My, your, his: possessive adjectives
Say my, your, his, her, our and their. The possessive takes the form that agrees with the class of the noun.
After this unit
Say my, your, his, her, our and their with a noun, using the form that agrees with the class of that noun.
The noun decides the form, the owner decides the column
Chatelain explains that each possessive is the class marker from the unit on possession, joined to a personal pronoun. This is why a possessive agrees with the noun in the same way as the word for "of". The class of the noun that is owned picks the row of the table. The owner picks the column.
How to use it
- Find the class of the noun that is owned.
- Go to the row for that class in the table below.
- Choose the column for the owner: my, your, his or her, our, your (several people) or their.
- Say the noun, then the possessive.
You should now have a phrase like the six below. They are Chatelain's own, for a noun of class 1 with each of the six owners.
The possessive for each class
Each row is a class, and each column is an owner. Every form is from Chatelain's paradigms. Scroll sideways on a small screen.
| Class | my | your (one person) | his, her | our | your (several people) | their |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (I) | wami | we | we | wetu | wenu | wa |
| 2 (I) | ami | e | e | etu | enu | a |
| 3 (II) | wami | we | we | wetu | wenu | wa |
| 4 (II) | yami | ye | ye | yetu | yenu | ya |
| 5 (IV) | diami | die | die | dietu | dienu | dia |
| 6 (IV) | mami | me | me | metu | menu | ma |
| 7 (III) | kyami | kye | kye | kyetu | kyenu | kya |
| 8 (III) | yami | ye | ye | yetu | yenu | ya |
| 9 (IX) | yami | ye | ye | yetu | yenu | ya |
| 10 (IX) | jami | je | je | jetu | jenu | ja |
| 11 (VI) | lwami | lwe | lwe | lwetu | lwenu | lwa |
| 12 (X) | kami | ke | ke | ketu | kenu | ka |
| 13 (X) | twami | twe | twe | twetu | twenu | twa |
| 14 (V) | wami | we | we | wetu | wenu | wa |
| 15 (VIII) | kwami | kwe | kwe | kwetu | kwenu | kwa |
Points to watch
- The columns for "your" (one person) and "his, her" are identical in every class. The two forms differ only in tone, Chatelain marks them with different accents, and the standard spelling writes no tone. The context tells you which one is meant. The dictionary keeps them as two entries and shows the tone marks on its own pages.
- In classes 6, 10 and 12 the vowel of the prefix drops before the possessive. For example, in class 6 ma and enu join as menu.
- In class 1, Chatelain prints a short form as well, without the u of the prefix. These are the forms in the class 2 row. He notes that some class 1 nouns prefer the short form, which are the relative nouns from the unit on possession.
- In classes 1, 3 and 14 the form for "their" is wa, the same marker as the word for "of" in those classes.
- The dictionary still lists some of these forms under the older spellings, with ue, ie, kie, lue, kue, ua, ia and kia. The modern forms we, ye, kye, lwe, kwe, wa, ya and kya are written here without a link.
Earlier in this stage
Where this comes from
- Chatelain, Grammatica elementar do Kimbundu (Loanda, 1889), printed pages 10 and 15 to 18 — the possessive adjectives in every class; every form is his, respelled
- The 1940s Kimbundu–Portuguese dictionary this site is built from — every dictionary word