Possessive Adjectives and Pronouns

In my book on spanish grammar in listing the possessive adjectives and pronouns, for "your" it has in brackets for example: Sing. Plural tu tus your (=de ti) su sus his, her, its, your (=de usted) and similarly for the poss. pronouns. It does not explain how one uses this. Is this an alternative to tu or su, or should one use it instead for "yours"? Alan

In Spanish, the possessive pronoun agrees in number with the object(s) being possessed. For instance: Eso es tu carro? (Is that your car?) Esos son tus carros? (Are those your cars?) Eso es su lapiz. (That is his pencil) Esos son sus lapices. (Those are his pencils)

Thanks, but perhaps I did not make my question clear. It is the "de ti" in brackets I am concerned with. Is that what I use? Alan

Oh okay, In this case, the ti and usted in "de ti" and "de usted" are prepositional pronouns, because they follow the preposition "de" which means "of, from." The only pronouns that change when following prepositions are for Yo(mi) and Tu(ti). The rest stay the same. Now, as for the use in what you mentioned, the person was saying that when speaking of the second person possesive pronouns, tu and tus is used when referring to a person that you woud address informally, therefore tu and tus are "from ti" (de ti). When addressing someone formally, you would use su or sus "from usted" (de usted). Does that help?

Still not completely clear. To say "your car is dirty", do I say " Tu coche estás limpio". Or "El coche de ti estás limpio", or BOTH? Similarly, "Su coche está limpio" OR El coche de usted está limpio" Alan

I could be way off base here, but I've never seen "de tí" used to mean "your." My guess is that the grammar book is explaining that "your (familiar)" means "of you (familiar)." I can't imagine why it would put it that way, though. That seems more confusing than helpful. Basically, then, I'm agreeing with taalibeen, though I think he did a much better job than your grammar book. Perhaps you should get a new book! :D

Tu coche *está* limpio - the verb agrees with the owned object, not the owner. As nohablo said, and as I confirmed with my fiancée, it is VERY awkward to use "de ti" or "de anything" to express possesion.

[quo]*Quote from * taalibeen As nohablo said, and as I confirmed with my fiancée, it is VERY awkward to use "de ti" or "de anything" to express possesion.[/quo] Just to clarify one thing, I think when taalibeen says "de anything," he's talking about pronouns, especially first- and second-person pronouns. Nouns, especially names, are a different matter. To say *Maria's car is clean*, you'd say *El coche _de Maria_ está limpio.*

Exacto

[quo]*Quote:* That seems more confusing than helpful. [/quo] Hear, hear. Thanks for your help. Alan