10 Points About Possessives

Posted: May 24, 2013

[caption id="attachment_11353" align="alignright" width="300"]© masterzphotofo - Fotolia.com[/caption]Possessives often tend to cause many moments of head-scratching for writers. Sure, there are some that are easy to figure out, but you may find yourself needing to use a more obscure variation that causes you to really have to think about the proper form. Here's some advice to help make it easier.

Writers are often challenged by the details of producing singular and possessive forms, but dealing with less common possessive variations can be downright vexing. Here are guidelines about additional possessive constructions.

1. Absolute Possessives
His, hers, its, theirs, ours, mine, and yours, which are termed absolute possessives because, unlike their simple possessive versions (for example, their and my), they require no subsequent noun, should never be followed by an apostrophe. (Note that his and its, which can precede a noun or noun phrase or can stand alone, do not change form depending on whether they are simple or absolute possessives.)

2. Compound Possessives
The possessive form in compound nouns and in noun phrases is generally expressed only in the final element — for example, “The student teachers’ experiences varied”; “Her brothers-in-law’s attitudes differed dramatically.” (It might be better to relax the syntax: “The experiences of the student teachers varied”; “The attitudes of her brothers-in-law differed dramatically.”)

3. Genitive Possessives
The genitive form, also known as the possessive form — although most phrases formed this way refer to relationship, not to possession — is most often problematic when the apostrophe implies of, as in “a hundred dollars’ worth” or “three months’ time.” (See this post for a discussion of the various types of genitive.)

Read the entire article 10 Points About Possessives at DailyWritingTips.com.