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Course: Grammar > Unit 3
Lesson 2: Possessive and reflexive pronounsPossessive pronouns
Possessive pronouns show who has something. There are two types of possessive pronouns. Some act like adjectives and modify nouns, like my, our, your, her, his, its, and their. Others act like nouns and can stand alone, like mine, ours, yours, hers, his, its, and theirs. None of them use an apostrophe.
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- I know he says that possessive pronouns don't have apostrophe but why does he put one in Girish when he uses it as a possessive pronoun(7 votes)
- He is using an apostrophe in "Girish's" because Girish's isn't a pronoun - it's a possessive /noun/. The possessive pronoun is "his". Remember, a pronoun is something that stands in for another word. "Girish" doesn't stand for anything else.(22 votes)
- In [2:40] Is wrong say "that book is my"?(0 votes)
- This is "my" book (my is a possessive adjective)
That book is "mine" (mine is a possessive pronoun"(37 votes)
- At4:21, I don't understand why does the pronoun his acts like a noun in the last two sentences. It's describing the subject, so shouldn't it be an adjective?(7 votes)
- I checked this at dictionary.com (which is my go-go reference spot for questions like yours). While there, I learned what I have copied and pasted below.
pronoun
the possessive form of he (used as an attributive or predicative adjective):
His coat is the brown one. This brown coat is his. Do you mind his speaking first?
that or those belonging to him:
His was the cleverest remark of all. I borrowed a tie of his.(6 votes)
- Can you use 'its' in a noun like way? I asked Khanmigo and he says that is a mistake in the video.
"can you give some examples of using 'its' in a 'noun-like' way?"
"Great question! However, I made a mistake in the video summary. "Its" doesn't have a noun-like form like the other possessive pronouns. My apologies for the confusion! 😅"(4 votes)- Here's a story. See if it helps.
The little kids were writing short words.
Jamie wrote several ants. "ant ant ant ant"
Junie wrote a bunch of dids. "did did did did"
Juanita wrote a bunch of its. "it it it it it"
There, I just used "its" in a noun-like way.
Do I get any points for that?(8 votes)
- Pls how can u possess pronouns(4 votes)
- I wear a watch. It is my (possessive pronoun) watch.
You have a pimple on your nose. It is your (possessive pronoun) pimple.
He has spinach between his teeth. They are his (possessive pronoun) teeth.
We have a stinky old cat. She is our (possessive pronoun) cat.
All of you have covid. It is your (possessive pronoun) disease.
They won the lottery. It is their (possessive pronoun) money.(8 votes)
- Nouns are: people, places, things and ideas. So how does a possessive pronoun behave life a noun? Are: mine, ours, etc considered an idea?(6 votes)
- Pronouns have so many wonderful features that sometimes we don't even know that we're using them!(6 votes)
- I'm really good at this! Thank you for making khan academy I really love it!(5 votes)
- What some example of the possessive pronouns?(4 votes)
- Did the teacher present an entire lesson without naming the things that the lesson was about? Shame on him!(1 vote)
- this is really confusing me teach.(2 votes)
- Possessive pronouns are words that show ownership or possession. They help us talk about things that belong to someone. Instead of using the person's name, we can use a pronoun to say that something belongs to them.
For example, instead of saying "This toy belongs to Sarah," we can say "This toy is hers." In this sentence, "hers" is a possessive pronoun that stands for Sarah. It shows that the toy belongs to her.
Here are other examples of possessive pronouns:
"This book is mine" (instead of "This book belongs to me") - "mine" shows that the book belongs to the speaker.
"These shoes are his" (instead of "These shoes belong to him") - "his" shows that the shoes belong to the person being talked about.
"That bike is ours" (instead of "That bike belongs to us") - "ours" shows that the bike belongs to the group of people being talked about.
So, possessive pronouns help us talk about ownership and possession without repeating the person's name or using the full phrase "belongs to."(5 votes)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] All right grammarians, let's get down to it, and start talking about
possessive pronouns. A possessive pronoun is a pronoun that we use to show
possession of something which is just sort of
a fancy way of saying "you have it." So possession equals having stuff. Now we can essentially divide
possessive pronouns in half, because on this side of the divide, we have a list of pronouns
that behave like adjectives, and on this side, we have a group of pronouns
that behave like nouns. I'll list them and then
we'll give some examples. So the possessive pronoun that behaves like an
adjective for me is my. The possessive pronoun that behaves like a noun for me is mine. Our behaves like an adjective; ours behaves like a noun. Your behaves like an adjective; yours behaves like a noun. Her behaves like an adjective; hers behaves like a noun. His behaves like an adjective; his behaves like a noun. Its behaves like an adjective; its behaves like a noun. And their behaves like an adjective, and theirs behaves like a noun. Now I'd like to point out that nowhere in any of these words does there appear such a thing as an apostrophe. That little guy. I know this much is true: there are no apostrophes
in possessive pronouns. So it's not ours, it's ours, like that. It's not yours with an
apostrophe like that, it's yours with no apostrophe. Likewise it's not hers, his, it's is the big one. That means something entirely different. Or theirs. Across all varieties of English, the possessive pronouns don't
have any apostrophes in them. So this is a very handsome looking chart if I do say so myself, but it doesn't really do the work of explaining what I mean by saying my behaves like an adjective, and mine behaves like a noun. So let me get some example sentences down and we'll see what I mean. So let's say that there
was a book that I owned. How would I talk about it? Well I could do it two different ways using these possessive pronouns. I could say, "That is my book." And here my is working as an adjective that modifies and describes book. Or I could say, "That book is mine." And here we're using is
to connect book to mine, and so in that case we're
using mine as a noun. How do we know it's acting like a noun? Because we can use it
independently of the word book. So if someone says to me,
"David, where is your book?" I can say, "Mine is on the bedside table." Nowhere in this sentence
does the word book appear, but we can use mine independently because we've established
in a previous sentence that the thing we're
talking about is this book. So let's talk about my coworker Girish. Nice fella. And let's say that Girish
has a very nice hat. "We would say, "That is Girish's hat." This is what we'd call a possessive noun. But talking of Girish again, we could say, "That is his hat." Now we're using that possessive
pronoun as an adjective to modify hat. Whose hat is it? It is his hat. If we wanted to use the personal pronoun that acted like a noun, we would say, "That hat is his." And we can also use his
independently of the word hat by saying, "His is the
hat with polka dots." So we've got two piles of
possessive pronouns here. And one pile behaves like adjectives: my, our, your, her, his, its, their, and the other behaves like nouns: mine, ours, yours, hers, his, its, theirs. And remember, none of them
contain an apostrophe. You can learn anything. David out.