1
Possessive adjectives Subject pronoun
Possessive adjective
I
my
you
your
he
his
she
her
it
its
we
our
you
your
they
their
• We use possessive adjectives to indicate possession. • Possessive adjectives: – are never preceded by a definite article and are always used in front of the noun they refer to. My pen is over there. / Your mother is Irish. – always refer to the possessor. Ann has her iPod in her purse. Lin and Wang are Chinese, their friend Okura is in China. That’s a beautiful cat: its fur is so soft! – are invariable in number. your pen / your pens – are invariable in gender, except the 3rd person singular that agrees with the possessor. This is John: his sister is a student, his brother is a student, too. This is Kate: her father is an engineer, her mother is a teacher.
, Possessive s • We use the possessive ’s to indicate a relationship between people or to indicate possession between people and things. • We use the possessive ’s with the following structure: name of possessor + ’s + thing possessed (relation or family) Your neighbour My father Jennifer
8
’s house. ’s car. ’s brother.
• When we use the possessive ’s, remember: – we only add an apostrophe to plural nouns that end in -s. The students’ books are new. – we add ’s to irregular plural nouns. The children’s books are on their desks. – when two or more people possess the same thing, we add ’s only to the last one. Mark and Helen’s parents have a big car. (Mark and Helen are brother and sister.) – when two or more people do not possess the same thing we add ’s to all the names. Jane’s and Robert’s parents work together. (Jane and Robert are not brother and sister.) • We do not use the possessive ’s to indicate a possessive relationship between things. We can express this relationship in two ways: – by using the preposition of. Look at the roof of that house! – by using two nouns together. The kitchen table is very large.
Asking and telling the time • Here are some ways to ask the time in English: What’s the time? What time is it? Have you got the time? What time do you make it? • To answer these questions we always use the pronoun it followed by the verb to be: A What’s the time, please? B It’s two o’clock. • In telling time, when the minute hand is in the right half of the clock face, we say how many minutes have gone past the hour: minutes + past + the hour It’s twenty past eight.