Possessive pronouns

A possessive pronoun🇮🇸 eignarfornafn in Icelandic is used to indicate who or what something belongs to:

Þetta er peysan mín.
Er þetta bíllinn þinn?
Ég er ekki búin að sjá köttinn hennar.

General rules that apply to all possessives are set it out in the introduction below. To find out more about a specific pronoun, click on it in the table below.

	Singular	Plural
1st person	minn	okkar
2nd person	þinn	ykkar
3rd person	Reflexive sinn
	Non-reflexive hans hennar háns þess	þeirra

Introduction

Possessive pronouns normally come after the noun they modify. That noun is also normally definite:

Þetta er jakkinn minn.
Er þetta húsið þitt?
Ég gleymdi veskinu mínu heima.
Hann skildi peningana sína eftir á borðinu.

They can also occur before a noun to emphasise who or what something belongs to, and then the noun is indefinite:

Þetta er þinn jakki!
Ekki drekka mitt kaffi!

Definite article

The following types of nouns don’t get a definite article with possessives.

Close personal relationships
(except barn/maður/kona/kærasti/kærasta):

Sonur minn býr í Noregi.
Mamma mín á þessa peysu.
Koma vinir þínir með?

But:

Börnin þín eru svo myndarleg!
Kærastan mín heitir Ásdís.
Maðurinn minn elskar súkkulaði.

Most abstract nouns:

Líf mitt er svo skemmtilegt!
Þetta er hugmynd þín.
Stuðningur ykkar skiptir öllu máli!

Some abstract nouns, such as hugmynd, sometimes get the definite article in informal speech. Others, such as líf, almost never occur with the definite article.

minn, þinn, sinn

The following possessive pronouns decline for gender, case and number:

• minn “my”
• þinn “your” (singular)
• sinn “his, her, its, their”

They work similarly to adjectives or numerals in that they derive their grammatical properties from the noun they modify:

Þetta eru gleraugun þín.
Bíllinn minn er á verkstæðinu.
Hann talar við mömmu sína.

In other words, they agree in gender, number and case with the possession and not the owner.

Declension

The declension pattern for these three pronouns is the same, just change the first letter as applicable.

The pattern itself is similar to the numeral einn, although there is the additional quirk of the i changing to í in forms with a single n, e.g. minn vs. mín.

minn

	Singular			Plural
	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Nom.	minn	mín	mitt	mínir	mínar	mín
Acc.		mína		mína
Dat.	mínum	minni	mínu	mínum
Gen.	míns	minnar	míns	minna

þinn

	Singular			Plural
	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Nom.	þinn	þín	þitt	þínir	þínar	þín
Acc.		þína		þína
Dat.	þínum	þinni	þínu	þínum
Gen.	þíns	þinnar	þíns	þinna

sinn

	Singular			Plural
	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Nom.	sinn	sín	sitt	sínir	sínar	sín
Acc.		sína		sína
Dat.	sínum	sinni	sínu	sínum
Gen.	síns	sinnar	síns	sinna

sinn

Sinn is a possessive pronoun used in the third person. It can be translated as his, her, its or their depending on the context:

Björn málar húsið sitt.
Anna lagar peysuna sína.
Barnið borðar matinn sinn.
Þeir taka töskurnar sínar.
Þær þrífa diskana sína.

Sinn is reflexive, meaning it always refers back to the subject of the sentence:

Because sinn always refers back to a possessor in the subject of the sentence, sinn can never form part of a subject itself:

(Björn) *Húsið sitt er rautt.
(Anna) *Peysan sín er slitin.

Here the non-reflexive pronouns must be used instead:

(Björn) Húsið hans er rautt.
(Anna) Peysan hennar er slitin.

Contrast the meanings of the following pairs of sentences:

Magnús drekkur kaffið sitt.
Magnús drekkur kaffið hans.

Krakkarnir borða samlokurnar sínar.
Krakkarnir borða samlokurnar þeirra.

Other possessives

The following possessive pronouns do not decline (their form is always the same regardless of the gender, number and case of the noun they modify):

• okkar “our”
• ykkar “your” (plural)
• hans “his”, hennar “her”, háns “their” (non-binary), þess “its”, manns “one’s”, þeirra “their” (all genders)

Where they are gendered, they agree with the natural gender of the owner and not the grammatical gender of the noun. For example:

Ertu búin að sjá nýja eldhúsið okkar?
Ég elska sófana ykkar!
Bókin hans er mjög skemmtileg.
Kakan hennar er svo ljúf!
Skórinn háns er rennblautur.
Bangsinn þess er týndur.
Húsin þeirra eru til sölu.

Obsolete possessives

The obsolete personal pronouns vér and þér (see here for usage) also had corresponding possessives.

vor

The first, vor “our”, is fully declined like an adjective:

	Singular			Plural
	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Nom.	vor	vor	vort	vorir	vorar	vor
Acc.	vorn	vora		vora
Dat.	vorum	vorri	voru	vorum
Gen.	vors	vorrar	vors	vorra

yðar

The second, yðar “your” (formal), is indeclinable and is used like ykkar.