- 25
- 25
- 8
- 7
There are several points of interest here:
- "the child is mine" will not translate to "l'enfant est mien", because "mien" (and other possessives) are no longer used without a definite article in modern French. Only in old poetry and literature can you still find a possessive pronoun without a definite article.
- "le XX est mien" has been replaced by "le XX est à moi"
- "le XX est le mien" is not correct either, since twice "le" blurs the very meaning of this sentence. Considering that "le XX" is specific (the XX), it cannot be specified a second time. If there were a choice between several XX, and then you could say "ce XX est le mien". If there is no choice, the only correct construction is "le XX est à moi".
So, back to your examples:
- the child is mine = l'enfant est à moi
- she is mine = elle est à moi (+ elle m'appartient)
- he is mine = il est à moi (+ il m'appartient)
- the book is mine = le livre est à moi - le livre m'appartient
- the cat is mine = le chat est à moi - le chat m'appartient
In addition:
- this/that child is mine = cet enfant est à moi/le mien
- this/that book is mine = ce livre est à moi/le mien/m'appartient
- this/that cat is mine = ce chat est à moi/le mien/m'appartient
- it is mine = il est à moi, elle est à moi, c'est le mien, c'est la mienne, c'est à moi
Note: "il est le...", "elle est la...", "ils sont les..." and "elles sont les..." still need to be replaced by "c'est le..." in singular and "ce sont les..." in plural, according to the rule about modified nouns after the verb "être" in 3rd person singular and plural.
