Do you know what possessive pronouns are? This article will provide you with all of the information you need on possessive pronouns, including the definition, usage, example sentences, and more!
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Kevin
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November 24, 2021
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Common Questions
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What is a possessive pronoun?
According to Grammarly, possessive pronouns show that something belongs to someone. These include the word my, our, your, his, her, its, their, mine, ours, yours, his, hers, its, and theirs, These are never spelled with apostrophes. Some of these are called independent possessive pronouns or absolute possessive pronouns which must be used without a noun. These are not to be confused with possessive adjectives. There are many different types of pronoun like a subject pronoun and personal pronoun. These possessive forms and possessive determiners show a noun’s possession as well as gender like males and females. Possessive pronouns take the place of a noun of a specific person or thing. Modern English possessive pronouns have singular and plural forms.
Spanish also uses possessive pronouns. These usually follow the verb ser (to be) according to Happy Languages. These include the following:
- el mío / la mía
- los míos / las mías
- el tuyo / la tuya
- los tuyos / las tuyas
- el suyo / la suya
- los suyos / las suyas
- el nuestro / la nuestra
- los nuestros / las nuestras
- el vuestro / la vuestra
- los vuestros / las vuestras
- el suyo / la suya
- los suyos / las suyas
Many different languages also contain words that mean possessive pronouns. You may notice that some of these translations of possessive pronouns look and sound similar to one another. These are called cognates, which are words and phrases in different languages that likely have the same root or language of origin, causing them to sound the same. The below list of translations of possessive pronouns is provided by Word Sense.
- Latin: pronomen possessivum (neut.)
- Japanese: 所有代名詞 (しょゆうだいめいし, shoyū daimeishi)
- Scottish Gaelic: riochdair seilbheach (masc.)
- Icelandic: eignarfornafn (neut.), efn. (neut.)
- Dutch: bezittelijk voornaamwoord (neut.)
- French: pronom possessif (masc.)
- Esperanto: posesiva pronomo, poseda pronomo, posesivo
- Finnish: possessiivipronomini
- Catalan: pronom possessiu (masc.)
- Lithuanian: savybinis įvardis (masc.)
- Ancient Greek: κτητική ἀντωνυμία (fem.)
- Nogai: тартым авыс
- Italian: pronome possessivo (masc.)
- Korean: 소유대명사 (soyu-daemyeongsa)
- Faroese: ognarfornavn (neut.)
- Mandarin: 所有格代名詞, 所有格代名词 (suǒyǒugé dàimíngcí), 物主代詞, 物主代词 (wùzhǔ dàicí)
- Portuguese: pronome possessivo (masc.)
- Polish: zaimek dzierżawczy (m-in)
- German: besitzanzeigendes Fürwort (neut.); Possessivpronomen (neut.), Possessivum (neut.), Possessiv (neut.)
- Slovene: svojilni zaimek (masc.)
- Novial: posesivi pronomine
- Swedish: possessivt pronomen (neut.)
- Russian: притяжа́тельное местоиме́ние (neut.)
- Hungarian: birtokos névmás
- Romanian: pronume posesiv (neut.)
- Macedonian: посвојна заменка
- Greek: κτητική αντωνυμία (fem.)
- Danish: possessivt pronomen (neut.), possesivpronomen (neut.), ejestedord (neut.)
- Spanish: pronombre posesivo (masc.)
- Irish: forainm sealbhach
What are examples of possessive pronouns?
A possessive pronoun can be used in many different contexts in the English language. Trying to use a word or literary technique in a sentence is one of the best ways to memorize what it is, but you can also try making flashcards or quizzes that test your knowledge. Try using this term of the day in a sentence today! The following sentences are examples of possessive pronouns from Your Dictionary that can help get you started incorporating this tool into your everyday use. These can come at the end of a sentence. Try to use the term possessive pronouns today or notice when someone else is using a possessive pronoun.
- John baked cookies for his own graduation.
- I appreciate your understanding of the matter.
- I so appreciated his helping out.
- What’s mine is yours, my friend.
- The cat is yours.
- The money was really theirs for the taking.
- I feel bad at his missing this opportunity.
- Your taking the prize was a nice surprise.
- The children make their beds without my asking them to.
- The bag is theirs.
- Their mocking of him was inappropriate.
- I loved listening to his singing.
- The house is theirs and its paint is flaking.
- The dog is mine.
- The kids are yours and mine.
- We shall finally have what is rightfully ours.
- The ring is hers.
- Her coming to us was the right thing to do.
- Their mother gets along well with yours.
- Their singing inspired us.
What are other literary techniques and devices?
There are many different literary and grammatical techniques and devices that you might see when you are reading prose or poetry. It is important to recognize these terms because they are always used for some purpose. Knowing these devices can help readers understand the author’s deeper meaning and why they are using such a device. Take a look at the below list of grammatical devices from OED and see how many you know! Then try researching ones that are unfamiliar to you.
- absolute (absol.)
- second person
- periphrasis | periphrastic
- conjunction (conj.)
- collective noun
- complementary
- feminine
- phrasal verb
- zero
- passive
- intensifier
- noun (n.)
- unmarked genitive
- filler
- demonstrative
- apposition
- suffix
- abstract
- adjective
- element
- noun phrase
- to-infinitive
- quasi-
- subjunctive
- preposition (prep.)
- main verb
- anticipatory
- similative
- past participle
- phrase (phr.)
- pleonasm | pleonastic
- infinitive
- interjection
- third-person
- imperative (imper.)
- part of speech
- person
- prepositional phrase
- head
- cognate object
- ellipsis | elliptical
- passive infinitive
- premodify | premodifier
- morpheme
- collocation | collocate
- construed (const., constr.)
- cataphoric
- special use
- complement
- parasynthetic
- bare infinitive
- attributive
- objective
- vocative
- subordinate clause
- non-referential
- reflexive
- pronoun (pron.)
- tense
- subjective
- postmodify | postmodifier
- direct question
- common noun
- stem
- mood
- pro-form
- conditional
- adverb (adv.)
- copular verb | copula
- agent noun
- indefinite
- present tense
- neuter
- nominative
- interrogative
- base form
- agree | agreement
- possessive adjective
- perfect
- plural
- predicative
- appositive
- direct object
- dual
- modify | modifier
- active
- modal verb | modal auxiliary verb | modal auxiliary
- non-finite
- genitive
- indicative
- prefix
- simple
- verb (v.)
- object | direct object | indirect object
- sentence adverb |sentence adverbial
- transitive
- possessive pronouns | proper name
- case
- participial adjective
- combination
- relative
- main clause
- first person
- causative
- auxiliary verb | auxiliary
- inflection | inflected | inflectional
- construction
- that-clause
- progressive
- compound | compounding
- indirect object
- apodosis and protasis
- indirect question
- subject
- double object
- parenthetical | parenthetically
- antecedent
- nominal relative | nominal relative clause
- indirect speech
- adverbial | adverbially
- personal pronoun
- indirect passive
- impersonal (impers.)
- prepositional passive
- prepositional object
- clause
- optative
- concrete
- accusative
- past tense
- present participle
- superlative
- gender
- instrumental
- verbal noun
- determiner
- possessive
- mass noun
- anaphoric
- declarative
- positive
- count noun
- intransitive
- masculine
- singular
- number
- article
- possessive pronoun
- participle | past participle | present participle
- definite article
- protasis
- comparative
- locative
- combining form (comb. form)
- dative
- direct speech
- finite
Overall, the term possessive pronouns refer to a pronoun that replaces a noun and expresses possession.
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