Possessive 'S' by Viv Quarry (www.vivquarry.com)

 

We mainly use possessive 's' with:

 

1. People

 

I stayed at my uncle's brother's house.

 

*1  I went to my parents' house last weekend.

 

*2 You can sleep in the children's room.

 

*3 The boss' decision / the boss's decision. (in both cases, the pronunciation is /BO SIZ/ )

 

2. Animals

 

Don't eat those! They're the dog's biscuits! (= 1 dog)

 

*1 Don't eat those! They're the dogs' biscuits! (= 2 or more dogs)

 

*2 The sheep's wool was very thick.

 

*4 The tiger opened its mouth.

 

3. In some time expressions

 

I 'm taking a month's holiday.

 

*1 They're giving me three months' salary.

 

Difficult cases

 

*1 With plural nouns, the apostrophe comes after the 'S' (see note 2 below).

 

*2 Unless the noun is an irregular plural noun.

 

*3 When a word ends in 's' you can either add 's or only an apostrophe.

 

*4 Possessive 's' with 'it' has no apostrophe (it's = 'it is' or 'it has')

 

We also use possessive 's with:

groups of people: the government's decision.

countries and continents: Britain's new parliament / Europe's economic problems

planets: the earth's core / the world's natural resources

companies: BP's profits

 

Apart from possessive 's', English also uses compound nouns and prepositional phrases:

 

We went to Copacabana Beach.

We kept the wine bottle. (= the empty bottle)

We bought a bottle of wine. (= it was full of wine)

 

Possessive 's' practice exercises

Back to Grammar worksheets

Home