Just as in English, Talossan has three ways of expressing ownership.
Possessive Adjectives
Here are Talossan’s possessive adjectives, which always precede the noun (just as in English). Notice also that when a possessive adjective is used, the noun should not be accompanied by an article.
- va (= my)
- tu (= your)
- sieu (= his, her, or its)
- ça (= its)
- ár and noastra (= our)
- voastra (= your, referring to a plural owner [“you guys’s”])
- lor (= their)
These adjectives are all invariable for gender.
Other than ár, all of these adjectives have plural forms (vaes, tuns, sieux, ça’ns, noschtri, voschtri, and lors), but it is actually very common to see the singular form used in place of the plural, other than noschtri and voschtri, which must be used. For example, both va vexhetal (= my vegetable) and va vexhetais (= my vegetables) are considered proper, although vaes vexhetais is also sometimes seen. However, noastra vexhetais would be improper; this must be noschtri vexhetais (= our vegetables).
The adjective va is the only one of these that elides, meaning that it loses its letter a and gets contracted to any following noun which begins with a vowel. For example, v’aic (= my horse).
Possessive Pronouns
Talossan’s possessive pronouns are listed below:
- el méu (= mine). This has the plural form els méux.
- el tu (= yours). This has the plural form els tuns.
- el síeu (= his or hers). This has the plural form els síeux.
- el ça’n (= its). This has the plural form els ça’ns.
- el noastra (= ours). This has the plural form els noschtri.
- el voastra (= yours [referring to a plural owner]). This has the plural form els voschtri.
- el lor (= theirs). This has the plural form els lors.
For example, el criedit fost estarh el noastra (= the credit should be ours), and acestilor sint els lors (= those are theirs).
When used of owned nouns that are feminine in grammatical gender, in most cases these same words are retained, simply with the change of article (that is, la noastra, las voschtri, las tuns, etc.). However, in four cases, the pronoun (as well as the article) changes as shown below (in some cases to a word exhibiting consonant mutation) when referring to an owned-noun that has feminine gender:
- la mhía and las mías (= mine); recall that mhía is pronounced as the English “VEE-uh”,
- la thu (= yours); recall that thu is pronounced as the English “hoo”,
- la tsía and las sías (= his or hers); recall that tsía is pronounced as the English “TEE-uh”, and
- la lhor (= theirs), with the lh pronounced like the “th” in the English word “father”.
For example, la querela fost estarh la mhía (= the blame should be mine), and va casa c’e la thu (= my house [it] is yours).
The Genitive Mark
The final way to indicate ownership in Talossan is known as the “genitive mark”. This is very similar to how English uses the apostrophe-s in phrases like “John’s house” and “my sister’s hair”.
In Talossan, the genitive mark is a word, sè, which goes in between the owning noun and the owned noun. For example, Ian sè casa (= John’s house) and va soror sè caveglhen (= my sister’s hair[s]).
When the owned noun begins with a vowel, then sè elides with it, losing its letter e. For example, Ian s’uglhen (= John’s eyes) and va soror s’atitüd (= my sister’s attitude). So you see what is “apostrophe-s” in English is often “s-apostrophe” in Talossan.