Question 1

Why use proprio instead of suo in this sentence?

Accepted Answer

While you could grammatically use suo (il suo spazio), using proprio specifically means "his own". It can only be used when the owner is also the subject of the sentence (here, L'adolescente). It adds emphasis and removes any doubt about whose space is being protected.

Question 2

Does proprio change its ending based on the teenager's gender?

Accepted Answer

No, it changes based on the thing being owned. Like all Italian possessive adjectives, proprio agrees with the noun it modifies. Since spazio is masculine and singular, we use the masculine singular form proprio, regardless of whether the teenager is a boy or a girl.

Question 3

Normally the word spazio takes the article lo (lo spazio). Why is it il here?

Accepted Answer

Definite articles always agree with the word immediately following them. While you would say lo spazio because it starts with 's' + consonant, here the adjective proprio steps in between the article and the noun. Since proprio starts with a standard consonant ('p'), it takes the article il, resulting in il proprio spazio.

Question 4

Is adolescente a masculine or feminine noun?

Accepted Answer

It can be both! Nouns ending in -ente that refer to people usually have the exact same form for masculine and feminine. If you needed to specify, you would change the article: un adolescente for a teenage boy, and un'adolescente for a teenage girl. Here, with L', it's used to mean teenagers in general.

L'adolescente protegge il proprio spazio personale.

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