On Mon, 27 Oct 2003 22:36:39 +0100, alex <
alxmoeller@...> wrote:
>OK, and now to the simple example:
>
>English:
>
>the shoe of my mother
>the shoe of your mother
>the shoe of his/her mother
>
>In all these examples the possessive pronoun is in sg. since the mother
>is just one, thus, perfectly explainable why "my, your, his/her" and not
>"our, your, their".
Nonsense:
The shoe of my mother
The shoes of my mother
The shoe of my mothers
The shoes of my mothers
The English possessive pronoun is not in "the singular", it's in the only
form it has, no matter if there's one or more mothers or one or more shoes.
"The shoes of our mother" means something completely different. It
indicates plurality of the possessor.
>Romanian:
>
>pantoful mamei mele
>pantoful mamei tale
>pantoful mamei sale
>
>That is strange. There is "mele, tãle, sale" the possessive plural
>instead of the expected sg. "mea, ta, sa".
>Should be this explained how? Etymologically?
It's not a plural. It's an oblique. And this phenomenon is not confined
to possessive pronouns but to practically all nouns, pronouns, adjectives
and determiners: the oblique form of feminines is equal to the plural form.
E.g. Marea Neagrã, oblique Mãrii Negre "of the Black Sea" (where mãri- and
negre are just like the plural forms).
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...