Possessive - learn the different ways of indicating ownership.

This lecture is all about possessive nouns the possessive form indicates ownership us differing opinions on how to form the possessive possessive can apply to Concrete and Abstract nouns multiple owners need to be looked at closely.

And they can refer to places by using the owner’s name or functional title as we said the possessive form indicates ownership.

And here are some examples Susie’s horse is the horse belonging to Susie Paul’s motorbike is the motorbike that belongs to Paul and Mary and Mike’s car is the car belonging to Mary and Mike

there are several opinions on how to form the possessive as the old fashioned method and the modern approach.

If we look at the old fashioned formation First we see that the rules are relatively simple and apostrophe s to the noun so Susie’s horse Fred’s motorbike but if the word ends in an S we just add the apostrophe.

So Thomas trousers.

The bus driver

the modern possessive formation is more in line with the way in which the words are spoken this only affects words ending in a letter S and the letter S after the apostrophe is spoken more like a letter Z.

So here’s some examples Thomas’s trousers.

The buses passengers

an exception to the previous rule and is a bit awkward is when the owners are plural and the plural form is formed by adding an s to the singular form and we’ll see some examples.

The cars engines are changed to perfection.

If we just said the cars is engines it would sound really weird or the dogs eat the cat’s food.

If we said the dogs eat the cats is food this would sound really odd and forced.

And also please note here that dogs doesn’t have an apostrophe because we’re just talking about the plural form of dog.

There’s no possessive here.

All other plurals are treated normally.

For example the children’s book arrived today the fishes tank is dirty and needs to be cleaned up until now we’ve only seen examples with concrete downs but possessive forms can also apply to abstract nouns and abstract nouns are things like feelings and emotions and ideas.

And here are some examples.

Ginny’s mood isn’t getting any better.

John’s integrity is above question Susie’s sense of humor is very dark.

Paul’s knowledge is impressive with multiple owners we need to look carefully so if more than one person owns a single item and only the last one then the list gets the apostrophe so we say here Mary and Mike’s car.

So it’s one car and two people own it and they meet Mary and Mike and several people each have their own items.

They all get the apostrophe so it’s say Paul’s and John’s shoes are black.

So both Paul and John each own their own pair of black shoes and will see is possessive formation to talk about places by using the owner’s name or functional title.

For example I have an appointment at the doctor’s tomorrow and the doctors here is used as a functional title we’re invited to the neighbors for drinks next week.

Similar to the other example or using a name so William Perkins is school is for girls between eleven and 18 years old and the school is named after Sir William Perkins or Geno’s makes the best pizza in town.

So presumably Gino is the guy who makes the wonderful pizza and his restaurant is called Geno’s and we use the apostrophe to show this.