Why is the possessive pronoun for "имя" "мое", even though "имя" is a feminine word?

Question

I don't quite understand the reason for why мое instead of моя is used. Could somebody explain it to me?

score 12 · Answer 1 · edited Feb 28 '24 at 19:23

Имя is a neuter noun, not feminine.

There's a set of similar neuter nouns: имя, вымя, пламя, семя, время, темя, стремя, знамя, племя, бремя etc.

All of them originate from PIE words with the suffix -men. Such words were neuter in PIE as well. In Proto-Slavic, -en and -n̥ became the nasal vowel -ę and later -я.

Thus

PIE e̯neo̯mn -> имя

PIE see̯mn -> семя

PIE ĝneo̯mn -> знамя

PIE bhermn -> бремя

etc.

You still can see the -мен- part in oblique cases and the plural: времени, временем, времена etc, as well as in adjectives: временный, беременная.

score 9 · Answer 2 · edited Feb 28 '24 at 02:30

9

Имя belongs to a special group of 11 nouns ending in -мя, all of which are of the Neuter gender:

бремя, время, вымя, знамя, имя, пламя, племя, семя, стремя, темя, голомя

All of them also decline in a special way:

       sing.       plur.
_____________________________       
Nom.   врéмя       временá
Gen.   врéмени     времён     (but: семя́н, стремя́н)
Dat.   врéмени     временáм
Acc.   врéмя       временá
Instr. врéменем    временáми
Prep.  врéмени     временáх

All the 11 nouns (including имя) have the same case endings as время, except that:

семя and стремя differ slightly in the genitive plural

edited Feb 28 '24 at 02:30

ghostarbeiter

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answered Oct 20 '15 at 01:01

Yellow Sky

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Why just 10? You missed бремя, for instance. – Anixx Oct 20 '15 at 02:44
@Anixx - Thank you! They are really 11, no more of them exists in Russian. – Yellow Sky Oct 20 '15 at 03:24
There is also полымя, although it is just native Russian version of пламя. – Anixx Oct 20 '15 at 03:29
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There is also письмена which only has plural. – Anixx Oct 20 '15 at 06:01
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Ну вот есть ещё одно: рамя https://ru.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BC%D1%8F – Anixx Oct 20 '15 at 12:21
Also слемя http://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enc2p/355074 – Anixx Oct 20 '15 at 12:25
@Anixx: right, didn't notice it. – Quassnoi Oct 20 '15 at 13:49
Just to avoid any confusion for non-native speakers reading these comments: as a native Russian speaker with a good command of the language, I have no idea what голомя, рамя, or слемя means. So, rest assured, you probably don't need to know either! – il--ya Mar 01 '24 at 02:48
@il--ya - Boasting about one's ignorance is so Russian. – Yellow Sky Mar 01 '24 at 06:44
@YellowSky Boasting? No. Merely admitting ‍♂️. And labelling people based on their (perceived) nationality is so... unwise? – il--ya Mar 03 '24 at 21:18
@il--ya - Who said “nationality”? Ah, it was you. I'm speaking only about languages here. – Yellow Sky Mar 03 '24 at 22:37

Why is the possessive pronoun for "имя" "мое", even though "имя" is a feminine word?

2 Answers2