As the name itself suggests, a noun that possesses or owns something is called a possessive noun. Possessive nouns indicate the ownership by adding an apostrophe (’) or ‘s’ or both at the end of a noun. Most of you must know about apostrophes. An apostrophe is a comma that comes in between or after a certain letter in specific words. There are two situations in which an apostrophe is used. First when you’re are performing a contraction and second when you’re making a possessive noun. However, we’re not going into details of the apostrophe as our main target is possessive nouns.
A possessive noun can be singular or plural. Generally, possessive nouns behave as adjectives instead of a singular or plural noun when used in a sentence. Acting as adjectives, possessive nouns modify the nouns or pronouns with which they are used.
Singular Possessive Noun
You all know that a noun is a person, a place or a thing. If a person or an object owns something, adding an apostrophe (’) and the letter ‘s’ at the end of it will make a singular possessive noun. We need a possessive noun to show that someone i.e. person, place or thing has something such as principal’s office, barber’s shop etc.
The general method to make a singular noun possessive is, Singular Noun + (’) + ‘s’
For example,
- Jake’s pen (jake + ’s)
- Cat’s fur (cat + ’s)
- Sky’s color (sky + ’s)
This rule also applies to the singular nouns ending at ‘s’. Don’t confuse them with plural nouns because they have the letter s at their end. To make them possessive nouns, there is still a need to add ’s at the end.
For example,
- Bus’s engine
- Carlos’s jacket
- Lens’s color
Another scenario that you’ll experience is to show the joint possession of something. Sometimes a single thing is owned by two or more people. The most common example is that a couple might have car owned by both husband and wife. Similarly, two persons might share a joint bank account. So, in this type of case, you’ll add an apostrophe and s at the end of last noun only to show the joint possession. Some examples are,
- Jack and Jennet’s car is of latest model.
- Henry and Michael’s business is heading towards bankruptcy.
You’ve to be very careful if you want to covey that two persons possess a certain thing but separately. There is a little change in the method of doing this. Instead of adding apostrophe and s to the last noun only, add ’s to both nouns separately. Here are some examples to understand this concept better.
- Maria’s and Megan’s hairs are curly.
- Alex’s and Harry’s bicycles have been stolen from the parking.
In above sentences, both girls separately own hairs. Therefore, the apostrophe and the letter s are added at the end of each noun. Adding apostrophe and the letter s to each noun refers to the fact that they have separate ownership instead of joint or shared one.
Plural Possessive Nouns
The method for forming a possessive noun from a plural noun is almost similar like that of singular possessive noun. A bit difference is that we are using apostrophe alone in some cases. We classify the plural nouns into two categories.
For the plural nouns that end in letter ‘s’, just adding the apostrophe at the last of the noun will be enough to make it possessive. These are the common plural nouns. For example,
- Cars’ steering wheels
- Kids’ toys
Other than that, there exists some irregular plural nouns also that are plural but don’t end in the letter ‘s’ such as women, men, people, children etc. To make these plural nouns possessive, add an apostrophe and the letter s in the end. For example,
- People’s opinion
- Children’s classroom