Possessive Pronouns. Use of Possessive Pronouns

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You possessivepronouns are those that, when substituting a noun or nominal phrase, indicate sense of ownership or ownership. It is very common among apprentices of English, confuse when to use possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives. For the avoidance of doubt, we will explore, in the next sections, the use of possessive pronouns and we will take the opportunity to compare them with possessive adjectives.

Let’s go!

Read more: reflectivepronouns: know the different uses

**What are the possessivepronouns?**

You possessive pronouns they are found in a reduced number of eight, corresponding to each person.

Look at the table:

Possessive pronouns	translation	Examples
mine	(o) mine, (a) mine	this is mine. That is my.
Yours	(o) your, (a) your	this is yours. That is your.
His	(His	this ishis. That is from him.
Hers	(her)	this is hers. That is her.
Its	(o) his, (a) her	this is its. That is from him/her.
ours	(the) our (s), (the) our (s)	this is ours. That is our.
Yours	(the) your, (the) your	these are yours. These are your.
theirs	(the) of them, (the) of them	these are theirs. These are their.

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**How to use the possessivepronouns?**

First, we must remember that the possessive pronouns have as a grammatical function replace some element of the sentence, more specifically nouns and noun phrases:

She showed me her car.

She showed me her car (your car).

And I Shown Her mine.

and i showed her my.

Imagine that the two sentences were part of an everyday conversation. The second sentence used the possessive pronoun mine aiming to avoid a repeat. That's right, when placing mine, the enunciator did not need to repeat the possessive adjective + car (mycar).

Are you writing with your pencil?

you are writing with your pencil?

No, I am using yours.

no i'm using your.

Instead of answering the first question with I am using your pencil, the speaker chose yours. As in the first sentence we have the words written your pencil, there is no need to repeat them. It is possible to replace them with a possessive pronoun, which corresponds to the person who has/has the pencil (pencil).

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That is why, when the contextmake it clear which noun are we referring to|1|, we can replace it with one possessive pronoun.

Finally, the use of possessive pronouns is restricted to demonstrating some possession and/or some property:

Well, I think this is not Paul's coat. His is black.

Well I guess this isn't the Paul's coat. His it's black.

See that we are talking about someone's coat (Paul). In the second sentence, depending on the context, we have the clear idea that his it refers to Paul's coat, and so we can replace the garment with the aforementioned possessive pronoun.

My family sold their house to yours, right?

My family sold her house to yours, right?

Although the phrase presents two possibilities to replace a nominal phrase in myfamily and theirCasa, Lar, the context allows us to infer that yours it is related to your family, because whoever sells a house, sells it to someone else (his family).

You are talking to a friend of mine.

you are talking to a my friend.

Notice that Thefriend of is a structure used to talk about someone with whom we have a close relationship (friendship). This structure is always accompanied by a possessivepronoun.

I found this wallet. Does it belong to Mary? At the, hers is a different model.

I found this wallet. Does it belong to Mary? No, hers it's a different model.

In this example, we replaced thiswallet by the possessive pronoun hers, which indicates herwallet = her wallet.

Possessive pronouns indicate possession and ownership and can replace nouns and nominal phrases.

Difference between possessivepronouns and adjectivepossessive

Although possessive adjectives are not pronouns, it is very likely that we study them with possessive pronouns when we learn English. One of the reasons is related to the possible confusion that the two structures bring, because both indicate ownership or ownership.

However, their function differs. Possessive pronouns replace a nominal phrase, while possessive adjectives do not replace anything in prayer, because they are not actually pronouns, in fact, they are part of the nominal sentence |2|.Possessive adjectives need to accompany a noun to have their full meaning.

Look at the examples:

this is her backpack.

This is her backpack.

In this sentence we have the possessive adjective + noun indicating the possession of something.

So, this is hers, right?

So this is hers, right?

In this second example, hers it also indicates possession, but need not accompany a noun, as it substitutes for both a possessive adjective and the accompanying noun.

The mayor offered to his son a job.

The mayor offered the his son a job.

Note that this is a possessive adjective, as it accompanies a substantive.

can you see my bike? Yeah, it is next to mine.

Can you see minebicycle? yes she is on the side of mine.

In the question, we have a possessive adjective, because it accompanies the noun bike. In the answer, we have a possessive pronoun, as it replaces the idea of mybike = mine.

Consequently, the best way to identify and differentiate the adjective from the possessive pronoun is to look in the sentence if it is followed by a noun or not, indicating ownership or ownership.

See too: Subjectpronouns: how to use?