Possessives

Possessives are used to specify the ownership of an item, or, if the noun refers to something animate, to specify a relationship.

That is my car.
Mr Smith was my teacher in the sixth form.

The form of the possessive changes according to the number and gender of the person or thing that possesses the item.

His brothers all came to the wedding.
Their aunt lives in London, but their cousins live in Berlin.
Your shoes are under your bed.

person	singular	plural
1st	my	our
2nd	your	your
3rd (masculine)	his	their
3rd (feminine)	her	their
3rd (neuter)	its	their

Possessive determiners, which can go into a noun phrase, are not the same as possessive pronouns (mine, hers, yours, etc.), which can stand alone. See Gender of nouns.

Another sort of possessive is the possessive phrase.This acts just like a possessive word but is a noun or noun phrase ending in -’s or -s’. A possessive phrase acts as a possessive determiner, but may itself include one of the other determiners.

Robert’s mother	Sally’s new job
the visitors’ washroom	the residents’ dining room
a good day’s work	my wife’s cousin
the Prime Minister’s press secretary