-nya

Usage notes

The usage of this suffix is very diverse, but not all words could take -nya for some senses.

• -nya as a third-person singular possessive (possession): Budi mengambil uangnya di bank. means uang is owned by Budi.
• -nya as a third-person singular objective: Budi menemaninya ke bank. (active), or Ani ditemaninya ke bank. (passive). -nya works as a replacement of Ani in the former and Budi in the latter sentence.
• -nya as a definite marker: Budi, uangnya di mana?. The definite marker means that the money in question is a specific money, not just any money. Similar to the definite article the in "Budi, where is the money?"
• -nya as a possessed case: Ini uangnya Budi, bukan uangnya Ani., Uangnya Budi di mana? considered redundant but often acceptable in standard grammar, common in casual speech. Compare his genitive in early Modern English.
• -nya as a verb nominalizer: Kamu makannya jangan begitu. The -nya here changes the verb makan into a noun.

Derived terms

Usage notes

When used to address God, a capital letter and hyphen is used.

1. • dari-Nya ― from Them (God)

Descendants

• Indonesian: -nya
• → Petjo: -nja