Possessives and gender

In Eng., "his" means "belonging or pertaining to him". The gender of what is "owned" (in a broad sense) is irrelevant: "his brother, his sister, his car...". "Brother" is masculine, "sister" is feminine and "car" is neuter but "his" does not change. It does not change for number either: see "his key / his keys".

The same applies to "her/hers" (belonging to her) and to "its" (pertaining to it).

Not so in Italian: possessive adjectives and pronouns agree for gender and number with what is owned, so we get "il suo libro" because "libro" is m. sing. but we are not told whether the book belongs to a he or to a she. This piece of information is provided by the . For example: "Giovanni e il suo libro" ( John and his book) vs. "Laura e il suo libro" ( Laura and her book).

Similarly, in "la sua penna", "sua" is f. because "penna" is f. but again it can be either "his" or "hers" (or even "its" if we are talking about an object that has a pen).

"Il mio libro e i suoi" says that the books belonging to him or her are more than one - this piece of information is lost in Eng. "My book and his/hers".

More on possessive adjectives and pronouns