Possession
Let's look at possession in Amharic. Possession in Amharic can be done in two ways, which are interchangeable: either adding the prefix የ- yä- to the personal pronouns, or by adding a suffix to the noun. We'll look at the የ- form first.
Remember that due to vowel hierarchy in Amharic, the addition of የ- causes the initial vowel in the pronouns to be dropped. In written Amharic however, either spelling can be used. Here are some example phrases:
የእኔ ውሻ
↳ My dog
ያንቺ መኪና
↳ Your car
የእሱ ጓደኛዎች
↳ His friends
የነሱ እናት
↳ Their mother
The የ- prefix also functions like the apostrophe in English. For example, to say ‘Dereje's family’, you would say የደረጀ ቤተሰብ.
We can now look at the second way to show possession, which is adding a suffix to the noun. The suffix added depends on whether the word ends in a consonant or a vowel.
Let's look at these suffixes on the words ቤት and ውሻ.
ቤት
ውሻ
That is how the suffixed form of possession works. It is important to note that when a word ends in a vowel other than a such as i, like the word አስተማሪ ‘Teacher’, a w or y sound is added onto the possessive suffixes for እሳቸው, እኛ, እናንተ, and እነሱ for ease of speech (thus ‘Our teacher’ would be አስተማሪዋችን or አስተማሪያችን). In the case of ውሻ, since the final vowel of the noun and first vowel of the suffix for እሳቸው, እኛ, እናንተ, and እነሱ are the same, you can either simply drop the first vowel of the suffix (like in the example above), or insert a w or y.
You may have noticed that for እርስዎ, there is an optional -ት that can be added at the end of the suffix. Either form can be used, however there are some cases where using the -ት may aid in pronunciation, for example the phrase ቤትዎት አዲስ ነው ‘Your house is new’.
The two forms of showing possession that we've looked at are completely interchangeable. To say ‘Our house’ you could say either የኛ ቤት or ቤታችን. In the case of ‘His’ and ‘Her’, you may have noticed that the suffixed form is the same as the definite article - that is, ቤቱ not only means ‘His house’ but also ‘The house’, and መኪናዋ not only means ‘Her car’, but also ‘The car’. Therefore, if you want to avoid confusion, the የ- form can be used.
One more thing to take note of is that if an adjective is used with a noun that has a possessive suffix (for example, ‘My small house’), the definite article needs to be added to the adjective (even where in English we wouldn't say ‘The’). So ‘My small house’ in Amharic is ትንሹ ቤቴ, where the adjective ትንሽ has taken the masculine definite article -ኡ, because ቤት is a masculine word. Another example is አዲሷ መኪናችን ‘Our new car’ - መኪና is feminine, so አዲስ takes the feminine definite article -ዋ.