Pronouns and Possessive Adjectives

Introduction

We will learn about pronouns and possessive adjectives in this tutorial. And we are also going to understand the relation between pronouns and possessive adjectives.

What is a Pronoun?

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Pronouns are the words that substitute nouns in sentences.

Examples:

She, he, you, this, I, someone, who, that, it, each, few, whoever, whose, everybody and so on.

Examples in sentences

Pooja is a good girl. She studies attentively. (In the second sentence, ‘she’ replaces the proper noun ‘Pooja’)

Types of Pronouns

It is important to know about the types of pronouns in the English language.

These are the following:

• Possessive Pronoun

• Personal Pronoun

• Reflexive Pronoun

• Indefinite Pronoun

• Demonstrative Pronoun

• Interrogative Pronoun

• Intensive Pronoun

• Reciprocal Pronoun

Uses of Pronouns

Pronouns replace nouns.

• Male nouns are replaced with ‘his’, ‘he’, and ‘him’, etc.

• Nouns referring to females are replaced with ‘her’, ‘she’ and ‘hers’, etc.

• Any living or non-living object is replaced with ‘it’ and ‘its’, etc.

• The third person plural pronouns are ‘they’, ‘them’, ‘theirs’, etc.

The first person pronouns are ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘us’, etc. The second person pronouns are ‘you’, ‘your’, ‘yours’, etc.

Apart from these, we are going to learn about more uses of pronouns and the relation with possessive adjectives.

To replace the nouns of animals, we use the pronoun ‘it’, ‘its’.

For example: The dog is barking, and it is hungry.

But if we need to mention the gender of the animal, then ‘he’ or ‘she’ and the other forms of these pronouns can be used.

For example: The cat is hiding behind the bush, and she has given birth to three kittens.

Possessive Adjectives

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Possessive adjectives modify nouns and denote who owns or possesses. Such adjectives precede a noun to modify and specify the details about it.

For example: This is my house. (the house belongs to ‘my’, which means ‘me’. So ‘my’ is a possessive adjective).

Possessive adjectives mainly identify the owner of anything (noun). And such adjectives modify the nouns. Possessive adjectives do not have singular and plural versions, and the same possessive adjective can sit before both plural and singular nouns.

Examples in sentences

• It is my book.

• These are my books.

Here the possessive adjective ‘my’ precedes both ‘book’ and ‘books’.

If the owner of the noun is plural, then the possessive adjective will be plural.

Examples in sentences

• It is their property.

• Those are their plants.

In the above two sentences, ‘their’ replaces the plural nouns. And it denotes the multiple owners (plural numbers).

‘Property’ is a singular noun, whereas ‘plants’ is a plural noun.

Pronouns and Possessive Adjectives

Sometimes one mistakes possessive adjectives for pronouns. As a possessive adjective is a different form of the subject, it looks like a pronoun. But the function of the possessive adjective is not like a pronoun. Let’s know more about this.

Use of Possessive Pronoun

Among all types of pronouns, possessive pronouns get mixed with adjectives. But if you can understand how possessive pronoun works in a sentence, then you will not make any mistakes!

A possessive pronoun does not precede a noun; rather, it comes after the noun in a sentence. Possessive pronouns are shown in bold words below.

Examples in sentences

• This necklace is mine.

• That laptop is hers.

• The movie tickets that we gave them were ours.

• This notebook is his.

The different forms of possessive pronouns in the English language are the following:

• Mine
• His
• Hers
• Theirs
• Yours(can be both singular and plural)
• Ours
• Its

An easy way to detect possessive pronouns in sentences is to question ‘whose’.

Example:

That book is mine.

If you ask a question: Whose book is this?

Then the answer you get is ‘mine’.

Possessive Adjectives vs. Possessive Pronouns

Now you know about both possessive adjectives and possessive pronouns. It is time to understand the difference between these two.

Possessive adjectives sit before the nouns. But possessive pronouns come after the nouns in sentences. Possessive adjectives modify nouns, and that is why they precede nouns. But possessive pronouns indicate the person who owns something. Such pronouns replace the nouns and fulfil the meaning of the sentence. Possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives can be differentiated from the construction of the sentence.

Examples in sentences

• This is my bottle. (‘my’ is a possessive adjective)

• This bottle is mine. (‘mine’ is a possessive pronoun)

We must notice how the form of the subject ‘I’ changes in the above two sentences. In the same way, other subjects also change while transforming into possessive adjectives and possessive pronouns.

The chart below will help you to remember the different forms:

Subject	Possessive Pronoun	Possessive Adjective
I	Mine	My
You (singular)	Yours	Your
You (plural)	Yours	Your
He	His	His
She	Hers	Her
It	Its	Its
We	Ours	Our
They	Theirs	Their

Conclusion

We have learned about pronouns and possessive adjectives in this tutorial. Now you can easily identify possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives in sentences.

FAQs

Q1. What is a possessive adjective?

Ans. A possessive adjective refers to a noun that owns or possesses something.

Q2. State the primary difference between possessive adjectives and possessive pronouns.

Ans. The primary difference between possessive adjectives and possessive pronouns lies in their uses.

For example: This is your pen. (possessive adjective ‘your’ is modifying noun ‘pen’).

This pen is yours. (possessive pronoun ‘yours’ is replacing the noun of the owner of the ‘pen’)

Q3. What is the function of a pronoun? Give an example.

Ans. Pronoun exchanges the place with a noun in a sentence so that we do not need to repeat the nouns unnecessarily.

Example: I have a dog. It is two years old. (‘It’ replaces ‘dog’)

Q4. How does a possessive pronoun replace a noun?

Ans. A possessive pronoun replaces a noun with the possessive pronoun form of the subject (noun).

For example: I am carrying five books. And this book is also mine. (‘Mine’ is the possessive pronoun form of ‘I’).

Q5. How do you identify a possessive adjective in a sentence?

Ans. We can identify a possessive adjective in a sentence by checking the position of the same. A possessive adjective precedes a noun to modify it.

For example: This is our school. (‘our’ modifies ‘school’)