Possessive Pronouns Flashcards
TRUE OR FALSE:
Danish does distinguish between possessive adjectives (my, your, etc) and possessive pronouns (mine, yours, etc).
FALSE.
The same word is used in both cases, for example ‘min’ for ‘my’ or ‘mine’:
“It is my newspaper” becomes “det er min avis.”
“The newspaper is mine” is “avisen er min.”
TRUE OR FALSE:
Possessive pronouns and adjectives for the first and second person singular (my, mine, your, yours) must be declined towards the thing being owned
TRUE.
TRUE OR FALSE:
Third person impersonal possessive pronoun (“its” in English) declines with the grammatical gender of the item that is owning, and NOT the item being owned
TRUE.
The possessive adjectives (dens or dets) in these examples stay the same regardless of the grammatical gender of the noun they modify:
“Vi drikker kattens vand” becomes “vi drikker dens vand.”
“Vi spiser dyrets mad” becomes “vi spiser dets mad.”
TRUE OR FALSE:
Danish has a different set of pronouns when something is being owned or belongs to by whomever is the subject of the sentence.
TRUE.
They decline corresponding to the item being owned. To better understand this concept in English, one can imagine adding the word “own” after the possessive adjective:
“Manden læser sin avis” means “the man reads his (own) newspaper” while if the man was reading someone else’s newspaper, it would be “manden læser hans avis.”
hans
[hantz]
his
hendes
[he-nis]
her, hers
mit
[meet]
mine, my
mine
[meen] (long ‘e’ sound)
mine, my
min
[min] (short ‘e’ sound)
mine, my
din
[din] (short ‘e’ sound)
your, yours
dit
[dit]
your, yours
dine
[dean] (long ‘e’ sound)
your, yours
deres
[day-us]
their, theirs, your
jeres
[yai{r}s]
your (plural)
vores
[vou{r}s]
our, ours
