Quenya/Possessive pronouns

Most of the time we use possessive endings instead of independent possessive pronouns.

These should not be confused with the endings of the possessive case (e.g. "my prince's horse" would become rocco cundunyava where  cundu both gets a possessive pronoun ending  -nya to denote "my" and a possessive case ending  -va to denote the English genitive ending).

Possessive endings
They can be formed by changing the final -ë of the subject endings of the verbs (see ../Verbs/) into  -a:

They are used as endings of nouns:


 * coanya "my house"


 * roccolya "your horse"


 * nórenta "their country"

The different endings for "our" correspond to the different endings for "we":


 * coalva "our house (and also yours)"


 * coalma "our house (but not yours)"


 * coamma "the house of the two of us"

When a possessive ending and a case ending are added to the same noun we always apply the possessive ending first and only afterwards the case ending:


 * Anar caluva tielyanna "the sun will shine towards your path"

So we find tielyanna =  tië +  lya (possessive) +  nna (allative).

In fact is easiest to look upon a noun with a possessive ending as a new noun that is declined according to the rules of the nouns on -a (see ../Declension Paradigms/). Let's e.g. look at sambelya "your room":

Note:
 * the ending -nta is also the ending of the dual allative. So  ciryanta can mean "their ship" as well as "towards both ships". Of course "towards both their ships" is  ciryantanta.
 * nouns with possessive endings always have t-duals, never u-duals.
 * there is also an informal second person possessive ending: -cca:
 * macilecca "your sword"

Adding possessive endings to nouns
When the noun ends in a vowel the endings can be added without any difficulty.

../I-stems/ and ../U-stems/ add possessive endings to their stem-forms:
 * angulya "your snake" (nom. ango)


 * lingwintar "their fishes" (nom. lingwë)

Nouns ending in -ë that are not I-stems always add possessive endings to the singular:
 * lassenya "my leaf" (nom. lassë)


 * lassenyar "my leaves"

When the noun ends on a consonant we have to add an extra vowel before we can add the possessive ending. When the noun has a stem-form we use the stem-form before adding these endings.

We follow these rules:
 * in the plural or before -nya this vowel is  -i-
 * macilinya "my sword" (nom. macil)


 * masinyar "my homes" (nom. mar)


 * tecilintar "their pens" (nom. tecil)


 * in the singular it is -e- (except with  -nya)
 * atarelya "your father" (nom. atar)


 * amillenta "their mother" (nom. amil)


 * in the dual it is -u- (except with  -nya)
 * maciluryat "both his/her swords" (nom. macil)


 * fiondulmat "both our hawks" (nom. fion)

(but note: alda "tree" has  aldu as dual, but when a possessive ending is added we don't find the  -u- as it ends in a vowel:  aldaryat).

An optional rule is used whenever the noun ends on the same consonant as the first consonant of the possessive ending. In that case no extra vowel is added and the two identical consonants merge into one:
 * aranyar "my kings" (but araninyar is also acceptable)


 * macilya "your sword" (but macilelya is also acceptable)

The expressions "my son", "my daughter" and "my child" have irregular contractions with the ending -nya:
 * yondo + nya =  yonya "my son"


 * yeldë + nya =  yenya "my daughter"


 * hína + nya =  hínya "my child"

When the possessive endings -nya,  -lya or  -rya are applied to 2-letter nouns the final long vowel of these nouns is not shortened as the combinations  ny,  ly and  ry are not seen as double consonants (see ../Phonology/):
 * máryat "both his/her hands" (nom. má)


 * hónya "my owl" (nom. hó)

But the long vowel has to be shortened before the other possessive endings:
 * pentat "both their lips" (nom. pé)

Infinitives with possessive endings
In the page on verbal forms the long infinitive can be found. It is used when the infinitive has a direct object:
 * merin caritas "I want to do it"

It is also possible to express a different subject for the infinitive by adding a possessive ending:
 * merin caritalyas "I want you to do it"


 * mernelyë tiritanyat "you wanted me to look at them"

This construction can also be used when the direct object is something else than a personal pronoun:
 * merin tiritalya i seldor "I want you to look at the boys"

Independent Possessive pronouns
When you look at the independent personal pronouns, it is apparent that the possessive and genitive cases are missing.

When the possessive pronoun is not emphasized we use the possessive endings as discussed above, but sometimes we do want to stress these pronouns and in that case we use the independent forms. They are used as adjectives:
 * lenya parma "your book (and no one else's)"

and can also be used predicatively:
 * i parma ná lenya "the book is yours"

These pronouns are formed by adding -ya to the dative of the independent personal pronouns,

this gives following overview:

Note: there also exists an informal second person: cenya "yours".

>> Neo-Quenya >> ../Pronouns/ >> ../Possessive pronouns/