Also note that the beginning of each word often matches the beginning of the corresponding pronoun in the accusative case. The most common ending is -ein with the only alternative being -r. The possessive roots are summarized in the following table: The last entry (in bold) does not correspond to any indefinite articles.
Let's decline mein in the nominative case using this principle: In fact, you decline mein in the same way as for ein except that you need to include plurals. Note that this looks very similar to the indefinite article ein. If I am the owner then the root is mein. Possessive determiners are all formed by taking a root, which is related to the "owner", and declining it according to the gender, number and case of the thing "owned". Fortunately, the way this is done is very logical and can be derived from the personal pronouns and articles.įorming possessive determiners Since German is a more highly inflected than English, all of these words must be declined. Unlike English, where there is a noticeable difference between the words used as possessive determiners and possessive pronouns, in German the differences are very minor and you must use their position in a sentence to tell them apart. So, in English, while "my" and "our" are possessive determiners, "mine" and "ours" are possessive pronouns, as in "Mine is red," or "Ours is big." Second, possessive pronouns replace the nouns themselves, as with personal pronouns, but they indicate possession as well. These are sometimes called possessive adjectives because they come before a noun, but since they replace an article and adjectives don't, it's more fitting to call them determiners. So instead of saying "The dog is brown," we can say "My dog is brown." We're restricting the discussion specifically to cases where a pronoun is used to refer to the "owner" we might say pronomial possessive determiners but that's a mouthful. For example, in English, "my" is a possessive determiner because it can replace the articles "the" or "a(n)", and it tells you that the thing is "owned" by me. First, possessive determiners are words that can replace articles and indicate possession. We'll use "own" in quotes for this possessive relationship rather than actual ownership. Fortunately, German and English tend to agree on when this relationship is applicable. And it can mean being a part of, as in "my foot". But it can also mean there is a close connection, such as the bond between relatives, "my wife", "my father", or some other relationship, "my friend", "my coworker", "my boss", "my job", "my country". It can mean that, for example "my car" or "my house". In this section we'll be talking about how these ideas combine to form some new word types.Īlthough we'll be using the word possessive here, we don't necessarily mean in sense of ownership. Possessives are words we use to talk about not the people or things themselves, but things or people they own or are closely connected with. Pronomial means we're talking about people or things referred to by pronouns. Gehört dieser Rucksack dir? Nein, meiner ist schwarz.Pronomial possessives įirst, the title of the section will require some explanation. Is this backpack yours? No, mine is black. Those special possessive pronouns are virtually never used in genitive case. So basically the only difference lies in the forms that have the indefinite article ein.
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