What are possessive adjectives, and why are they so important in Latin? That's what we're going to have a look at today.
If you're not sure about any of your noun endings, my free Noun Endings Guide will really help you. It's got all the endings for the first, second, and third declension nouns, and these are going to be really important endings for when you talk about possessive adjectives. It's completely free and it's just to help you out.
Wait, what are Pronouns?
Before we talk about possessive adjectives, let's just recap pronouns. I did a post last week about Latin pronouns which you can read here, but basically pronouns are used in place of a noun.
They're used to avoid repetition. So instead of saying “The girl saw the boy. The girl greeted the boy”, you would say, “The girl saw the boy. She greeted him”. That's what pronouns are.
They are also used to make more complex sentences, as well as just making basic ones less busy.
And pronouns are really useful, but there are some times when you have to use a possessive adjective instead. So let’s get into those.
What is a Possessive Adjective?
Now a possessive adjective agrees with a noun. Because of this, it follows the 2-1-2 adjective endings that we expect. By that, I mean it changes its form based on the case, number, and gender of the noun it agrees with, like laetus, laeta, laetum does.
If you’re struggling with adjectives, you can read my 2-1-2 adjectives post here.
So a possessive adjective has a second declension masculine ending if it's describing a masculine noun, like a first declension feminine ending if it's describing a feminine noun, or a second detention neuter ending if it is describing a neuter noun. That's why you need to know your noun endings really well. Get my free Noun Endings Guide sent straight to your inbox by typing your email below.
Possessive Adjectives do exactly what they say on the tin - they are adjectives which show possession. They tell you who owns the object or person being described. Let’s get into what that means.
Genitive Pronouns vs Possessive Genitives
Last time we looked briefly at genitive pronouns.
You don’t get them very often, unless it is being used as a partitive genitive or an objective genitive. For example:
pars mei - “a part of me”.
mei is in the genitive, and this is what's called a partitive genitive. I'm taking a small part of myself rather than the whole thing. Like a slice of cake - cake would be in the genitive.
But you don’t often need to use a partitive genitive. More frequently you want to explain who owns something. If I wanted to say “my part”, showing that I own the part, I would say:
pars mea - “my part”
This is different to a genitive pronoun. This is now a possessive adjective.
1st Person Possessives
The first person possessive adjectives are “my” and “our”
meus, mea, meum
noster, nostra, nostrum
Both of these follow the 2-1-2 adjective endings, because they can be in any case number and gender, depending on the noun they are agreeing with.
fratres meos amatis
You love my brothers
meos is accusative, plural, and masculine because it agrees with fratres. It does not agree with “me”, as in my case that would be singular and feminine. It has to agree with fratres, as they are also accusative, plural, and masculine. They are my brothers.
In the plural the concept is exactly the same.
vinum nostrum malum est
Our wine is bad
In this case, vinum is nominative and neuter, and therefore so is nostrum. It's nominative singular and it is neuter to agree with vinum.
2nd Person Possessives
Second person possessives are “your” singular and “your” plural.
tuus tua tuum
vester vestra vestrum
The meaning of these words doesn’t change based on the ending. If I am talking to one person and I say “I see your books”, the plural nature of “books” doesn’t affect the work “your” at all. I am still just talking to one person who possesses many books. It’s the same in Latin.
amici tui adsunt
Your friends are here
The possessive pronoun tui is nominative, plural, and masculine. “The friends are here” is the main sentence. tui just agrees with amici to give us more information about those friends. Clearly I am talking to one person who possesses many friends. The meaning of it being a singular tuus - just one person - does not change, even though the ending matches a plural noun.
The same concept applies in the plural:
ad terram vestram festino
I am hurrying to your land
This is an accusative of motion towards - ad terram “towards the land”. vestram therefore has to agree with terram, so it has to be accusative, singular and feminine.
It does not matter that vestram itself means “you plural”. I'm talking to multiple people. “I'm hurrying to the land of all of you”, but land itself is singular. vester is just the word used because I'm talking to a group, but vestram can describe a singular noun just as tui can describe a plural.
That's something a little bit confusing to get your head around, but it's really important.
3rd Person Possessives
For third person possessives, we have to do something a little bit different.
Reflexive Possessives
We have reflexive third person Possessives, and that is suus, sua, suum. Again, you will see it follows the 2-1-2 adjective ending pattern. But suus mean “his, hers, it’s”, and “their” - it is the adjective used to refer to possessors in the singular and the plural, so you only have to learn one set.
urbem suam videt
He sees his own city
suam is a reflexive possessive. It’s meaning reflects back to the nominative of the sentence, which in this case is third person singular “he” or “she”, shown by the -t ending of videt.
urbem is accusative, so suam has to agree with it. “He sees his own city” is a good way to think of this reflexive. If you're not entirely sure about how reflexives work, read my previous article about pronouns. I do explain what reflexives are there, and the concept is the same for reflexive possessives.
suam has to be accusative, singular, and feminine because urbs, “the city” is a feminine third declension noun. suus is an adjective, so it has to agree in case number and gender. That is why goes with urbem as suam. It doesn’t matter that it could be a “he” seeing the city, suam agrees with urbem rather than the person doing the verb.
urbem suam vident
They see their city
As you can see here, all that has changed in the Latin is the verb has gone from “he sees” to “they see”. suus a, um, hasn’t changed its ending. It still agrees with urbem, being accusative feminine singular. However, it is now “their” city. suus can mean “his”, “her” “its” and “their”. You just have the one word for all of the third persons.
It is still their city, still possessive, but now it's reflecting back to the several people doing the main verb.
3rd Person Non-Reflexives
As well as reflexives that refer back to the person doing the verb, we also have non-reflexive third person possessives. This is when it's talking about someone else, someone who is not doing the verb.
In this case we have to use eius.
Now, eius is not a 2-1-2 adjective, and its ending doesn’t change. eius is simply the genitive of is ea id, the pronoun that we looked at last week. Notice that it actually uses the distinctive -ius genitive singular ending: it’s not an -us ending at all! It is used for the singular “his, hers, its” for masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns.
eorum, earum, eorum are used for possessors in the plural. So for example:
fratrem earum vocavi
I called their brother
This earum is a genitive, feminine, plural. It's plural because it is more than one woman who has this brother. He is the brother of multiple women, and therefore it is not reflective because it's not talking about me (the nominative of the sentence shown by the -i ending of the verb). He's not my brother, and it is also not the brother who we are talking about.
Because this is a genitive, it is just showing possession. It does not have to agree with the noun it's describing. earum does not agree with fratrem.
This is a little bit different to a reflexive third person possessive, because it is a non-reflexive pronoun.
So just to recap, if the possessor is non-reflexive, that is they are a different person to the one doing the verb, you just use the genitive of is ea id, which makes it very different from a reflexive third person possessive adjective.
So for a singular, you would use eius for masculine, feminine, and neuter, so that means “his” or “her” brother, but for a plural you use eorum if it's multiple men, earum if they are multiple women and eorum for plural neuter nouns.
Review of Possessives
So let's have a little recap.
First person possessives:
meus, mea, meum for the singular “my”.
I may be possessng singular or plural nouns here, so meae sorores cantant - “my sisters are singing” (nominative plural)
noster, nostra, nostrum “our” is also able to be singular or plural, depending on what “we” are possessing.
in nostro domo - “in our house” (ablative singular)
Second person possessives:
tuus tua tuum for a singular person “your”
donum tuo patri da! - “give the gift to your father”
vester, vestra, vestrum, for talking to a group “your”
senatores, vestrum consilium mihi placet - “Senators, your plan pleases me”
Third reflexive possessives:
suus, sua, suum, “his”, “her”, “its” and “their”. Used for singular or plural possessors.
All of these above agree with the noun they are describing.
Third person non reflexives:
eius
eorum, earum, eorum
These just use the genitive of is ea id, and they do not have to agree with the noun that they are describing because they are genitive in their own right.
If any of this has made you a little bit confused, go and reread my pronouns post in the bambasbat archive. That's where I really go over how pronouns work. This post has just specifically focussed on when using possessives without using the genitive pronoun.
The possessive adjective is much more versatile and much more widely used. So it is important to understand the uses of the possessives, as listed above.
Make sure you download my free noun endings guide. It will really help you out as you learn these endings because as you can see, lots of these adjectives use the 2-1-2 endings that we are so familiar with. So if you're not confident with them, go and download that noun endings guide to help you learn them more easily.
Any clearer?
How do you feel about possessive adjectives? Have I just completely confused the situation, or is that a little bit clearer? Let me know in the comments!
Thank you so much for joining me, and I'll see you next time on bambasbat.