{"id":587,"date":"2016-02-22T01:42:14","date_gmt":"2016-02-22T06:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.teachenglishworld.com\/?page_id=587"},"modified":"2016-02-22T02:01:39","modified_gmt":"2016-02-22T07:01:39","slug":"forming-the-possessive","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.teachenglishworld.com\/?page_id=587","title":{"rendered":"FORMING THE POSSESSIVE"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.teachenglishworld.com\/?page_id=513\">English Grammar<\/a>\u00a0&gt;\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.teachenglishworld.com\/?page_id=520\">Nouns<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The possessive form is used with nouns referring to people, groups of people, countries, and animals. It shows a relationship of belonging between one thing and another. To form the possessive, add apostrophe + &#8220;s&#8221; to the noun, If the noun is plural, or already ends in &#8220;s&#8221;, just add an apostrope after the &#8220;s&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>EXAMPLES<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the car of John = <strong>John&#8217;s car<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>the room of the girls= <strong>the girls&#8217; room<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>clothes for men = <strong>men&#8217;s clothes<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>the boat of the sailors = <strong>the sailors&#8217; boat<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For names ending in &#8220;s&#8221;, you can either add an apostrophe + s, or just an apostrophe. The first option is more common, When pronouncing a possessive name, we add the sound \/z\/ to the end of the name.<\/p>\n<p>EXAMPLES<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Thomas&#8217;s book (or Thomas&#8217; book)<\/li>\n<li>James&#8217;s shop (or James&#8217; shop)<\/li>\n<li>the Smiths&#8217;s house (or the Smiths&#8217; house)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>FUNCTIONS OF THE POSSESSIVE<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Belonging to&#8217; or &#8216;ownership&#8217; is the most common relationship the possessive expresses.<\/p>\n<p>EXAMPLES<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>John owns a car. = It is <strong>John&#8217;s car<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>America has some gold reserves. = They are <strong>America&#8217;s gold reserves<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The possessive can also express where someone works, studies or spends time.<\/p>\n<p>EXAMPLES<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>John goes to this school. = This is <strong>John&#8217;s school<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>John sleeps in this room. = This is <strong>John&#8217;s room<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>John works at this bank. = This is <strong>John&#8217;s cubical<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The possessive can express a relationship between people.<\/p>\n<p>EXAMPLES<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>John&#8217;s mother<\/strong> is running late.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mrs. Brown&#8217;s colleague<\/strong> will not be coming to the meeting.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The possessive can express intangible things as well.<\/p>\n<p>EXAMPLES<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>John&#8217;s patience<\/strong> is running out.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The politican&#8217;s hyprocrisy<\/strong> was deeply shocking.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>FIXED EXPRESSIONS<\/p>\n<p>There are also some fixed expressions where the possessive form is used.<\/p>\n<p>EXAMPLES WITH TIME<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>a day&#8217;s work<\/li>\n<li>a month&#8217;s pay<\/li>\n<li>today&#8217;s newspaper<\/li>\n<li>in a year&#8217;s time<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>OTHER EXAMPLES<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>For God&#8217;s sake! = exclamation of exasperation<\/li>\n<li>a stone&#8217;s throw away = very near<\/li>\n<li>at death&#8217;s door = very ill<\/li>\n<li>in my mind&#8217;s eye = in my imagination<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The possessive is also used to refer to shops, restaurants, churches and colleges, using the name or job title of the owner.<\/p>\n<p>EXAMPLES<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Shall we go to Luigi&#8217;s for lunch?<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;ve got an appointment at the dentist&#8217;s at eleven o&#8217;clock.<\/li>\n<li>Is Saint Mary&#8217;s an all-girls school?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>English Grammar\u00a0&gt;\u00a0Nouns The possessive form is used with nouns referring to people, groups of people, countries, and animals. It shows a relationship of belonging between one thing and another. To form the possessive, add&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-587","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teachenglishworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teachenglishworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teachenglishworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teachenglishworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teachenglishworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=587"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.teachenglishworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":592,"href":"https:\/\/www.teachenglishworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/587\/revisions\/592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teachenglishworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}