Impersonal -nya

From The Indonesian Language for Foreigners

Surely by now you have known (if you don't read this just yet) that Indonesian state the possesive by mentioning who owns something directly after that something. In the case that the owner is the 3rd person singular dia, the word become the affix -nya. However, -nya does not always refer to anyone in particular, or may actually even be to oneself, the speaker. Because it does not refer to anyone, I refer to it as "impersonal" (you probably not going find this term in any Indonesian grammar book).

Usage

Example:

• A: "Kok kamu datangnya terlambat?"
• B: "Maaf, mobilnya mogok."

Translation:

• A: "Why did you arrive late?"
• B: "Sorry, my car broke down."

Here, datang and mobil mean to arrive (or probably better as: arrival) and car respectively. Because those words are followed by -nya, they should have indicated "someone's arrival" and "someone's car", and we know from context that both the arrival and the car are A's, however, Indonesian don't usually say "datangmu" and "mobilku" in this case.

We know, though, that Indonesian lack any definite article (English "the"), and the use of possesive indicate a specific item, akin to the use of a definite article. Hence, a possesive that refer to nobody in particular can probably be thought of simply as the equivalent of a definite article. Thus, the above bit of conversation can be translated more literally as:

• A: "Why is the arrival of you late?"
• B: "Sorry, the car of mine broke down."

Of course it sounds rather weird this way, but that is how Indonesian say them (more or less).

By the way, the -nya in "kamu datangnya" does not apply to "datang" alone but to "kamu datang", hence, the phrase "kamu datang" (you arrive) is treated as a single noun (arrival of you), thus changing the verb into what may look like a noun.

Additional notes

Part of the reason of this construct is perhaps because Indonesian don't like talking things "straight" and "direct", they like to mention them roundaboutly, so they also don't like to say that something is "mine" or "yours", hence -nya, the 3rd person pronoun.