Japanese Learning: Sentence expressing ownership “[Pronoun] wa [Person] no desu.”; “no” that functions as a noun.

What we learned yesterday was a sentence that expresses ownership as below.

1. [Pronoun] wa [Person] no [Noun] desu.

example; Are wa watashi no Hon desu. (That is my book.)

Today, too, we are going to learn a sentence construction that expresses ownership.

2. [Pronoun] wa [Person] no desu.”

example; Are wa watashi no desu. (That is mine.)

The sentence 2 doesn’t say about “what is mine”. And it seems that the sentence 2 is a contracted form of 1. But “-no” in the sentence 1 and “no” in the sentence 2 are slightly different. “-no” in 1 is a particle. But “no” in 2 functions as if it is a noun. In later stage of Japanese learning (but still in beginner’s level), you will see that this kind of “no” has a function to make verbs, I-adjectives, and Na-adjectives “a noun phrase”.  

For today, it is better to think “no” in 2 is a contracted form of noun “mono” that means “a thing”.

Practice and remember the conversation below;

A : Kore wa dare no desuka. (Whose is this?)

B : Sore wa Satou-san no desu. (It is Ms. Sato’s.)