Posessive Pronouns

POSSESSION

’s (apostrophe + s)

• We use ’s (apostrophe + s) for people and animals.
  That’s my brother’s hat. (not the hat of my brother)
  Where’s the cat’s bowl? (not the bowl of the cat)

• With singular nouns, we use ’s.
  my mum’s necklace, my teacher’s ring

• With plural nouns, we put the apostrophe (’) at the end of the plural noun.
  my friends’ shoes (not the shoes of my friends)
  my cousins’ jackets (not the jackets of my cousins)

• If the plural noun does not end in -s (e.g. children, men, women, people), we use ’s.
  The children’s bedroom is over there.

Determiners and pronouns

• We use pronouns instead of determiner + noun.
  Is that my pencil on your desk? No, yours is over there. (= your pencil)
  Is this your jacket? No, it’s hers. (= her jacket)
  Who do these books belong to? They’re ours. (= our books)

• We can use “a friend of mine/yours/his, etc.” instead of “one of my/your/his, etc. friends”.
  This ball belongs to a friend of mine. He lent it to me. (not a friend of me)
  Neil finished his homework. A classmate of his helped him. (not a classmate of him)