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Noun Phrases
Of course the possessive forms of nouns can signal many things besides ownership. Often we use the possessive form with inanimate nouns to indicate that something is a part or a component of something else. For example, consider the following sentence: The computer’s screen is flickering. Here the possessive form tells us that the screen is a component of the computer. In this section, however, we are going to focus solely on how English forms the possessive. Before Shakespeare’s time the possessive form of nouns was spelled exactly the same as the plural form: with an -s. By Shakespeare’s time, however, writers had began to distinguish the possessive -s from the plural -s by the use of an apostrophe with the possessive: -’s. For example, they could distinguish the possessive form of the noun friend from the plural form: Possessive: Plural:
friend’s friends
The use of the possessive apostrophe after the -s to indicate that a noun is both plural and possessive did not become standard until the beginning of the nineteenth century. So today we have a three-way distinction between the three -s forms: the plural -s, the singular possessive -’s, and the plural possessive -s’. For example: Plural: Singular possessive: Plural possessive:
friends friend’s friends’
While it is correct to call -s’ the “plural possessive,” it is a little confusing to think of the -’s as just the “singular possessive.” The problem with this definition arises with the possessive forms of irregular nouns that become plural by changing their vowels rather than by adding a plural -s. For example: SINGULAR
Noun man woman child
PLURAL
Possessive man’s woman’s child’s
Plural men women children
Possessive men’s women’s children’s
As you can see, -’s is used with these plural possessive nouns, not -s’. This is not really an exception to the general rule. At first glance, we might think we should use -s’ with these irregular nouns in the same way we use -s’ with regular nouns. This is not correct because it would mean