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Possessive determiners: my, your, etc

What kind of words are they?​

My, your, his, her, its, our and their are pronouns, because they stand for possessive noun phrases: my younger brother means ‘the speaker’s younger brother’; their plans means for example ‘those people’s plans’ or ‘the children’s plans’.

They are used at the beginning of noun phrases, and function as determiners.

They are not adjectives, though they are sometimes called ‘possessive adjectives’ in older grammars and dictionaries.

Like all ‘possessive’ words and structures, they can express various ideas besides possession.

Note that mine, yours, etc (see here) are also pronouns (of a different kind), but they are not used as determiners.

one’s and whose​

One’s (see here) and whose ( (see here), (see here) are also possessive determiners/pronouns.

  • It’s easy to lose one’s temper when one is criticised.
  • An orphan is a child whose parents are dead.
  • Whose bicycle is that?

Not used with other determiners​

My, your, etc are not used with other determiners like the, a/an or this.

  • She’s lost her keys. (not … the her keys.)

If we want to use a/an or this, that, etc with a possessive, we use the ‘… of mine’ structure (see here).

  • A friend of mine has just invited me to Italy. (not A my friend …)
  • How’s that brother of yours? (not … that your brother?)

Distributive use: She told them to open their books, etc​

After a plural possessive, we do not normally use a singular noun in the sense of ‘one each’. (For details, (see here).)

  • The teacher told the children to open their books. (not … their book.)

Articles instead of possessives: a pain in the head​

We sometimes use articles instead of my, your, etc. This happens in common prepositional phrases which refer to the subject or object, mostly when we are talking about blows, pains and other things that often happen to parts of people’s bodies.

  • The ball hit him on the head.
  • She’s got a pain in the stomach.

In other cases we do not normally use articles instead of possessives (see here).

  • She’s got a parrot on her shoulder. (not She’s got a parrot on the shoulder.)
  • Mia broke her leg playing football. (not Mia broke the leg …)
  • He stood there, his eyes closed and his hands in his pockets, looking half asleep. (not … the eyes closed and the hands in the pockets …)

Spelling: its, whose​

The possessives its and whose have no apostrophes. It’s and who’s are not possessives, but contractions (see here): they mean ‘it is’ or ‘it has’; ‘who is’ or ‘who has’. Compare:

  • The dog’s in a good mood. It’s just had its breakfast.
  • ‘Whose little girl is that?’ ‘You mean the one who’s making all that noise?’
note

For structures like Do you mind my smoking?, (see here).

For my own, your own, etc, (see here).

For the older English form thy, (see here).

For southern AmE you all’s, (see here).