POSSESSIVES

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 3^rd 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)
la meva és nova de trinca (> la camisa)	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.

SYNTAX: ATTRIBUTIVE AND PREDICATIVE USES

1. The distinction between attributive and predicative uses of determiners and adjectives is crucial to understand certain differences in use, since at times there is a morphological variation of a given word class according to its attributive or predicative use, as well as a presence or a lack of stress.

2. The attributive use refers to the dependence of a given word class on another one. The most frequent case in Romance languages (Catalan included) is that of adjectives. An adjective is used attributively when it depends on a noun:

el vell gos és un company fidel	the old dog is a faithful companion
la nova casa m’agrada	I like the new house
tinc nous amics	I’ve got (some) new friends

3. However, the predicative use turns up when the adjective comes alone, i.e., the noun it depends on is not present. Catalan does not make any difference as for the omission or not of the noun, as English does (in fact, English substitutes the missing noun with one):

el blau m’agrada més	I like the blue one most
el gos és molt fidel	the dog is very faithful
les úniques que conec són aquestes	the only ones I know are these

4. Anyway not only adjectives are used in these two ways. Most determiners and quantifiers do accept both uses. Observe the following example regarding a quantifier

- tens algunes caixes buides?	- do you have any empty box
- sí, en tinc algunes per ací	- sure, I have some around here
- coneixes cap italià?	- do you know any Italian
- em sap greu, no en conec cap	- I’m sorry, but I don’t know any(one)

5. Certain quantifiers and pronouns just admit either a predicative or an attributive use. Interrogators (namely, interrogative pronouns) are mostly to be used only predicatively (qui, quan, com), as well as some quantifiers (ningú, (no) res, algú, quelcom).

qui us ha contractat?	who has hired you?
no vols res per sopar?	don’t you want anything for dinner?
no he vist ningú al carrer	I’ve seen nobody on the street

6. On the contrary, some other quantifiers just admit an attributive use (cada), and so do definite articles.

cada tarda vaig a passejar

every afternoon I have a walk