Definite and neuter articles with possessives
The possessive adjectives shown in 5.2 are used as pronouns when preceded
by el, la, losor las. In this case the number and gender of both the article
and the possessive adjective are determined by the noun to which reference
is implicitly being made:
Necesito tu llave, ya que he perdido la mía.
I need your key as I’ve lost my own.
De las dos bicicletas, ¿cuál es la mejor? ¿La tuya o la de
Andrea?
Of the two bicycles, which is the best? Yours or Andrea’s?
The sequence neuter article lo+ masculine singular possessive adjective
often refers to something abstract rather than to a concrete noun:
Lo tuyo es impresionante. That business of yours is amazing.
Note: The phrase salirse con la suya has a special meaning: José siempre se sale con
la suya‘José always gets his own way’.Avoidance of ambiguity with su/susand suyo/a/os/as
Although the context may preclude any possible ambiguity, the use of
su/sus andsuyo/a/os/ascan be the cause of confusion because of the
variety of their meanings: ‘his’, ‘her(s)’, ‘your(s),’ ‘its’, ‘their(s)’. Such confu-
sion can be avoided through the replacement of su/susand suyo/a/os/as
by de+ the appropriate prepositional object pronoun (see Table 8.1):5.4
(^1111) 5.3
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1011
1
12111
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
20111
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
30111
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
40
41111
Su/susand
Suyo/a/os/as49
Míoor el mío?1 Only the forms with the article (e.g. el mío, el tuyo) are capable
of functioning as the subject or object of a verb, or as the object
of a preposition: El mío está aquí‘Mine is here’, Han
encontrado el tuyo‘They have found yours’, Está debajo del
nuestro‘It’s under ours’.
2 Both the forms with the article and the forms without the article
can appear after the verb ser. However they mean different
things. Este libro es míosays merely that this book belongs to
me (with no prior assumption that any books did belong to me),
while Este libro es el mío assumes some prior mention of a book
belonging to me and now identifies este libroas that book.