Skip to content

Possessives

Arcadia uses the genitive and essential cases to express possession, and distinguishes between alienable and inalienable possession. The owner follows the owned item in both cases, but allows for possessor-first ordering for emphasis. Possessives can function as determiners, appearing before the noun, but this can happen only when the possessor is a pronoun and there is no possession chain.

Alienable vs. Inalienable Possession

  • Essential case → Marks inalienable possession, where the possessor is an integral part of the possessed.
  • Genitive case → Marks alienable possession, where the possessor is not inherently connected to the possessed.

Examples

  • Alienable attributive determiner

    • save mek libris magni → "My book is big."
    • save la libris mek magni → "My book is big."
    • Explanation: The book is not inherently a part of the speaker.

  • Inalienable attributive determiner

    • save la parenis la filiem mem adamo → "The father of my child is Adam."
    • Explanation: The child's relationship to the father is inherent.
    • Explanation: Ownership chain does not allow mem to function as a determiner.

  • Predicative Possessive

    • save la libris mek → "The book is mine."