Possessive pronoun

Possessive pronoun

A possessive pronoun is a part of speech that attributes ownership to someone or something. Like all other pronouns, it substitutes a noun phrase and can prevent its repetition. For example, in the phrase, "These glasses are mine, not yours", the words "mine" and "yours" are possessive pronouns and stand for "my glasses" and "your glasses," respectively.

There are seven possessive pronouns in modern English: , , , , , , and , plus the obsolete possessive pronoun . The clitic "-'s" also works as a possessive pronoun such as "John's".For a more complete list, see the full list of English pronouns.

Some languages have neither possessive pronouns nor possessive adjectives, 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 "mine" or "my".Fact|date=February 2007

Determinative and independent possessive pronouns

Some call possessive adjectives determiners, and not pronouns. Others call them determinative possessive pronouns and call the possessive pronouns described above independent possessive pronouns, because they constitute full noun sentence and don't depend on a noun. For example, while "my" must be followed by a noun such as "glasses" in "my glasses", "mine" already subsumes such a noun.

ee also

* Genitive case
* Possessive adjective
* Possessive case
* Possessive suffix
* Possession (linguistics)
* Pronoun


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Look at other dictionaries:

  • Possessive pronoun — Possessive Pos*sess ive, a. [L. possessivus: cf. F. possessif.] Of or pertaining to possession; having or indicating possession. [1913 Webster] {Possessive case} (Eng. Gram.), the genitive case; the case of nouns and pronouns which expresses… …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

  • possessive pronoun — possessive pronouns N COUNT A possessive pronoun is a pronoun such as mine , yours , or theirs which is used to refer to the thing of a particular kind that belongs to someone, as in Can I borrow your pen? I ve lost mine …   English dictionary

  • possessive pronoun — ► NOUN Grammar ▪ a pronoun indicating possession, for example mine …   English terms dictionary

  • possessive pronoun — UK / US noun [countable] Word forms possessive pronoun : singular possessive pronoun plural possessive pronouns linguistics a pronoun such as mine , theirs , or yours that shows who something belongs to …   English dictionary

  • possessive pronoun — noun A pronoun in the possessive case …   Wiktionary

  • possessive pronoun — /pəzɛsɪv ˈproʊnaʊn/ (say puhzesiv prohnown) noun Grammar the possessive case of a personal pronoun, as mine, his, hers, ours, etc …  

  • possessive pronoun — noun Date: 15th century a pronoun that derives from a personal pronoun and denotes possession and analogous relationships …   New Collegiate Dictionary

  • possessive pronoun — pos,sessive pronoun noun count LINGUISTICS a pronoun such as mine, theirs, or yours that shows who something belongs to …   Usage of the words and phrases in modern English

  • possessive pronoun — noun : a pronoun that derives from a personal pronoun and denotes possession and other analogous relations (as his in “his is better than John s”) …   Useful english dictionary

  • possessive pronoun — (Grammar) pronoun that shows ownership or relationship to (mine, yours, etc.) …   English contemporary dictionary

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