In English, the possessive case is used to express ownership or possession. It can also be used in idiomatic expressions or to show a relationship with someone or something. In general, it is formed by adding an apostrophe ’ to the end of a noun. In writing, the challenge is to decide where to put the apostrophe in different use cases.
If the noun is singular and doesn’t end in s, we add ’s to the end of the noun to form the possessive case.
The company’s car. Mark’s book. Tom’s wife. My daughter’s necklace. Mark’s sister.If the noun is singular and ends in s, we add ’s or simply ’ to the end of the noun to form the possessive case.
Tobias’s wife (or Tobias’ wife). Louis’s book (or Louis’ book). Louis’s books (or Louis’ books). Be careful here. Although books are plural, the singular noun Louis dictates the rules here because Louis owns the books but not the other way around. Jame’s children (or James’ children). The Bahamas’s rules for Covid-19 (or The Bahamas’ rules for Covid-19).If the noun is plural and doesn’t end in s, we add ’s to the end of the noun to form the possessive case.
The children’s toys. The people’s opinions. The women’s emancipation. The geese’s food. The mice’s feet.If the noun is plural and ends in s, we only add an apostrophe (’) to the end of the noun to form the possessive case.
The boys’ toys. The kangaroos’ pouches. The tigers’ stripes. The dogs’ barking. The cities’ rules.In the case of joint ownership (for example, two people owning the same thing), we only change the last noun in the series to be in the possessive case.
Tom and Barbara’s car. Tom and Louis’ company. In this example, Tom and Louis own the same company. However, if we say Tom’s and Louis’ company, we mean the company of Tom and the company of Louis. In this case, we are talking about two different companies owned by two different people.We do not use the possessive form when the nouns express description or identification only. In the following examples, no apostrophe is needed.
We use the same rules as described above to form the possessive case for acronyms and abbreviations. Study the following examples.
There are no explicit rules on choosing between the of and the ’s structures. However, there are cases where the of structure is the most appropriate choice. For example, when we are referring to the part of a whole.
