A possessive adjective, also called a possessive determiner or possessive article, is a part of speech that modifies a noun by attributing ownership to someone or something (with some exceptions noted below). It is grammatically a determiner rather than an adjective because it cannot co-occur with another determiner such as an article or a demonstrative, but it can co-occur with adjectives. It is also called by some a determinative possessive pronoun, although it is not a pronoun. Verbs in the English language are a lexically and morphologically distinct part of speech which describes an action, an event, or a state. ... In English, verbs are conjugated for tense, aspect, mood, and voice, and in some cases to agree with their subjects in person and number. ... English has a large number of irregular verbs. ... In the English language, a modal auxiliary verb is an auxiliary verb (or helping verb) that can modify the grammatical mood (or mode) of a verb. ... In English as in many other languages, the passive voice is the form of a transitive verb whose grammatical subject serves as the patient, receiving the action of the verb. ... The English language once had an extensive declension system similar to modern German or Icelandic. ... The English personal pronouns are classified as follows: First person refers to the speaker(s). ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... A compound is a word composed of more than one free morphemes. ... An honorific is something that is attached to the name but is not normally used elsewhere, e. ... This article is focused mainly on usage of English relative clauses. ... In grammar, a part of speech or word class is defined as the role that a word (or sometimes a phrase) plays in a sentence. ... In English, a noun or noun substantive is a lexical category which can co-occur with (in)definite articles and attributive adjectives, and function as the head of a noun phrase. ... Determiners are words which quantify or identify nouns. ... An adjective is a part of speech that modifies a noun or a pronoun, usually by describing it or making its meaning more specific. ... An article is a word that is next to a noun or any word that modifies a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. ... // Demonstratives are deictic words (they depend on an external frame of reference) that indicate which entities a speaker refers to, and distinguishes those entities from others. ... A possessive pronoun is a word that attributes ownership to someone or something without using a noun. ... In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun phrase. ...

There are seven of them in modern English: my, your, his, her, its, our, their. The suffix -'s works similarly, but it is a clitic attached to the preceding noun phrase. All of them indicate definiteness like the definite article the. Since in English they cannot co-occur with an indefinite article, phrases like "a book of mine" or "one of my books" must be used instead of incorrect "^*a my book." For a list of English possessive adjectives and their corresponding pronouns, see the table of English personal pronouns, possessive pronouns and adjectives. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... In linguistics, a clitic is an element that has some of the properties of an independent word and some more typical of a bound morpheme. ... In grammatical theory, definiteness is a feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between entities which are specific and identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and entities which are not (indefinite noun phrases). ... For the pop music band, see The The. ... Personal pronouns are pronouns that refer to objects of a sentence, usually (but not always), people or animals. ...

Some languages have neither possessive adjectives nor possessive pronouns, and express possession by declining the personal pronouns in the genitive or possessive case, or by using possessive suffixes. In Finnish, for example, minun ("I's"), means "my" or "mine".^{[citation needed]} A possessive pronoun is a part of speech that attributes ownership to someone or something. ... Look up Possession in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a word that usually takes the place of a noun or noun phrase that was previously mentioned (such as she, it) or that refers to something or someone (I, me, you). Pronouns are often one of the basic parts of speech of the... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Possessive case. ... Possessive case is a case that exists in some languages used for possession. ... The possessive suffix is an feature unique to Finno-Ugric languages. ...

Like possessive pronouns, possessive adjectives can prevent repetitions in a sentence by substituting a noun phrase with -'s. For example, they allow us to say "Sally took off her glasses" instead of "Sally took off Sally's glasses". A possessive pronoun is a part of speech that attributes ownership to someone or something. ...

Semantics

Possessives do not always attribute ownership. Consider the following examples:

• my child and my mother

Although ownership of a child could be argued for, it's much more difficult to create a similar link for the ownership of a mother. Thus, here, the relation is not ownership but kinship.

• my dream

This relation is less clear: one does not quite own their dreams. It may be said that dreams are "had" but not for very long.

• his train (as in the sentence "If Bob doesn't get to the station in 10 minutes he's going to miss his train")

Bob normally does not own the train.

• my CD (as in "The kids are really enjoying my CD")

This noun phrase could imply ownership. However, if Pavarotti utters the sentence, he is most likely not talking about the CD he owns but the CD which contains music performed by him.

Common misspelling

The possessive adjective its is one of the most commonly misspelled words in the English language; many people are confused by its homonym it's (which can be an abbreviation for either "it is" or "it has"), due to the fact that -'s is a possessive suffix on nouns. Look up homonym in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

It is worth remembering that no possessive adjective (or possessive pronoun) in English contains an apostrophe. A possibly useful mnemonic is A possessive pronoun is a part of speech that attributes ownership to someone or something. ... Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: English mnemonics A mnemonic (pronounced in Received Pronunciation) is a memory aid, and most serve an educational purpose. ...

Whose? My, your, his, her, its, our, their.

Who's? I'm, you're, he's, she's, it's, we're, they're.

See also

• Adjective
• Genitive case
• Possessive case
• Possessive pronoun
• Possessive suffix