Possessive facts for kids

A possessive is a special word or way of writing that shows a connection between things. This connection can be about ownership, like "my car," or other relationships, like "my friend" or "the car's speed."

Most European languages have possessive forms for personal pronouns. Think of English words like my, mine, your, yours, and his. These words can be used in two main ways:

• With a noun: This is when the possessive word comes before a noun, like in my car, your sisters, or his boss. Here, the possessive acts as a possessive determiner. It tells you whose car, whose sisters, or whose boss it is.
• Without a noun: This is when the possessive word stands alone, like in mine is red, I prefer yours, or this book is his. When used this way, it's called a possessive pronoun.

Some languages, including English, also create possessive forms from nouns or groups of words acting as a noun. Examples include Jane's, the cows', and nobody else's. These can be used in the same two ways: Jane's office or that one is Jane's.

Sometimes, possessives are seen as a type of grammatical case (the possessive case). Other times, they are considered part of the genitive case, which shows an "of" relationship.

How Possessives Are Made

From Pronouns

Many languages have two sets of possessive words that come from personal pronouns. One set acts as possessive determiners, and the other acts as possessive pronouns.

For example, in English, the personal pronouns I, you, he, she, it, we, and they have these possessive forms:

• Determiners: my, your, his, her, its, our, their (used with a noun, like my book).
• Pronouns: mine, yours, his, hers, its (rare), ours, theirs (used alone, like that book is mine).

Sometimes, the determiner and pronoun forms are the same, like his (and its) in English.

In some languages, possessive determiners change their form to match the noun they describe. This is called agreement. For example, in French, "my" can be mon (for masculine singular nouns), ma (for feminine singular nouns), or mes (for plural nouns).

Some languages don't have separate possessive determiners. Instead, they use a pronoun with a special possessive particle. For example, in Japanese, "my" or "mine" is watashi no. Here, watashi means "I," and no is the possessive particle. Similarly, in Mandarin Chinese, "my" or "mine" is wǒ de, where wǒ means "I" and de is the particle.

Another way some languages show possession is by adding a possessive affix (usually a suffix) directly to the noun that is being possessed. For instance, in Finnish, the suffix -ni means "my." So, talo ("house") becomes taloni ("my house").

From Nouns

In some languages, you can make possessive forms from nouns or groups of words. In English, we do this by adding -'s to a noun, like Jane's, heaven's, or the boy's. If a plural noun already ends in s, we often just add an apostrophe, like workers or the soldiers.

Sometimes, the -'s can be added to the end of a whole phrase, even if the main noun isn't at the very end. For example, the king of England's shows that the -'s applies to the whole phrase.

In languages with a genitive case, the genitive form of a noun can sometimes be used as a possessive. For example, in German, Karls Haus means "Karl's house."

Other languages form noun possessives by using extra words. For example, in French, "my aunt's pen" is la plume de ma tante, which literally means "the pen of my aunt."

How Possessives Are Used

Possessive determiners are used with a noun, acting like a determiner or an attributive adjective. In English, using a possessive determiner like my usually means "the one that belongs to me." So, my car means "the car that belongs to me." You wouldn't say "*the my car" or "*this my car."

However, this is not true for all languages. In Italian, for example, the possessive is often used with another determiner like an article: la mia macchina ("my car," literally "the my car").

Some languages put the possessive after the noun. In Norwegian, "my book" can be boka mi. Here, boka means "the book," and mi means "my."

Possessive pronouns, like mine or yours, are used on their own and don't describe a noun directly. They stand in for a noun phrase. So, mine could mean "my cat," "my sister," or "my things," depending on what you're talking about. In English, the -'s possessives from nouns can also be used this way. For example, the president's could mean "the president's office" or "the president's policies."

Possessives can also be used in sentences like the book is mine. Here, mine describes the book.

What "Possession" Means

The relationship shown by possessive words isn't always about strict ownership. The "possessor" can be connected to the "possessed" in many ways. For example:

• Relationship: my mother, his wife (the person related to).
• Part of something: my leg, the building's walls (a part of a whole).
• Affiliation: his country, our class (belonging to a group).
• Action: his arrival (he is the one arriving), the government's overthrow (the government was overthrown).
• Creator or user: Prince's album (Prince created it), the Irish jockey's horse (the jockey uses it).

See also

In Spanish: Posesivo para niños

• Construct state
• Genitive construction
• Possessive antecedent
• Possessive determiner