A possessive adjective, such as my, your, or their, comes before a noun: "This is my book." A possessive pronoun, such as mine, yours, or theirs, stands on its own and replaces the noun: "This book is mine." This article explains both, with a table of all the forms.
Possessive adjectives and pronouns are essential in English. They may come naturally to native speakers, but they are a real challenge for many people who learn English as a second language (ESL).
Not every language shows possession the same way as English, so learners often say "Johnny bag is brown" or "He bag is brown" instead of "Johnny's bag is brown" or "His bag is brown."
If you have trouble with possessive adjectives and pronouns, read on.
First, here are all the possessive adjectives and pronouns in one table, so that you can see them side by side.
| Person | Possessive adjective | Possessive pronoun |
|---|---|---|
| I | my | mine |
| you | your | yours |
| he | his | his |
| she | her | hers |
| it | its | (rarely used) |
| we | our | ours |
| they | their | theirs |
His is the same in both columns, and its is almost only used as an adjective, before a noun: "The dog wagged its tail."
Possessive adjectives
A possessive adjective goes with a noun. You put it before the noun, like this:
- My book is thick.
- Your ball is blue.
- Their dog is sick.
As you can see, the adjectives my, your, and their are followed by the nouns they describe: book, ball, and dog. (Many modern grammars call these words possessive determiners.)
Possessive pronouns
A possessive pronoun shows possession after the noun has been mentioned, like this:
- The thick book is mine.
- The blue ball is yours.
- The sick dog is theirs.
The three examples above show that you can change a sentence with a possessive adjective into one with a possessive pronoun. "That is his car" and "That car is his" mean the same thing. Both are correct, so you can use whichever you like better.
A word of caution
Whether you use adjectives or pronouns, be careful not to confuse your readers. Here is an example:
"Johnny meets Terry at the police station. His luggage was stolen the other day."
Whose luggage was stolen, Johnny's or Terry's? The sentence doesn't say. To help your readers understand the situation, you can rewrite it like this:
"At the police station, Johnny meets Terry, whose luggage was stolen the other day."
Or like this:
"Johnny meets Terry at the police station. Terry's luggage was stolen the other day."
Now it is clear that Terry is the one who lost the luggage.
Another common mistake is to write it's when you mean its. It's is a contraction of it is or it has. Possessive adjectives and pronouns never take an apostrophe: write its, yours, hers, ours, and theirs. For more on this, see it's vs. its and theirs or their's.
Spend some time practicing the forms in the table above. Once you know them all by heart, it becomes much easier to use them correctly in sentences. The differences between pronouns and adjectives explains the two word classes in more detail.
When you write anything with possessive adjectives and pronouns, the Spell Checker can help you catch spelling and grammar mistakes like these before anyone else reads your text.