Lesson 10 - Possessives; Numbers

Possessive Adjectives

Possessive adjectives are those small but vital words such as my, your, his, and her, that express ownership.

• Alternate forms. The first and second person singular, and the combined third person singular/plural, have two forms. Their meaning is identical.
  • Mi casa means the same as la casa mía, "Es mi casa" the same as "La casa es mía." (The two latter sentences are literally "It's my house" and "The house is mine.")
  • Es suyo. (It's his, hers, its, theirs, yours.) "Suyo" is a predicate adjective. In the sentence "Suyo es" it is still a predicate adjective, with the same meaning.
• Turning an adjective into a noun. As discussed previously, any adjective can be made into a noun by adding an article (hermoso, beautiful; el hermoso, the beautiful one). The same is true of possessives.
  • La mía. (The one of mine.)
  • La suya. The one of him, her, it, you, or them.)
  • El mío es nuevo. (Mine is old.)
• The third person. A dramatic difference between Spanish and English is that Spanish has a single word (su/sus, suyo/suya/suyos/suyas) to mean either his, her, its, their, or (with the Ud./Uds. form) your. Su casa or la casa suya, in isolation, could mean his house, her house, their house, or your (singular or plural) house. Similarly, sus casas or las casas suyas can mean his houses, her houses, their houses, or your (singular or plural) houses.
  • Just as the third person of the verb, used alone, must be unambiguous, there will be only one interpretation possible of su/sus or suyo/suya/suyos/suyas. It may be found in a previous sentence.
    • Ayer hablé con Marta. Su hija está enferma. (“Yesterday I spoke to Marta. Her daughter is sick.” In this sentence, su must refer to Marta, and thus means her.)
  • If su/sus or suyo/suya/suyos/suyas alone are unclear, possession will instead be indicated by a modifying phrase beginning with de:
    • la casa de José (José's house)
    • la casa de ellos (their house)

Exercise on possessives. Identify all the possible meanings of each of the following

1. Nuestros padres.
2. Es suyo.
3. Son suyos.
4. Mis hijos.
5. Tus coches. (A Latin American would say "tus carros.")
6. Vuestros amigos
7. Sus clases.
8. Su inteligencia.
9. La nuestra.
10. Los nuestros.

Click here for the answers.

Numbers

Notes on Numbers

• Most numbers do not have genders, even though they end in o.
  • Cuatro, cinco, ocho, and ciento are invariable, and refer to either male or female.
    • Cuatro hombres, cuatro mujeres. Cien gallos (roosters), cien gallinas (hens).
    • Son cuatro. ("They are four" or "there are four of them." One does not have the gender information one has with other adjectives, such as "Es nuevo," in which the item referred to must be masculine.)
  • Uno and numbers ending in uno, such as veintiuno, do have a female gender.
  • All ordinal numbers (first, second, etc.) have both gender and plurals: segundo, segunda, segundos, segundas, etc.
• The following numbers have alternate forms, whose meaning is identical.
  • Sixteen through nineteen (diez y seis, dieciséis and so on).
  • Twenty-one through twenty-nine (veintidós, veinte y dos, and so on).
• Some numbers lose a final vowel before a masculine singular noun (the same process as with bueno-buen):
  • uno > un (and all numbers ending in uno)
  • ciento > cien
  • primero > primer
  • tercero > tercer (and no other ordinal numbers. Según is an preposition meaning "according to," and not an abbreviation of "segundo.")
• In formal or so-called "flowery" language, ordinal numbers above "tenth" are sometimes found:
  • onceno, eleventh
  • doceno, twelfth (una docena, a dozen)
  • decimotercero, thirteenth
  • decimoquarto, fourteenth (and so on through nineteenth)
  • vigésimo, twentieth
  • vigésimosegundo, twenty-second
  • trigésimo, thirtieth
  • centésimo, hundredth
  • milésimo, thousandth
• Large numbers:
  • mil, dos mil, cien mil (a thousand, two thousand, a hundred thousand)
  • un millón (a million), dos millones (two million). "Un millón de pesos" - a million pesos. Millón is a noun, whereas the other numbers are adjectives. Therefore millón has a plural, whereas mil does not.
  • un billón (a trillion). U.S. students, note that a U.S. billion is "mil millones."
• Examples of long numbers:
  • mil setecientos setenta y seis (one thousand seven hundred seventy-six). Spanish does not use the English practice of spelling out dates by pairs, as in "seventeen seventy-six." However, phone numbers are typically spelled out in pairs: 523-62-63 cinco veintitrés-sesenta y dos-sesenta y tres.
  • trescientos un millones, quinientos diecisiete mil, quatrocientos dieciocho pesetas (301,517,418).
• Making numbers into nouns:
  • Dates. A masculine definite article makes a cardinal (ordinary) number into a date: el tres de septiembre, the third of September. Ordinals (second, third, tenth) are not used with days of the month, except that "the first of the month" is el primero.
  • Times. A feminine definite article makes a cardinal (ordinary) number into a time on the clock. (The feminine is because the word hora, hour, is feminine.)
    • La una. (One o'clock.) Es la una. It's one o'clock.
    • Las dos (Two o'clock.) Son las dos. It's two o'clock.
    • Las tres y cuarto. (Three-fifteen, a quarter past three.)
    • Las cuatro menos cuarto. (Three forty-five, a quarter to four.)
    • Las cinco y media. (Five-thirty, half past five.) Media is feminine because of the noun hour.
  • Fractions. Any article with an ordinal number creates a fraction.
    • Un quinto, tres quintos. (A fifth, three fifths.)
    • Un cuarto. (A quarter). In the example "Las tres y cuarto" just above, the "cuarto" is actually a noun meaning "a quarter (of an hour)."
  • Percent. "Por ciento" is a common construction meaning percent. "El quince por ciento," fifteen percent.

Lectura 5: La población de España, en los siglos dieciséis y veinte⁽¹⁾

Tras el destierro de ciento cincuenta mil judíos, la población de España en mil cuatrocientos noventa y dos oscilaba alrededor de los cinco millones de personas. Durante el siglo dieciséis, bajo los reyes Carlos Quinto y Felipe Segundo, la población crecía en un cuarenta por ciento. Pero un promedio de diez mil quinientas personas emigró cada año al Nuevo Mundo. La inmigración a España era muy limitada: menos de mil personas por año.

El "Nuevo Mundo" pronto fue dividido en nuevas provincias o virreinatos. Sus habitantes, después de cincuenta o cien años, llegaron a formar un nuevo grupo étnico, los criollos. Los criollos eran hijos de españoles varones e indias. Apenas hubo hijos de españolas e indios, porque emigraron pocas españolas.

En el año mil quinientos, a finales del siglo quince, había muchas lenguas en España. Correspondían a los variados grupos étnicos: judíos convertidos o "conversos," moros, castellanos, valencianos, gallegos y vascos. En el siglo dieciséis el castellano fue declarado la lengua nacional, la lengua no sólo castellana sino española.⁽²⁾ El uso del valenciano o catalán para textos escritos desapareció antes de acabar el siglo diecisiete. La población de Cataluña sólo crecía a una tasa de 0,3 por ciento.⁽³⁾ A finales del diecinueve,⁽⁴⁾ hubo un renacimiento de la lengua valenciana, ahora conocida como catalana. Durante el período del dictador Franco, desde mil novecientos treinta y nueve hasta mil novecientos setenta y cinco, fueron prohibidos los periódicos y las emisiones⁽⁵⁾ en catalán. Ahora, en mil novecientos noventa y ocho, al final del siglo veinte, hay un movimiento de reivindicación de las autonomías,⁽⁶⁾ de resurrección de todas las lenguas regionales.

En la actualidad hay más de cuarenta millones de españoles.

(Click here for the translation of this reading.

Notes on the Reading

1. Note that Spanish does not usually use the ordinal numbers. The "sixteenth" and "twentieth" centuries in English become the "sixteen" and "twenty" in Spanish.

2. Sólo with an accent means "only"; the accent distinguishes it from the homonym solo, "alone." Castellana = "Castilian," the language of Castile, the central region of Spain. No ... sino = "Not ... but rather."

3. Spanish, like most other European languages, uses the comma as a decimal point, and the period to separate groups of three numbers: 100.000. 111.222.333 1.995 colones (Costa Rican money). $19,95.

4. The word "siglo" is understood here. It is implied by the use of "en el siglo dieciséis" two sentences previously.

5. Broadcasts.

6. Spanish regions with limited political autonomy: Castilla y León, Andalucía, Cataluña, and others.

Answers to questions on possessives:

1. Our parents; our fathers.
2. It is his, hers, theirs, yours (polite singular or plural).
3. They are his, hers, theirs, yours (polite singular or plural).
4. My children; my sons.
5. Your (familiar singular) cars.
6. Your (familiar plural) friends.
7. His, her, their, your (polite singular or plural) classes.
8. His, her, their, your (polite singular or plural) intelligence.
9. Ours. (The information that what is ours is feminine singular cannot be expressed by an English possessive.)
10. Ours (The information that what is ours is masculine plural cannot be expressed by an English possessive).

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