previous next
145. The Possessive pronouns are:—

FIRST PERSON. meus, my noster, our
SECOND PERSON. tuus, thy, your vester, your
THIRD PERSON. suus, his, her, its suus, their

These are really adjectives of the First and Second Declensions, and are so declined (see §§ 110-112). But meus has regularly mī (rarely meus ) in the vocative singular masculine.

Note.-- Suus is used only as a reflexive, referring to the subject. For a possessive pronoun of the third person not referring to the subject, the genitive of a demonstrative must be used. Thus, patrem suum occīdit, he killed his (own) father; but patrem êius occīdit, he killed his (somebody else's) father.

a. Emphatic forms in -pte are found in the ablative singular: suōpte.

b. A rare possessive cûius ( quôius ), -a, -um, whose, is formed from the genitive singular of the relative or interrogative pronoun (quī, quis). It may be either interrogative or relative in force according to its derivation, but is usually the former.

c. The reciprocals one another and each other are expressed by inter sē or alter ... alterum :—

  1. alter alterīus ōva frangit, they break each other's eggs (one ... of the other).
  2. inter sē amant, they love one another (they love among themselves).

Ginn and Company, 1903.

The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.

Purchase a copy of this text (not necessarily the same edition) from Amazon.com

hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: