teu

Forms

teu (feminine teva or teua, masculine plural teus, feminine plural teves or teues)^[1] The old feminine was tua, recorded in a feudal oath of the second half of the 11th century.^[2] Later teua spread from the masculine, and more recently it has become teva.^[3] Eastern Catalan uses teva, teves.^[4] Western and Northern Catalan, Valencia and Eivissa use teua, teues.^[4][3] Alguerès has tua, tues, and tua also survives in poetry.^[4] Alguerès has the masculine tou.^[4][1] Alcover noted an open vowel in meu, teu, seu at Sort.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Catalan teu, which is inherited from Latin tuus (“your, yours”), remade on the model of the first-person possessive meus (“my”).^[5][6][1][3] The DCVB writes the remade form as a Vulgar Latin *teum.^[5] The change took place in archaic Romance in a central part of the Romance area, where Catalan and Occitan have teu and French has tien; elsewhere the vowel of ⟨tuus⟩ remained, as in Italian tuo and Spanish tuyo.^[3][7]

The feminine ⟨tua⟩ is the regular outcome of Latin ⟨tua⟩.^[3] In unstressed position before a noun ⟨tuum⟩ and ⟨tua⟩ were contracted very early, giving the weak forms ton and ⟨ta⟩.^[3][1]

Latin ⟨tuus⟩ is from Proto-Italic *towos.^[1] The OLD compares Vedic and Doric Greek forms going back to the same Indo-European possessive.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

CICA's first record of teu is in the Homilies d'Organyà, of 1175–1224, where the phrase del teu means “of your goods”.^[9] The GDLC also dates the word to the 12th century, with the Homilies.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In the original of the Vides de sants rosselloneses, of the end of the 13th century, the feminine seems to have been almost always tua; the analogical teua spread in the 14th century, earliest in Roussillon.^[3] The dictionaries of the 19th century give teu, tua o teva (Labèrnia, 1839) and teu, teua (Escrig, 1851, Valencian).^[10][11]

The old language had a verb tuejar “to address someone as tu”, recorded at the end of the 15th century.^[3] In the plural, els teus means your family or your side, as Labèrnia already records.^[10][5]

Timeline

• 1043–1098 – the feminine tua in a feudal oath.^[2]
• 1175–1224 – del teu in the Homilies d'Organyà.^[9]
• Late 13th century – the Vides de sants rosselloneses use tua, and teua spreads in their 14th-century copies.^[3]
• 1401 – the Recull d'eximplis: Teus sien.^[12]
• 1839 – Labèrnia gives the feminines tua and teva.^[10]
• 1851 – Escrig's Valencian dictionary gives teu, teua.^[11]

Meanings

Pronoun

1. your, yours (of one person addressed as tu): el teu cotxe, Aquesta clau és teva?^[6][4][1]
2. After a preposition or adverb of place or time, “of you”: davant teu “in front of you”.^[6][5]
3. els teus: your family, friends or side.^[5][10]
4. el teu: what belongs to you.^[12][5]

Related words

• tu
• ton
• meu
• seu
• Latin tuus

Usage notes

Labèrnia records the proverb lo teu és meu, i el meu me’l vull, said of those who want a share of other people's goods without giving up any of their own.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Torruella, Joan; Pérez Saldanya, Manuel; Martines, Josep (dirs.), Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic (CICA), https://www.cica.cat, p. s.v. tua
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 8, 914
4. ^ a b c d e Institut d'Estudis Catalans, Diccionari essencial de la llengua catalana (DEIEC), online, https://deiec.iec.cat, p. s.v. teu
5. ^ a b c d e f Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. teu
6. ^ a b c d Enciclopèdia Catalana, Gran diccionari de la llengua catalana (GDLC), Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana; online edition, https://www.diccionari.cat, p. s.v. teu
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. tuus
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. tuus
9. ^ a b Torruella, Joan; Pérez Saldanya, Manuel; Martines, Josep (dirs.), Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic (CICA), https://www.cica.cat, p. s.v. teu
10. ^ a b c d e Labèrnia, Pere (1839–1840), Diccionari de la llengua catalana ab la correspondencia castellana y llatina, 2 vols., Barcelona, p. s.v. teu
11. ^ a b Escrig, José (1851), Diccionario valenciano-castellano, Valencia, p. s.v. teu
12. ^ a b Faraudo de Saint-Germain, Lluís, Vocabulari de la llengua catalana medieval, online edition, Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, p. s.v. teu