# Icelandic: þín/þinn



## 盲人瞎馬

Hello,

Is there any difference between these two phrases?



> Hver drap manninn þinn?
> Hver drap manninn þín?



Do they mean the same thing or is one correct and the other one wrong?

Thanks.


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## Silver_Biscuit

There must be gender agreement between possessive pronoun and 'possessed noun', so yes, _manninn þín_ is wrong. It is also wrong because, even if _maður_ were a feminine noun, it is here in the accusative, so the correct form would be _þína_, not _þín_.


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## 盲人瞎馬

Silver_Biscuit said:


> There must be gender agreement between possessive pronoun and 'possessed noun', so yes, _manninn þín_ is wrong. It is also wrong because, even if _maður_ were a feminine noun, it is here in the accusative, so the correct form would be _þína_, not _þín_.



I don't think I explained correctly. You see, I'm confused about how the possessive pronouns work. There's, for example, the pronoun hann (he) whose genitive form is hans (his), but then there's also sinn, sín and sitt, which also mean "his". I just don't know their differences. How does one say "this is his car"? Þessi bíll er hans or þessi bill er sinn?


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## Silver_Biscuit

This is his car = Þetta er bíllinn hans.

For the differences between, e.g., hans and sinn, see this thread.


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## 盲人瞎馬

Silver_Biscuit said:


> This is his car = Þetta er bíllinn hans.
> 
> For the differences between, e.g., hans and sinn, see this thread.



Okay, I'll take a look, but why þetta? Isn't bíll a male noun?


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## Silver_Biscuit

You could also say 'hann á þennan bíl', which would mean the same thing. You could also start a sentence with 'þessi bíll' - that would be correct. But at the beginning of a sentence like this, 'þetta' bears no relation to the gender of whatever you're talking about (neither does 'það' in a comparable construction).  Alex can explain this better.


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## 盲人瞎馬

Silver_Biscuit said:


> You could also say 'hann á þennan bíl', which would mean the same thing. You could also start a sentence with 'þessi bíll' - that would be correct. But at the beginning of a sentence like this, 'þetta' bears no relation to the gender of whatever you're talking about (neither does 'það' in a comparable construction).  Alex can explain this better.



I've read the thread you linked and I don't really understand how the sinn, sín and sitt thing. My question is, is it possible to not use them and use only the simplified versions (hans, mín, etc)? Can the simplified possessive pronouns replace the more complicated ones in all situations (i.e. leave them unused)?


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## Silver_Biscuit

It's got nothing to do with one being 'simpler' than the other. They mean different things, and no, using them correctly is not optional. It's a distinction that English does not make, but these words basically remove ambiguity about who exactly the possessive pronoun refers to. Here's a quotation from me from an earlier thread:



> Someone once gave me an example which helped me remember the distinction  really well - I don't remember exactly what they said but it was  something like:
> 
> Jón var heima hjá Sigurði og kyssti kærustuna sína. (Jón kissed his own girlfriend)
> Jón var heima hjá Sigurði og kyssti kærustuna hans. (Jón kissed Sigurður's girlfriend)
> 
> In English: Jón was at Sigurður's house and kissed his girlfriend - you  see here we have complete ambiguity, we don't know whether 'his' refers  to Jón or Sigurður. To make it clear you'd have to rewrite the  sentence, but in Icelandic the pronoun does the job for you.



_Sinn_ is only relevant when an action of some sort is being performed. You do not have to consider it for a sentence like "This is his car".


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## 盲人瞎馬

Silver_Biscuit said:


> It's got nothing to do with one being 'simpler' than the other. They mean different things, and no, using them correctly is not optional. It's a distinction that English does not make, but these words basically remove ambiguity about who exactly the possessive pronoun refers to. Here's a quotation from me from an earlier thread:
> 
> 
> 
> _Sinn_ is only relevant when an action of some sort is being performed. You do not have to consider it for a sentence like "This is his car".



Can one say that the more "complicated" (due to lack of the correct term) possessive pronouns are only used when the sentence has more than one subject or people?


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## Silver_Biscuit

Vitalore said:


> Can one say that the more "complicated" (due to lack of the correct term) possessive pronouns are only used when the sentence has more than one subject or people?



No.

E.g. "Jón kyssti kærustuna hans" can _never_ mean that Jón is kissing his own girlfriend. It is always another man's girlfriend (or theoretically another 'masculine noun's' girlfriend, e.g. theoretically it could be a horse's girlfriend, but she definitely isn't Jón's girlfriend).


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## 盲人瞎馬

Silver_Biscuit said:


> No.


Uh, can you think of another phrase then? One that uses these pronouns and only has one subject? I'm trying to find a pattern here.


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## Silver_Biscuit

Yep I edited it, see previous comment.


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## Alxmrphi

I think the best way to approach this is really by taking the whole bigger picture and first noting that there are genitive pronouns (mín, þín, hans, hennar, þess, okkar, ykkar etc.) and then being able to think that they all work in a way that I think you're already familiar with. Now, with that in mind, look at the first two options in that list and just cross them out. They are replaced with a set of possessive adjectives that have to agree in gender and number with the noun they are associated with. So, before this "tweak" to the rules, you could have easily imagined *_bílinn mín_, but that's not actually correct (because as I said, mín = [whole set of possessive adjectives] and þín = [whole set of possessive adjectives], where the unmarked form is _minn_ and _þinn_ respectively. So, there is a special case for the first person singular and the second person singular, but all the rest work as just an invariant form. If you want to stop here, then I'd totally understand that. You should be familiar with the idea of this agreement because Portuguese has exactly the same thing (meu = _minn_, minha = _mín_, minhas = _mínar _etc.) except you factor in there are different case forms, too, in Icelandic. If you want to know about _sinn_, then read the next paragraph.

After taking a broad view of how possession marking works (invariant possessive pronouns) and then making that little addition to the notes saying that for mín and þín there is actually a full paradigm of possessive adjectives (minn and þinn) which replaces using mín and þín like the other possessive pronouns, it's easier to add in a further tweak to the notes on reflexive possessive forms. There are cases where you can be ambiguous between two possible referents, like in the example SB gave earlier with the "Jón kyssti kærustuna hans/sína." With English, you just say 'his' and it could be referring back to the subject, but it also could mean someone else. When this ambiguity comes into play, there is a clear way you must encode this in Icelandic and it's through the reflexive pronoun _sinn_ (which follows exactly the same declensional pattern as minn/þinn). When there is no ambiguity, there is no reason to use it so you can have:

Þetta er bíllinn hans <--- no ambiguity; must refer back to subject
Hann þvoði bílinn hans/sínum <--- ambiguity; he either washed his own car or someone else's car

As you can see, it's usually when the thing possessed is the object of a verb that this optionality arises. There are whole papers full of examples that can make learners tear their hair out about what cases require sinn and what require hann/hans, but at this stage that is more than enough information to digest now. An example of the complexity is:

Ég taldi Harald góðan við börn *sín* (*not* *_hans_)

but...

Ég skrifaði Haraldi um ritgerðina *hans *(*not **_sína_)

It's precisely this sort of thing where Icelandic gets its reputation for being annoyingly complex, because a few aspects of the grammar are so hard to get the right 'feeling' for. But you could easily speak almost natively and not fall into trouble by occasionally picking the wrong one. This is the type of issue that give linguists jobs and projects to work on, because it's so unsettled and can be variable across people. 

If you're familiar with Italian at all,_ sinn _can be thought of like the word _proprio_. There are two ways you can say his/her/its own as shown in the following two examples:

Maria ha venduto il suo/proprio libro <- Maria sold her book; No chance for ambiguity so both are possible, suo is the default / most natural choice

Maria ha incontrato Silvia e ha parlato del suo nipote. <- Maria met Silvia and spoke about her nephew
Maria ha incontrato Silvia e ha parlato del proprio nipote. <- Maria met Silvia and spoke about her nephew

As you can see in the last two examples, the English is ambiguous and this is where the reference is implied by the choice of possessive word form. When you have this ambiguity, suo is generally interpreted to mean the most recent person in the clause, where Maria met Silvia and spoke about her (Silvia's) nephew, whereas proprio is strictly referenced to the subject only and can only mean Maria's nephew was being spoken about. A few languages have this kind of thing. I tried to look for some examples in Portuguese but I don't know the language so I had to give up and thought I'd use the Italian example instead. 

Hopefully I haven't confused you. This is a very tricky topic for a learner. Silver_Biscuit really did explain it pretty well in terms that are necessary to know at a beginner stage of learning the language, so listen to what she said if my post was too much all over the place.


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## Silver_Biscuit

Alex, I think you would make a much better teacher than me! In my defence, I was at work and not really supposed to be checking WR so often, or at all... 

I think the Haraldur sentences are pretty obvious once you've got a feel for it (although clearly unfathomable beforehand!), because in the second one Haraldur is not doing anything to his essay (while in the first one he is 'being nice to his children'). At least, that's how I understand the difference. Could we say that _sinn_ is used when an action is performed on an object in the grammatical (sometimes literal) possession of the one performing the action? That's always how I've thought of it but I'm not 100% sure if it's a completely consistent rule.


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## Alxmrphi

> Could we say that sinn is used when an action is performed on an object in the grammatical (sometimes literal) possession of the one performing the action? That's always how I've thought of it but I'm not 100% sure if it's a completely consistent rule.


It could very well be the case, I honestly don't know. This is a part of the grammar where I feel intensely uncomfortable on going by my own instinct. It's on my list of things to go and purposely research and now I'll be taking another syntax course this semester, it's probably best to do it then.  I hadn't thought about that rationale but yeah, it seems like something that could play a part. It's a better working hypothesis than the one I have now (nothing) so will try and see how it pans out with more info.


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## myšlenka

Silver_Biscuit said:


> Could we say that _sinn_ is used when an action is performed on an object in the grammatical (sometimes literal) possession of the one performing the action? That's always how I've thought of it but I'm not 100% sure if it's a completely consistent rule.


 If you want a syntactic explanation: _sinn_ is a 3rd person reflexive possessive that gets its reference from the subject of the clause, i.e. _sinn _can never be part of the subject. Whether the subject is performing anything on the (in)direct object or not is not really relevant.


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## 盲人瞎馬

Alxmrphi said:


> I think the best way to approach this is really by taking the whole bigger picture and first noting that there are genitive pronouns (mín, þín, hans, hennar, þess, okkar, ykkar etc.) and then being able to think that they all work in a way that I think you're already familiar with. Now, with that in mind, look at the first two options in that list and just cross them out. They are replaced with a set of possessive adjectives that have to agree in gender and number with the noun they are associated with. So, before this "tweak" to the rules, you could have easily imagined *_bílinn mín_, but that's not actually correct (because as I said, mín = [whole set of possessive adjectives] and þín = [whole set of possessive adjectives], where the unmarked form is _minn_ and _þinn_ respectively. So, there is a special case for the first person singular and the second person singular, but all the rest work as just an invariant form. If you want to stop here, then I'd totally understand that. You should be familiar with the idea of this agreement because Portuguese has exactly the same thing (meu = _minn_, minha = _mín_, minhas = _mínar _etc.) except you factor in there are different case forms, too, in Icelandic. If you want to know about _sinn_, then read the next paragraph.



I am fairly familiar with the whole gender, degree and number agreement rule. My purpose now is to understand when to use genitive pronouns and when to use possessive adjectives. You see, Silver_Biscuit's explanation did enlighten me a little. Now I know that the possessive adjectives are for preventing ambiguity. I get that. The thing is, I believe that there can only be ambiguity, in this case, if there is more than one person in the phrase. If there is only one subject in the phrase, then the genitive pronouns should be used. If theres two, in order to prevent ambiguity, the possessive adjectives should be used. The problem here is that possessive adjectives are used even if theres only one subject in the phrase. That's the part I don't understand. If possessive adjectives are for ambiguity-preventing purposes, why use it a phrase that has no ambiguity whatsoever? I want to know if theres a pattern or a rule to when use which, because it's obviously not 100% about ambiguity. Is it a personal style thing? Some Icelanders use possessive adjectives just because it's the way they speak?



> Ég taldi Harald góðan við börn *sín* (*not* *_hans_)
> 
> but...
> 
> Ég skrifaði Haraldi um ritgerðina *hans *(*not **_sína_)



"As you can see, it's usually when the thing possessed is the object of a verb that this optionality arises." But in the first phrase the object is Harald, not börn. Tell me, what would the sentence mean or how different would it be if you had written hans instead of sín? There's no ambiguity there to prevent to begin with.



> It's precisely this sort of thing where Icelandic gets its reputation for being annoyingly complex, because a few aspects of the grammar are so hard to get the right 'feeling' for. But you could easily speak almost natively and not fall into trouble by occasionally picking the wrong one. This is the type of issue that give linguists jobs and projects to work on, because it's so unsettled and can be variable across people.
> 
> If you're familiar with Italian at all,_ sinn _can be thought of like the word _proprio_. There are two ways you can say his/her/its own as shown in the following two examples:
> 
> Maria ha venduto il suo/proprio libro <- Maria sold her book; No chance for ambiguity so both are possible, suo is the default / most natural choice
> 
> Maria ha incontrato Silvia e ha parlato del suo nipote. <- Maria met Silvia and spoke about her nephew
> Maria ha incontrato Silvia e ha parlato del proprio nipote. <- Maria met Silvia and spoke about her nephew
> 
> As you can see in the last two examples, the English is ambiguous and this is where the reference is implied by the choice of possessive word form. When you have this ambiguity, suo is generally interpreted to mean the most recent person in the clause, where Maria met Silvia and spoke about her (Silvia's) nephew, whereas proprio is strictly referenced to the subject only and can only mean Maria's nephew was being spoken about. A few languages have this kind of thing. I tried to look for some examples in Portuguese but I don't know the language so I had to give up and thought I'd use the Italian example instead.
> 
> Hopefully I haven't confused you. This is a very tricky topic for a learner. Silver_Biscuit really did explain it pretty well in terms that are necessary to know at a beginner stage of learning the language, so listen to what she said if my post was too much all over the place.



Thanks. We use the word próprio too and it's fairly clear for me its use. The problem now is WHEN to use it.


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## Silver_Biscuit

Vitalore said:


> If possessive adjectives are for ambiguity-preventing purposes, why use it a phrase that has no ambiguity whatsoever? I want to know if theres a pattern or a rule to when use which, because it's obviously not 100% about ambiguity. Is it a personal style thing? Some Icelanders use possessive adjectives just because it's the way they speak?
> [...]
> But in the first phrase the object is Harald, not börn. Tell me, what would the sentence mean or how different would it be if you had written hans instead of sín? There's no ambiguity there to prevent to begin with.



No, really, you must believe me when I say that using _sinn_ correctly is not optional, it's got nothing to do with style or personal preference, it literally changes the meaning of what you were saying. If you said that Haraldur was nice to "börnin hans" these children *are not* Haraldur's children. The pronoun has ruled that out - they absolutely *must* be someone else's children. If there is absolutely no other context, the response would be,"Ha, whose children is he nice to?"

They are not 'for' preventing ambiguity - I regret saying that because it seems to have muddled you, they are helpful for avoiding ambiguity but it is not their 'purpose', per se, and they must be used correctly in all appropriate instances. All Icelanders use them correctly, because it is the way the language works. There is absolutely a rule!

Cf. what I said before: "Jón kyssti kærustuna hans" can _never_ mean that Jón is kissing  his own girlfriend. It is always another man's girlfriend (or  theoretically another 'masculine noun's' girlfriend, e.g. theoretically  it could be a horse's girlfriend, but she definitely isn't Jón's  girlfriend).


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## 盲人瞎馬

Silver_Biscuit said:


> If you said that Haraldur was nice to "börnin hans" these children *are not* Haraldur's children. The pronoun has ruled that out - they absolutely *must* be someone else's children. If there is absolutely no other context, the response would be,"Ha, whose children is he nice to?



Okay, I understand. Let's just slow down. I think we're getting somewhere. This message of yours brings me to your second post in this thread. I got two phrases here as an example:



> Þetta er bíllinn hans.
> Ég taldi Harald góðan við börn sín.



I'm failing to see the difference between these two and why the first one requires a possessive pronoun and the second one a possessive adjective. Is it because the first one uses the verb to be and the second one uses a different verb? For all it's worth, based on how I (wrongly) understand it, one could very well use the possessive adjective right there in the first sentence in the place of hans.

Wait, as I'm writing this I think I've had an epiphany. In the second phrase there (Harald's), could it be that the possessive adjective (sín) is being used because Harald is being mentioned? If the first phrase (bíllinn) begun with "Þetta er Jón og... (þetta er bíllinn hans) it would be wrong, because there's no connection between hans and Jón? So in that case, it should be sitt (or whichever is the correct one) instead of hans, so the connection between Jón, his car and the possessive adjective is made?

Tell me if my epiphany falls short:
If there's a need to use a word that implies possession in a phrase which contains a subject, then the possessive adjective must be used (Þetta er Jón og þetta er bíllinn sín (pardon me if I'm using the wrong one in this phrase)) so that the connection between what's being possessed and the possesser is made unambiguously. If the phrase doesn't contain any subject (Þetta er bíllinn hans) then the possessive pronoun is to be used.

Is this the rule that governs these two or am I misfiring again?


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## Silver_Biscuit

Although myslenka disagrees with me, I'm still going to attempt to  explain it like this, because this is how it makes sense to me. I think  we are definitely getting somewhere!

"Þetta er Jón og þetta er bíllinn hans" is still correct because (as I understand it!) Jón _is not doing anything to the car_. The word *reflexive*  from myslenka's post is key here (where I don't personally  understand that post is how reflexivity can even exist without some sort  of action). The verb _to be_ does not entail any sort of action, so it is not relevant to the hans/sinn distinction.

The fact that Haraldur is mentioned in the sentence "Ég taldi Harald góðan við börn sín" is definitely relevant, though! Although I suppose without him there, it wouldn't really make any sense, so perhaps ignore that whole factor.


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## 盲人瞎馬

Silver_Biscuit said:


> Although myslenka disagrees with me, I'm still going to attempt to  explain it like this, because this is how it makes sense to me. I think  we are definitely getting somewhere!
> 
> "Þetta er Jón og þetta er bíllinn hans" is still correct because (as I understand it!) Jón _is not doing anything to the car_. The word *reflexive*  from myslenka's post is key here (where I don't personally  understand that post is how reflexivity can even exist without some sort  of action). The verb _to be_ does not entail any sort of action, so it is not relevant to the hans/sinn distinction.
> 
> The fact that Haraldur is mentioned in the sentence "Ég taldi Harald góðan við börn sín" is definitely relevant, though! Although I suppose without him there, it wouldn't really make any sense, so perhaps ignore that whole factor.



What is the difference between "Þetta er Jón og þetta er bíllinn hans" and "Ég taldi Harald góðan við börn sín" in your opinion? Both have a person (Jón and Harald), both have something to be possessed (bíl and barn) but yet only one of them must use the possessive adjective? I think if you don't see anything wrong in saying "Þetta er Jón og þetta er bíllinn *hans*", you might as well say "Ég taldi Harald góðan við börn *hans*" too.



> is still correct because (as I understand it!) Jón _is not doing anything to the car
> _The verb _to be_ does not entail any sort of action



For a second you thought the same thing as I did and then disregarded it. When you say "Jón _is not doing anything to the car" _you probably mean that vera isn't a verb as impacting as telja. Maybe because vera is intransitive and telja is transitive? You did think something similar to what I did.


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## Alxmrphi

> What is the difference between "Þetta er Jón og þetta er bíllinn hans" and "Ég taldi Harald góðan við börn sín" in your opinion? Both have a person (Jón and Harald), both have something to be possessed (bíl and barn) but yet only one of them must use the possessive adjective?


Ambiguity again.

_I thought Harald was good to his kids_.

_*Harald's*_ kids? *Someone else's* kids? It allows for multiple interpretations, so the reflexive one must be used to show it is Harald's kids, which, as SB said, is a rule. No sort of ambiguity in the other example. The reflexive only comes into play when there is some sort of action/verb that the object _reflects _back onto. Without that, you wouldn't use it.


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## Silver_Biscuit

Hmm no no, _telja_ is not relevant here (this verb is only between 'ég' and 'Haraldur', the children are not involved). The important thing is that Haraldur is 'góður við börn sín'. The verb here is admittedly _að vera_ (although it is implied rather than stated outright), but _við_ means that Haraldur is _doing something_ to the children (being nice to them). This is how I see it.

I don't think we are thinking the same way about this at all! I had trouble learning this way back when, so I certainly sympathise, but I'm confident I've got it now  As I said, the example that really make it 'click' for me was "Jón var heima hjá Sigurði og kyssti kærustuna hans/sína", but clearly this has not 'clicked' for you so I'm not certain what to suggest. I'm sorry, I'm not that good at explaining things, although I do my best!


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## 盲人瞎馬

Alxmrphi said:


> Ambiguity again.
> 
> _I thought Harald was good to his kids_.
> 
> _*Harald's*_ kids? *Someone else's* kids? It allows for multiple interpretations, so the reflexive one must be used to show it is Harald's kids, which, as SB said, is a rule. No sort of ambiguity in the other example. The reflexive only comes into play when there is some sort of action/verb that the object _reflects _back onto.



So it must be a verb thing. Vera might the exception. What if Jón's example was "Þetta er Jón og hann hefur byggt bíllinn hans"? Is this phrase ambiguous due to hans in your opinion?


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## myšlenka

Vitalore said:


> What is the difference between "Þetta er Jón og þetta er bíllinn hans" and "Ég taldi Harald góðan við börn sín" in your opinion?


To elaborate more on the explanation I already gave. _Sinn_ is a reflexive possessive that can have several different meanings (his, her, their) but it cannot refer to anything on its own. In other words, it is entirely dependent on getting its reference from another element. The requirement in Icelandic is that this element is the subject in the clause. If there is no subject (or the subject doesn't match the 3rd person properties of _sinn_), any use of _sinn_ is illicit.

 In your first example "Þetta er Jón og þetta er bíllinn hans", we have two different clauses that have been conjoined: [Þetta er Jón] and [þetta er bíllinn hans]. The former is unproblematic, while the latter seems to be the one you don't understand. In this case you have to use _hans_ because the subject _þetta_ is not able to provide a reference for the reflexive possessive _sinn_. The name _Jón_ has been mentioned earlier in the sentence and could provide the reference needed, but it is part of a different clause.

In your second example "Ég taldi Harald góðan við börn sín", we also have two clauses: [Ég taldi + [object]] and [Harald góðan við börn sín] where the latter clause lacks a verb but _vera_ is implied. In this case, the use of _sinn_ is licit because the clause has a subject, Harald, that binds the reference of _sinn_ so that the meaning is Harald's own children. It would also be grammatical to use _hans _here but with a different meaning. In that case, it would be someone else's children.

The crucial point is that _sinn_ gets it reference from inside the clause (the subject) while the reference of _hans_ is located outside the clause.


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## Silver_Biscuit

Vitalore said:


> So it must be a verb thing. Vera might the exception. What if Jón's example was "Þetta er Jón og hann hefur byggt bíllinn hans"? Is this phrase ambiguous due to hans in your opinion?



If it were in English it would be ambiguous! Here in Icelandic, it is not ambiguous. This is Jón and he has built *his* car, _where *his* refers to *someone who is not Jón*_. Do you see?

As an aside, I don't think _byggja_ is an appropriate verb in that context, but let's not worry about that just now!


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## 盲人瞎馬

myšlenka said:


> The requirement in Icelandic is that this element is the subject in the clause. If there is no subject (or the subject doesn't match the 3rd person properties of _sinn_), any use of _sinn_ is illicit.


That's basically what I said last page.



> In your first example "Þetta er Jón og þetta er bíllinn hans", we have two different clauses that have been conjoined: [Þetta er Jón] and [þetta er bíllinn hans]. The former is unproblematic, while the latter seems to be the one you don't understand. In this case you have to use _hans_ because the subject _þetta_ is not able to provide a reference for the reflexive possessive _sinn_. The name _Jón_ has been mentioned earlier in the sentence and could provide the reference needed, but it is part of a different clause.
> 
> In your second example "Ég taldi Harald góðan við börn sín", we also have two clauses: [Ég taldi + [object]] and [Harald góðan við börn sín] where the latter clause lacks a verb but _vera_ is implied. In this case, the use of _sinn_ is licit because the clause has a subject, Harald, that binds the reference of _sinn_ so that the meaning is Harald's own children. It would also be grammatical to use _hans _here but with a different meaning. In that case, it would be someone else's children.
> 
> The crucial point is that _sinn_ gets it reference from inside the clause (the subject) while the reference of _hans_ is located outside the clause.


I will keep the clause thing in mind. Didn't think of it. Thanks.



Silver_Biscuit said:


> This is Jón and he has built *his* car, _where *his* refers to *someone who is not Jón*_. Do you see?



That's what I meanT to demonstrate. You understand my point. In the phrase "Þetta er Jón og hann hefur byggt bíllinn hans" you gotta use the possessive adjective, because hans means someone else. The point here is that I'm using a verb that isn't að vera. "Þetta er Jón og þetta er bíllinn hans" is grammatically correct and contains the verb vera, but if we remove it and do some tweaks (like adding the verb að byggja), you'll have to use the possessive adjective in order to prevent ambiguity. My point is that if the phrase only contains að vera (Þetta er Jón og þetta er bíllinn hans), it will in theory not require a possessive adjective. Do you understand?


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## myšlenka

Silver_Biscuit said:


> The word *reflexive*  from myslenka's post is key here (where I don't personally  understand that post is how reflexivity can even exist without some sort  of action). The verb _to be_ does not entail any sort of action, so it is not relevant to the hans/sinn distinction.


I don't speak Icelandic, but I believe it would be ok to say "fólk heldur að hann er bróðir sinn".


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## Silver_Biscuit

myšlenka said:


> I don't speak Icelandic, but I believe it would be ok to say "fólk heldur að hann [sé] bróðir sinn".



Hm this puzzled me, but I do believe that you are right... Found another example anyway which doesn't involve an action (Jón er svipaður mömmu sinni)! So you are quite right about the general rule. I know how to use the language but often I am quite bad at explaining 'rules'!


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## NoMoreMrIceGuy

Small nitpick.



Alxmrphi said:


> Hann þvoði bílinn hans/sínum ---> sinn



You could say:
Hann þvoði bílnum sínum

But that feels like you are personifying the car and that sounds weird.


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## Alxmrphi

NoMoreMrIceGuy said:


> Small nitpick.
> 
> 
> 
> You could say:
> Hann þvoði bílnum sínum
> 
> But that feels like you are personifying the car and that sounds weird.



Ahh, thanks. My original example was with_ stela_, you see. Then I realised you can't really show ambiguity there because one can't steal one's own car so I changed the verb to þvo, then went back and changed_ bílnum _to _bílinn_...but forgot to change_ sínum_ to_ sinn_! Takk


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