[gafana]

Hola amigos.

I'm having trouble with the following sentence:

El gato es de Maria.

Am I correct in thinking that this can be translated both as:

The cat is Maria's (i.e the cat belongs to Maria)
OR
The cat is from Maria. (i.e cat is a present from Maria)

How would one know which one of the above is the speaker referring to? Or is this a case where the statement is uncommonly used.

I understand that adding a specifying verb to the original sentence can clear this confusion. But I'm wondering is this something that can be heard in normal conversation and would it cause the same confusion for a native speaker as well?

Muchas gracias!