Possessive Determiners vs Possessive Pronouns

Hey, in one of my previous articles we were talking about personal pronouns. There you could see examples with possessive forms. There are actually two kinds of possessive forms, possessive determiners and possessive pronouns. So, let’s have a look at these two groups in a little more detail today.

Possessive Determiners

So, possessive determiners are the ones you usually learn first. They include words like MY, YOUR or THEIR, to mention just a few.

As all determiners, they precede nouns and are part of noun phrases. They function like adjectives and are sometimes called possessive adjectives. There’s a distinct form for each person.

Here you can see all the forms in singular:

1^st person singular: My wedding dress is going to get dirty.

2^nd person singular: Your dress is perfect, let me tap your back to confirm this.

3^rd person singular – masculine gender: Don’t you think his behavior is weird?

3^rd person singular – feminine gender: Does her face look happy?

3^rd person singular – neuter gender: The car is blue, even its hubcaps are blue.

And here are the forms in plural:

1^st person plural: I wanted our wedding to be perfect.

2^nd person plural: Everybody will say: ‘Your wedding day was awesome.’

3^rd person plural: Their car broke down and now they have to push it.

So, as you can see in the examples above, the possessive determiners precede the nouns and are part of the noun phrases:

my wedding

your dress

your back

his behavior

her face

its hubcaps

our wedding

your wedding

their car

Possessive Pronouns

Possessive pronouns, on the other hand, stand on their own. They function like nouns and are never followed by nouns. Actually, they replace noun phrases containing possessive determiners. In the examples below you will see the noun phrases that they replace in square brackets.

Again, just like with possessive determiners, there are separate forms for each person. In practice we don’t use the possessive pronoun in third person singular in neuter gender, which is its, just like the possessive determiner. So, here they are:

First in singular:

1^st person singular: Mommy, my sister has a very long trunk. Mine [=my trunk] is much shorter.

2^nd person singular: Believe you me, sweetheart, yours [= your trunk] is going to be longer when you’re older.

3^rd person singular – masculine gender: I also have very small ears. Look at my brother. His [= his ears] are much bigger.

3^rd person singular – feminine gender: That’s true. But look at your sister. Hers [=her ears] are only slightly bigger than yours [=your ears].

And then in plural:

1^st person plural: Mommy, some animals have really big eyes. Why are ours [=our eyes] so small?

2^nd person plural: Yours [= your eyes] are still much bigger ours [=our eyes].  

3^rd person plural: The little bird is right, mommy. Now that I think about it, our eyes are much bigger than theirs [=their eyes].

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