Word
Non la invidio, la ricchezza altrui.
Meaning
I do not envy it, other people's wealth.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Non la invidio, la ricchezza altrui.
non
not
la
her/it (direct object)
la ricchezza
the wealth
altrui
of others / other people's
Questions & Answers about Non la invidio, la ricchezza altrui.
What exactly does altrui mean, and why does it come after ricchezza?
altrui is an indefinite possessive adjective that means 'other people's' or 'of others'. Unlike most possessives (such as mio or tuo), altrui is invariable, meaning it never changes its ending for gender or number. It also must strictly follow the noun it modifies, which is why we say la ricchezza altrui instead of putting it before the noun.
Why is the pronoun la used before invidio when the object (la ricchezza) is already stated?
This is a common spoken Italian structure called right dislocation. The speaker uses the pronoun la as a placeholder to anticipate the actual object (la ricchezza altrui) which gets tagged on at the end of the sentence. It adds emotional emphasis, making it sound roughly like 'I really do not envy it, other people's wealth.'
Does altrui ever take a definite article itself, the way we say il mio or la tua?
Is it also correct to say la ricchezza degli altri instead of using altrui?