A
possessive pronoun is a part of speech that substitutes for a noun phrase that begins with a possessive determiner (also known as a
possessive adjectivePossessive adjectives, also known as possessive determiners, are a part of speech that modifies a noun by attributing possession to someone or something...
). For example, in the sentence
These glasses are mine, not yours, the words
mine and
yours are possessive pronouns and stand for
my glasses and
your glasses, respectively. Like other
pronounIn linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...
s, possessive pronouns can thus obviate the need to repeat nouns or noun phrases. (Sometimes the possessive determiners –
my,
your etc. – are themselves classified as possessive pronouns; see Possessive adjective: Nomenclature.)
There are eight possessive pronouns in modern English:
mine,
yours,
his,
hers, its,
ours,
theirs, and
whose, plus the antiquated possessive pronoun
thine and the Middle English
yourn (see also
English personal pronounsThe personal pronouns in the English language can have various forms according to gender, number, person, and case. Modern English is a language with very little noun or adjective inflection, to the point where some authors describe it as analytic, but the Modern English system of personal pronouns...
). The word "its" is, however, rarely used as such (almost always it functions as a possessive adjective).
Among these, "its" and "whose" are properly distinct from "it's" (a contraction of "it is" or "it has") and "who's" ("who is" or "who has"); however, these and other misspellings with apostrophes ("her's" to mean "hers", etc.) are common.
Some languages express
possessionPossession, 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 regular declension of the
personal pronounPersonal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. All known languages contain personal pronouns.- English personal pronouns :English in common use today has seven personal pronouns:*first-person singular...
s (the equivalents of
I,
you etc.) in the
genitive caseIn grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
, or by using
possessive suffixIn linguistics, a possessive affix is a suffix or prefix attached to a noun to indicate its possessor, much in the manner of possessive adjectives. Possessive suffixes are found in some Uralic, Altaic, Semitic, and Indo-European languages...
es. In Finnish, for example,
minun (literally "I's"), means
mine or
my.
See also
- Genitive case
In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...
- 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.See Possession for a survey of the different...
- Possessive me
Possessive me is the apparent use of "me" in places where English has "my". For example:"That's me house" : [ðæts mi haʊs]This is probably not a result of confusion between the possessive pronoun "my" and the object pronoun "me", as is often believed...
- Possessive suffix
In linguistics, a possessive affix is a suffix or prefix attached to a noun to indicate its possessor, much in the manner of possessive adjectives. Possessive suffixes are found in some Uralic, Altaic, Semitic, and Indo-European languages...