Can "У меня машина" just mean "My car"?

Question

The phrase "У меня машина" is interpreted as "I have a car". Here is my understanding of the "layers" of that translation:1. The phrase "У меня машина" literally means "Car near me".2. In Russian, we leave the verb "to be" implicit. Thus a possible interpretation of this sentence is "*There is* a car near me".3. The concept of something being "near" someone, indicated by the word "У", is a common idiom to indicate that the thing *belongs* to that person. Thus "There is a car near me" is interpreted here as "I have a car".My question is, is the interpretation in point 2 the only possible interpretation? Couldn't we also not take there to be an implicit verb "to be", and take the phrase as just meaning "my car"? For instance, if A and B walk into a garage, and A sees a strange machine and asks what it is, could the following exchange occur?> A: Что это?>> B: У меня машина.or even> B: Это у меня машина.Which we could literally translate as "That (is) the car which is near me".

Answer 1

Do not confuse possession and physical closeness.

There are two different functions of the Genitive Case (Родительный падеж) preposition "у":

1. One implies possession, in this case the person who possesses or personal pronoun needs to be changed into Genitive case form: "У меня машина" - I have a car, "У брата машина" - brother has a car. As you correctly mentioned, predicate "есть" is optional.
2. The other function of preposition "у" is to indicate closeness or nearness which translates as "near, at, by": "Машина у реки" - car nearby the river, "машина у здания" - car nearby the building.

Answer 2

Your assumptions is incorrect. У меня машина does not mean just a car or here’s a car; it means I have a car. If someone asked ( like in your scenario) What is that? The answer would be: Это машина or Это моя машина. You would use the sentence У меня машина if someone asked you what do you have or do you want to ride on the bus with me, as a reply you would say нет, у меня машина, meaning no, because I have a car and I will drive it instead of taking the bus.

Preposition у means at my person, in my possession, _{be it at home, in the garage or in me.}