English possessive

In English, possessive words or phrases exist for nouns and most pronouns, as well as some noun phrases. These can play the roles of determiners (also called possessive adjectives when corresponding to a pronoun) or of nouns.

Nouns, noun phrases and some pronouns generally form a possessive with the suffix -'s (or in some cases just by adding an apostrophe to an existing -s). This form is sometimes called the Saxon genitive, reflecting the suffix's derivation from a genitive case ending in Old English, or Anglo-Saxon. Personal pronouns, however, have irregular possessives, and most of them have different forms for possessive determiners and possessive pronouns, such as my and mine or your and yours.