Russian possessive question

[Edward M Dumanis]

On Wed, 6 Mar 1996, E. Wayles Browne wrote:

> I recently saw an Attestat zrelosti. It contains the line:
> Nastojashchij attestat daet ego vladel'cu pravo postuplenija v vysshie
> uchebnye zavedenija Sojuza SSR.
> And the same thing in Ukrainian, since this was from the Ukr. SSR:
> Cej atestat daje joho vlasnykovi pravo vstupu v vyshchi uchbovi zaklady
> Sojuzu RSR.
> Can someone tell me why it is "ego vladel'cu/joho vlasnykovi" and not
> "svoemu vladel'cu/svojemu vlasnykovi"?
>
> Wayles Browne, Assoc. Prof. of Linguistics
> Department of Linguistics
> Morrill Hall, Cornell University
> Ithaca, New York 14853, U.S.A.
> tel. 607-255-0712 (o), 607-273-3009 (h)
> fax 607-255-2044 (write FOR W. BROWNE)
> e-mail ewb2 at cornell.edu (1989 to 1993 was: jn5j at cornella.bitnet //
> jn5j at cornella.cit.cornell.edu)
>

You can write "daet svoemu vladel'cu" if you want.  It will be just less
formal.

Edward Dumanis <dumanis at acsu.buffalo.edu>