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Possessive Adjectives

Expressing Ownership in French

Jun 25, 2008

Adjectifs possessifs are complex and require understanding of two main concepts:gender and sentence subject. This article tries to demystify the possessive adjectives

When trying to express ownership somebody learning French is confronted with quite a few hurdles. Not only does he have to determine who the owner is, but the gender of what is owned as well.

One way to express ownership in French is by using “un adjective possessif”. Adjectives are always put before the noun. They agree in gender and number with the noun they precede. This means that they are either masculine singular, feminine singular or plural.

Gender

Every noun in French is feminine or masculine (une maison, but un chalet). Words, such as adjectives surrounding the noun, will be either feminine or masculine (une jolie maison, but un joli chalet). The “adjectifs possessifs” follow this rule. Finally, it is important to remember that in French, the gender of the owner does not influence which possessive adjective is being used, but only the gender of the object owned.

Note: There is no real rule to help determine the gender of a noun. There are a few “tendencies” in the ending of a noun that can be used as guidelines:

Feminine: “ion”, “té”, “ure”, “eur”, “esse”, “ette”, “ie”, “ée “, “ude”
Masculine : “isme”, “ment”, “age”, “ier”, “al”, “et”, “(e)au“

[Grammaire pratique du français en 80 fiches, Hachette Livre, Paris, 2000]

Ownership

Once the gender of the noun has been determined, the next step is to identify the owner. There can be one or more owners. The subject of the sentence also plays a role in determining the ownership.

First Person Possessive Adjectives

Mon, ma, mes will be used when the object is owned by the subject of the sentence (je). Here are some examples:

Ma meilleure amie est Corrine. (My best friend is Corrine) This example used a word that is feminine and singular and the person talking is the “owner”. Therefore “ma” is being used.
Mon meilleur ami est Marc. (My best friend is Marc). This example is similar to the first one, but uses the masculine form of “ami” as marked by the absence of the final “e” and the use of “mon”
Mes meilleurs amis sont Corrine et Marc. (My best friends are Corrine and Marc). This example uses the plural form of the first person possessive adjective.

An object can also be owned by more than one person. In this case a group of persons or someone part of this group will be the subject (nous):

Notre maison est grande. (Our house is big). “Notre” is the singular form indicating that a single object is owned by more than one person.
Nos maisons sont grandes. (Our houses are big). “Nos” shows that multiple objects are owned by multiple people.

Second Person Possessive Adjectives

When someone is talking about the possession of the other person taking part in the conversation ta, ton, tes or votre, vos will be used:

Ta voiture est dispendieuse. (Your car is expensive.) The speaker refers here to a car owned by his interlocutor.
Ton divan n’est pas confortable. (Your couch is not comfortable). The object owned by the interlocutor is masculine.
Tes souliers sont vieux. (Your shoes are old.) Multiple objects are owned by the second person in the conversation.

If there is more than one owner, the plural forms votre or vos will be used:

Votre fils est très intelligent. (Your son is very intelligent). The speaker refers to the son of his interlocutors. Therefore votre is being used.
Vos enfants sont beaux. (Your children are beautiful.) When there is more than an object owned by the interlocutors vos will be used to mark the plural.

It is worth noting that the plural forms of the second person possessive adjectives can also be used as polite singular. In other words, the owner might be a single person, but by deference to this person the “vous” form is used.

Third Person Possessive Adjectives

When talking about something owned by a third person, outside the conversation, son, sa, ses, leur, leurs will be used. Here are some examples:

Sa fille est jolie. (Her /His daughter is pretty.) The gender of the owner does not matter here, only the gender of the “owned”.
Ton chien est gentil. (Your dog is nice.) Here ton refers to a male dog. If talking about a female dog, ta would be used.
Tes chatons sont adorables. (Your kittens are adorable). The gender of the kittens is of no importance because tes is neutral.

Leur and leurs are used when there are multiple owners:

Leur bateau est immense. (Their boat is huge). The single object is owned by more than one person.
Leurs enfants sont grands. (Their kids are grown up) When multiple objects are owned by multiple people, leurs is used.

In summary, determining which possessive adjective to use is done in two steps. First, the gender and number of the object owned need to be determined. Then, the owner(s) have to be identified. The combination of these two elements will determine which possessive adjective to used.

The copyright of the article Possessive Adjectives in Learning French is owned by Valerie Lizotte. Permission to republish Possessive Adjectives in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.