
10. There are a few uses
to be taken into account. Certain prepositions ruling out genitive require the
possessive pronoun in masculine singular (en contra ‘against’; davant
‘in front of’; a la vora ‘by’):
|
tots van en contra
meva
|
All of them against me
|
|
no hi ha ningú devant meu
|
There’s no one in front of me
|
|
seu ací a la vora meu
|
Sit down here by me
|
11. The word casa
is generally used followed by the possessive feminine without any article:
|
Teniu cervesa a casa
vostra?
|
Do you have any beer at home (in your house)?
|
|
A casa meva no mengem carn
|
We don’t eat meat at home
|
12. The predicative use
of possessives may require or not a defined article. Verbs like tenir
make it mandatory:
|
no em cal cap nova
assegurança, ja en tinc una
|
I need no new assurance, I already have mine.
|
|
tu ja tens el teu? (> el bitllet)
|
Have you got yours yet? (> the ticket)
|
|
Mine is brand-new
(> the shirt)
|
Instead, verbs like ser accept
both the presence and the lack of definite article. Observe the difference
between:
|
aquell cotxe d’allà és
meu
|
That car over there is mine
|
|
aquell cotxe d’allà és el meu
|
That car over there is mine
|
The difference between the two previous
sentences is basically pragmatic; it lies on the fact that in the first example
the car is introduced in the conversation for the first time, whilst the
second sentence includes the article because the car had been previously
introduced in the speech.
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