|
Forming the English Possessive Possession need not refer to literal ownership, but it's a good place to begin. Dave owns some guns, so we can speak of Dave's guns. Mary has a pick-up, so we can speak of Mary's pick-up. But we can also speak of John's children and Sue's grandmother, even though John does not own his children, nor Sue her grandmother. A better way to think of possession in English is as a relationship that can also be expressed syntactically, through a phrase with the word of. |
|
Dave's guns |
= |
the guns of Dave |
| Mary's pick-up | = | the pickup of Mary |
| John's children | = | the children of John |
| Sue's grandmother | = | the grandmother of Sue |
|
Formation of the Possessive |
|
In writing, there are three rules to apply: |
|
1. |
You can form a possessive whenever you can also form an of expression that has the same meaning: |
|
Fred's kitchen is very clean |
= |
The kitchen of Fred is very clean. |
|
| Judy's house is over there | = | The house of Judy is over there. | |
|
Incorrect: |
The horse's are eating now | = | The __?__ of horse are eating now. |
|
Whatever goes on the end of the of phrase is the possessor, which may be any noun. |
|
2. |
Form the possession by adding 's to the end of the possessor, even if that word is plural. |
|
3. |
If this results in the sequence s's, drop the last s. |
|
Apply all these rules to all forms of the possessive, and you won't make a mistake. |
|
(For singular forms of the possessive, this last rule is not required, but it's OK to apply it.) |