Possessive pronoun

1. Concept of Possessive Pronouns

Possessive pronouns are pronouns that indicate ownership.

The definition above might sound a bit complex. Let’s look at the following example for clarity:

• His car is expensive. Mine is cheap.

Possessive pronouns include mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs.

✎ NOTE: its is also a possessive pronoun but is extremely rarely used.

2. Positions of Possessive Pronouns

• Subject

• Object

• After a preposition (in a prepositional phrase)

Examples:

• Subject: His car is expensive. Mine is cheap.

• Object: He bought his car two years ago. I bought mine one month ago.

• After a preposition: I could deal with his problem easily, but I don’t know what to do with mine.

3. Distinguishing Possessive Adjectives and Possessive Pronouns

We need to differentiate between Possessive Adjectives (Determiners) and Possessive Pronouns as follows:

• Possessive adjectives ALWAYS modify a noun that follows them.
• Possessive pronouns do NOT take a noun after them because they function as a noun phrase themselves.

Let’s explore the following examples to understand the difference:

Examples:

• My car is blue. His car is red.
  Here, my and his are possessive adjectives because my modifies the noun car, and his modifies the noun car.
• My car is blue. His is red.
  In this sentence, his is a possessive pronoun. His refers to his car.