# The book is mine. / Le livre est à moi.



## Boljon

In Latin, if I want to say "The book is mine.", can I say:
1 Carta est mei (like in English "The book is mine." using the Genitive), or
2 Carta est mihi (like in French "Le livre est à moi." using the Dative)?

Thank you!


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## Forero

Carta est mea. (Like Spanish "La carta es mía.")
Liber est meus. ("El libro es mío.")

Interestingly, there is a Christian inscription from Gaul (before 700 C.E.) that reads "menbra ad duus fratres", Vulgar Latin I suppose, for the classical "membra duorum fratrum".  

Source: _The Story of Latin and the Romance Languages_, by Mario Pei, 1976.


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## laurent568

Normally you should say : "Mihi est liber" (or "Carta est mihi"). Dative is normally used to express possession. But, well, I have to admit that I would translate then this phrase : "I have a book". Perhaps you should add a demonstrative ("hic liber ...").
Genitive seems to be strange, but I can't say if it's false or not...

-
Normalement, on dirait : "Mihi est liber" (ou "Carta est mihi"). On emploie normalement le datif pour exprimer la possession. Mais il est vrai que, du latin au français, je traduirais plutôt cette phrase par : "J'ai un livre". Il faudrait peut-être ajouter un démonstratif ("hic liber")...
Le génitif me parait bizarre, mais je ne sais pas pour autant s'il serait faux de l'employer...


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## Anne345

On peut effectivement utiliser le génitif pour exprimer la possession. L'exemple  type est : _Haec domus est patris (mei)_  Cette maison est celle de mon père


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## Flaminius

Bienvenu dans les WR fora, *laurent568*!  



> But, well, I have to admit that I would translate then this phrase : "I have a book". Perhaps you should add a demonstrative ("hic liber ...").


Correctly me if I am wrong but I have been thinking "dative + _est_" construction is limited for indefinite objects, thus _hic liber mihi est_ strikes me as odd.


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## Boljon

Thank you so much for the help of you all!


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## laurent568

Flaminius said:


> Bienvenu dans les WR fora, *laurent568*!
> 
> Correctly me if I am wrong but I have been thinking "dative + _est_" construction is limited for indefinite objects, thus _hic liber mihi est_ strikes me as odd.



Merci pour ton gentil mot, Flaminius ;-)

FR - Hum... tu me poses une colle. Dans ma grammaire de latin, il n'y a pas de précisions sur l'emploi de la forme "datif + _est_". Je vais essayer de vérifier dans une plus grande grammaire.

EN - Well... you're setting me a real poser. In my latin grammar book, I see no more precisions on the construction "dative + est". I'll try to look for more information in anoter grammar.


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## Hulalessar

According to my copy of _Kennedy's Revised Latin Primer_:

*The Dative of the Possessor,* with esse, is used when emphasis is placed on the the thing possessed, not on the possessor:

Est mihi plenus Albani cadus (Horace)

I agree the Genitive looks very odd; as odd as saying in English _the book of me_ or in French _le livre de moi_.

If you want to write in a book "This is my book" you could write _ex libris meis._


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## judkinsc

The dative of possession occurs in Latin, but it's not as common as a simple possessive adjective (_meus gladius_ = my sword). I was actually surprised to learn about it when I first started Greek (which has a common dative of possession) and Crosby & Schaeffer (An Introduction to Greek, Allyn and Bacon, 1928) gave the Latin (in traditional style, assuming that anyone studying Greek already knew Latin (although they were right, I did...)) "Puero est gladius" as a comparison for the dat. of poss. in Greek.

Here's their note, section 32 "Dative of Possession: In English we say _There is no lid to the box_. The Latin says _Puero est gladius_, _the boy has a sword_. So in Greek the dative is used to denote the _possessor_, while the thing possessed is subject of the verb _to be_: [Greek phrase, lit. "the market was not to the army" meaning ] _the army had no market_."


There you go. Quite a normal construction, if a little rare. Possessed object is the subject.


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## jazyk

> Carta est mea. (Like Spanish "La carta es mía.")


If you said _Cartea este a mea_, it would be Romanian.


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## judkinsc

I suppose I should mention that the usual way of saying it is just "carta mea est". 

Perhaps I should have said that...

Forero gave a similar version though.


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