Possessive pronoun

A possessive pronoun is a part of speech that attributes ownership to someone or something. Like all other pronoun

Pronoun

In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English...

s, it substitutes a noun phrase

Noun phrase

In grammar, a noun phrase is a phrase whose head is a noun or a pronoun, optionally accompanied by a set of modifiers.Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, but some languages like Tuscarora and Cayuga have been argued to lack this category.- Form :Noun phrases normally consist of a...

 and can prevent its repetition. For example, in the phrase, "These glasses are mine, not yours", the words "mine" and "yours" are possessive pronouns and stand for "my glasses" and "your glasses," respectively.

There are seven possessive pronouns in modern English: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, and theirs, plus the rarely used possessive pronoun thy/thine.

A possessive pronoun is a part of speech that attributes ownership to someone or something. Like all other pronoun

Pronoun

In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English...

s, it substitutes a noun phrase

Noun phrase

In grammar, a noun phrase is a phrase whose head is a noun or a pronoun, optionally accompanied by a set of modifiers.Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, but some languages like Tuscarora and Cayuga have been argued to lack this category.- Form :Noun phrases normally consist of a...

 and can prevent its repetition. For example, in the phrase, "These glasses are mine, not yours", the words "mine" and "yours" are possessive pronouns and stand for "my glasses" and "your glasses," respectively.

There are seven possessive pronouns in modern English: mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, and theirs, plus the rarely used possessive pronoun thy/thine. The clitic

Clitic

In morphology, a clitic is a grammatically independent and phonologically dependent morpheme. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level...

 -'s also works as a possessive pronoun such as Jack's.
For a more complete list, see the full list of English pronouns.

Some languages have neither possessive pronouns nor possessive adjective

Possessive adjective

What are traditionally and popularly, if mistakenly, called possessive adjectives — in linguistic analyses possessive pronouns, possessive determiners or genitive pronouns — are a part of speech that prototypically modifies a noun by attributing possession to someone or something...

s, and express possession

Possession (linguistics)

Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses the referent of the other....

 by declining the personal pronoun

Personal pronoun

Personal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. All known human languages have personal pronouns.- English personal pronouns :English in common use today has seven personal pronouns:*first-person singular...

s in the genitive

Genitive case

In grammar, the genitive case is the case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...

 or possessive case

Possessive case

The possessive case of a language is a grammatical case used to indicate a relationship of possession. It is not the same as the genitive case, which can express a wider range of relationships, though the two have similar meanings in many languages....

, or by using possessive suffix

Possessive suffix

In linguistics, a possessive suffix is a suffix attached to a noun to indicate its possessor, much in the manner of possessive adjectives. Possessive suffixes do not exist in all languages; they do exist in some Uralic, Semitic, and Indo-European languages...

es. In Finnish, for example, minun ("I's"), means "mine" or "my".

See also

• Genitive case
  Genitive case
  In grammar, the genitive case is the case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
  
  
• Possessive adjective
  Possessive adjective
  What are traditionally and popularly, if mistakenly, called possessive adjectives — in linguistic analyses possessive pronouns, possessive determiners or genitive pronouns — are a part of speech that prototypically modifies a noun by attributing possession to someone or something...
  
  
• Possessive case
  Possessive case
  The possessive case of a language is a grammatical case used to indicate a relationship of possession. It is not the same as the genitive case, which can express a wider range of relationships, though the two have similar meanings in many languages....
  
  
• Possessive me
  Possessive me
  Possessive me is the nonstandard use of "me" in places where standard English has "my" occurring in Cockney leading to sentences like:"That's me house"...
  
  
• Possessive suffix
  Possessive suffix
  In linguistics, a possessive suffix is a suffix attached to a noun to indicate its possessor, much in the manner of possessive adjectives. Possessive suffixes do not exist in all languages; they do exist in some Uralic, Semitic, and Indo-European languages...
  
  
• Pronoun
  Pronoun
  In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun with or without a determiner, such as you and they in English...