Possessive adj and the genitive case of personal pron

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lgsoltek
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Possessive adj and the genitive case of personal pron

Post by lgsoltek »

Greetings to everyone. I learned the personal pronouns today (D'Ooge) (page 123), which makes me wonder:

what is the difference between possessive adjectives and the genitive case of personal pronouns?

For example, the gen. case of "ego" is "mei". How is it different from "meus, mea, meum"? The first means "of me", the latter means "my", so don't they mean the same thing?

Thanks in advance.

modus.irrealis
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Re: Possessive adj and the genitive case of personal pron

Post by modus.irrealis »

I'd say that it's roughly like the situation in English, where "of me" and "my" could be said to mean the same thing, but they're definitely used in different constructions (you don't normally say "the house of me" for "my house"). "Meus" is more common as it's used for possession but you'd use "mei" e.g. where a verb requires a genitive, like with "mei memineris" = "you will remember me".

lgsoltek
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Joined: Mon Apr 14, 2008 11:38 am

Re: Possessive adj and the genitive case of personal pron

Post by lgsoltek »

Hm hum, it's clearer to me now, thanks a lot!

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