Possessive Nouns for intermediate learners
Possessive structures have many functions like showing ownership or belonging. With the help of apostrophe 's', we can make a possessive noun. Let's start!
What Are Possessive Nouns?
In English, when we want to show possession or that something or someone belongs to us or somebody else, we use possessive nouns.
Structure
We can simply add a ('s) which is an apostrophe + s to the end of the possessor. Look at the following examples:
My daughter
The bird
Tip!
When you want to show possession of a singular noun ending in 's', you can use different writing styles. As it is shown in the following examples, both are correct:
My boss
As you can see, the sentence is referring to one person.
My boss
Here, the meaning is the same as the previous example but the writing style is different.
Plural Nouns
We can use the structure of possessive nouns with both regular and irregular nouns. However, when the nouns are countable regular ones, we use an apostrophe (') at the end of the noun for showing possession. Take a look at the following examples:
The books
Here, the sentence is about a number of books and only an apostrophe is used at the end of the noun.
The trees
When we use irregular or unchanging plural nouns, we simply add a ('s) to change them to possessive nouns. Pay attention to the following examples:
In shopping malls, women
The sheep
Uses
Possessive nouns are used in many different contexts in the English language. Let us examine some of its common uses below:
- To Show Relationships
- To Show Possession and Belonging
- To Avoid Repetition
To Show Relationships
When we want to show the relations between different people, we mainly use possessive nouns. Take a look at the following examples:
Mathew
As you can see, the possessive noun is used to show how two people are connected to each other.
Carlos
To Show Possession and Belonging
Normally, when we want to show something or someone belongs to us or something else, we use possessive nouns. Take a look at the statements below:
The turtle
The phone
To Avoid Repetition
Sometimes, possessive nouns are used to avoid repeating something that has been mentioned in the statement before. Pay attention to the following example:
(Please note that it is also
Tip!
It is useful to know that we can use possessive nouns in order to point out places and locations. Look at the following examples:
He's going to
Here, the sentence is about a person who is going to go to John's house.
Weren't you at the
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