Possessive Pronouns

When it comes to pronouns there are all different types. Possessive pronouns are easily one of the most misused types of pronouns, but are very easy to understand. A possessive pronoun is one that helps to show ownership of something, someone, or some thought. Just like other pronouns, it takes the place of a proper noun and can help to break up repetition of a proper noun in a paragraph or when you are talking with someone. Some of the most common possessive pronouns are: ours, its, hers, his, yours, mine, and theirs.

Here are examples of possessive pronouns when used in a sentence:

• These pencils are mine, not his.

You can see that the possessive pronoun “mine” shows your glasses and “his” shows his glasses. It helps to distinguish between the different ones. It would take too long to say it this way:

• These are my pencils, they are not his pencils.

If you had to use every noun possible when speaking or writing, it would begin to sound very lengthy and very hard to understand. Just remember that possessive pronouns show what another noun belongs to.

You do have to be careful not to confuse a possessive pronoun with a possessive adjective. Take a look at this example where someone is using a possessive adjective instead of a possessive pronoun:

• What color is your sister’s car?
• His bike is blue.

In both sentences, the words “your” and “his” are possessive adjectives. They are used to modify the nouns (sister and bike) in the sentence. Here are some examples of using a possessive pronoun the right way:

• What color is yours?
• His is blue.
• Hers is red.
• Mine is purple.
• Theirs is yellow.

You can see that “yours”, “his”, “hers”, “mine”, and “theirs” are all possessive pronouns here – they don’t modify anything else in the sentence.

Here are more examples of possessive pronouns used correctly:

• It’s mine.
• Ours isn’t that big.
• His is very furry and tall.
• The house is ours.
• The bike is yours.
• The clothes are theirs.
• That part of the room is his.
• His is the bigger one.
• Hers is the taller one.
• Yours is the one on the end.
• Mine is the one in the middle.
• Theirs are the ones that have blue dots on them.
• Yours is the tallest present.
• Mine is the heaviest bowling ball.