Pronouns: possessive (my, mine, your, yours, etc.)

We use pronouns to refer to possession and ‘belonging’. There are two types: possessive pronouns and possessive determiners. We use possessive determiners before a noun. We use possessive pronouns in place of a noun:

Is that [determiner] your scarf? It’s very similar to [pronoun] mine. (It’s very similar to my scarf.)
That’s not [determiner] their house. [pronoun] Theirs has got a red front door.
It was [determiner] his fault not [pronoun] hers.

personal pronoun	possessive determiner	possessive pronoun
I	my	mine
you (singular and plural)	your	yours
he	his	his
she	her	hers
it	its	its*
we	our	ours
they	their	theirs
one	one’s	one’s*

*We avoid using its and one’s as possessive pronouns except when we use them with own:

The house seemed asleep yet, as I have said, it had a life of its own.
One doesn’t like to spend too much time on one’s own.

Typical errors

We don’t use ’s after possessive pronouns:

Are those gloves hers?
Not: ~~Are those gloves her’s?~~

’s is not used with the possessive pronoun its. It’s means ‘it is’:

The team is proud of its ability to perform consistently well.
Not: … ~~proud of it’s ability~~ …

We don’t use another determiner with a possessive determiner:

I’m going to get my hair cut this afternoon.
Not: … ~~get the my hair cut~~ …

We don’t use possessive determiners on their own. They are always at the beginning of noun phrases:

That’s not my book. It’s yours. (or It’s your book.)
Not: ~~It’s your~~.

We don’t use possessive pronouns before nouns:

Lots of our friends were at the party.
Not: ~~Lots of ours friends~~ …

Typical errors​

Typical errors