The reason why the possessive pronoun "mine" has an accent is because it contains a hiatus formed by a stressed closed vowel followed by an open vowel. Hiatuses are a sequence of two vowels that are pronounced in different syllables.
There are specific combinations that allow hyphenation and, therefore, hiatus. When these two vowels are not pronounced separately but in a single syllable, a diphthong is produced.
There are combinations of two vowels that can be pronounced as hiatuses or as diphthongs, depending on the words in which they are found, the social or geographical origin of the person speaking and the care taken in pronunciation, among other factors.
Hiatuses and diphthongs can be differentiated through graphic accentuation. Vocal combinations of two equal vowels, two open vowels or one closed stressed vowel and one unstressed open vowel are considered hiatuses.
For this reason, in the case of the possessive pronoun "mine", its feminine form "mine" and the plural form of both "mine - mine", the accent is placed in the stressed closed vowel.
There is a marked trend in popular speech that rejects hiatuses. It will also depend on the geographical area of the speaker.
Tilde pronouns
Possessive pronouns, as their name says, have possession as their main value and link what is possessed with one or more possessors. They are also pronouns and replace the name of the one who has it.
In the case of the pronoun "mine" and all its forms, it can be said to be a postponed possessive tonic when alone.
In cases where it accompanies a noun, it loses its last syllable. Then "mine" is reduced to "my", an unstressed possessive prefix.
For example: this is my house. "My", without accent, is not only a possessive, short for mine, but it can also function as a noun, referring to the musical note or the letter of the Greek alphabet.
The other pronoun that has an accent is the first person singular, masculine or feminine, "me", as long as it is accompanied by a preposition. For example: everyone was against me.
In this case, the tilde is used diacritically. The diacritical tilde is a graphic accent that allows you to distinguish words with the same form, but that have different grammatical functions and meanings.
Although monosyllables as a rule are not accentuated in Spanish, many of the diacritical marks affect words with only one syllable.
The possessive "my" and the pronoun "me" are then words that sound the same. The tilde is only a graphic reference to differentiate them.
A particular situation is the case of the pronouns "this", "that" and "that", which can also be demonstrative.
It is not uncommon to find texts that have these diacritically accented pronouns, since until a few years ago they were still diacritically accented.
However, current rules only allow the use of the tilde when there is ambiguity in the statements and the particular function cannot be distinguished. For example:
- They bought those old books (where "those" is the subject of the sentence).
- They bought those old books (where "those" accompanies the noun).
References
- Dictionary of Doubts (2015-2017. «My or me». Retrieved on November 2, 2017 at dictionarydedudas.com
- "The possesive pronouns". Retrieved on November 2, 2017 at Roble.pntic.mec.es
- Sandritah (2011). "My, me and mine." Retrieved on November 2, 2017 at fanficslandia.com
Real Academia Española (2005). ·"hiatus". Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts. Retrieved on November 2, 2017 at lema.rae.es
- Royal Spanish Academy (2005). ·"diphthong". Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts. Retrieved on November 2, 2017 at lema.rae.es
- Wikilengua del español. "Possessive pronoun". Retrieved on November 2, 2017 at wikilengua.org