Possessives: pronouns

Hi Knightrider,

I can't think of any special use of the double possessive with a derogatory meaning. Depending on the intonation, it certainly could be used to communicate this, but as far as I can think, it doesn't have anything to do with the double possessive structure itself.

Similarly, 'what promise is it of yours?' sounds quite odd, even non-standard, to me. Perhaps if I saw it in context it would sound more natural to me. The second question there is grammatically correct and means what you indicate in your last full paragraph.

I hope this helps you.

Best wishes,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Hello annkec,

Thanks, but 'her' is a possessive adjective - 'hers' is a possessive pronoun.

Best wishes,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Hello PamNa,

Language evolves in unexpected ways and this is a good example of how the language has evolved. When using people's names in this kind of phrase the 's is common (though it is possible to say 'of Susan' too). However, when talking about other things, including groups, teams and so on, we do not use 's. For example:

I'm a fan of Frank Sinatra. [correct]

I'm a fan of Frank Sinatra's. [correct]

I'm a fan of Manchester United. [correct]

I'm a fan of Manchester United's. [incorrect]

Note that sometimes the choice can change the meaning, with certain phrases. For example:

That's a photo of Susan. [she is in the picture]

That's a photo of Susan's. [it belongs to her]

I hope that helps to clarify it for you. It's an interesting and tricky area - thank you for the question!

Best wishes,

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Hello Andhrite,

You can say both 'as me' and 'as mine' but I think 'as me' is the more common.

Best wishes,

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Hello Poncia,

To see the correct answers, click on the Finish button. If you don't understand an answer, please feel free to ask about it here in the Comments.

Best wishes,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Hi platformreg,

'whose' can be both a possessive question word (both adjective and pronoun, e.g. in the example questions you write above, which are both correct; there is little difference between them) as well as a relative pronoun. In general, when 'whose' is a possessive adjective or relative pronoun, it is followed by a noun. I'd say that more often than not, 'whose' is followed by a noun, though I'd have to do a bit of research in a corpus to confirm that.

Best wishes,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Hello nghiabkhn,

I'm afraid I'm not at all sure what you mean.  Could you perhaps provide some example sentences, and ask about them?  That would help to clarify what you mean and then we will be happy to try to help you.

Best wishes,

Peter

The LearnEnglish team

Hello cristianavk,

Good question! The answer is no - mine is used for to refer to both singular and plural nouns.

Best wishes,
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Hi HNawar,

It's possible to say "I'm a friend of Susan", but it's more common to say "I'm a friend of Susan's". This is just the way English has evolved - I wouldn't try to analyse it too much. But if it helps, perhaps you could think of it as short form of "I'm a friend of Susan's (many friends)."

Regarding your 3 sentences above, they are correct (the third is "It's mine"). They are possessive adjectives in sentences 1 and 2, and it's a possessive pronoun in sentence 3.

Best wishes,

Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Hi sdgnour2014,

mine and yours are used in the same way syntactically. In number 2 below, the word "of" is not needed, just as it is not needed before "yours". In number 3 below, the word "of" is often omitted since it is already understood.

1. This is mine and that is yours.
2. This idea is yours, not mine.
3. Ali and Osman are friends of yours, not (of) mine.
4. (correct)

Best wishes,

Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Hello sdgnour2014,

The first four are correct, the last one is not.  Instead of 'me' in the last sentence you need 'mine'.

Best wishes,

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Hello iphie,

In sentence 1, my finger is the correct form. mine usually stands alone, without a noun (in this case, finger) with it. By the way, this sentence would probably best be written in the simple past: "On one occasion, he beat me up, in the process dislocating my finger." I hope that this sentence doesn't explain a personal experience.

Your other sentences all look good - good work!

Best wishes,

Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Hello iphie,

The third pair of sentences in the exercise nicely illustrates the use of my and mine. There's also an example in the second table above.

Why don't you write a couple of sentences with these words and then we can check them for you?

Best wishes,

Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Hi ye gyi,

I'd suggest looking up myself and self in the dictionary (see the handy Cambridge Dictionaries Online search box on the right) and comparing them. Of these two options, I'd suggest myself as the title of a composition about you, or perhaps even better, "About me".

Best wishes,

Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Hello ye gyi,

The pdfs on LearnEnglish are for pages with audio or video recordings, so users can see the transcript and the exercises on paper.  We don't make pdfs for the other pages.  You could, however, do a screen grab or screen print if you need a paper copy.

Best wishes,

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Hello zen29,

Here is an example of its used like an adjective: The jury has reached its decision. In theory, its can also function as a possessive pronoun, but to be honest, I can't think of a sentence which sounds natural with it. A similar sentence would be: That bicycle is hers. The word hers could in theory be replaced by its if the subject were a thing or animal (e.g. That bicycle is its. (referring, for example, to a robot) but it sounds wrong to me.

I hope this helps!

Best wishes,

Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team

Hi e0j,

The third person masculine possessive adjective and possessive pronoun are the same word: his.

Therefore, his is the correct word for both of the gaps in the sentence you shared.

Best wishes,

Kirk

The LearnEnglish Team

Hello ajithkaroort,

If you click 'Finish' then you will see the correct answers (as well as your score).

Best wishes,

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Hello Vinita,

I’m sorry you’re having problems with the exercises. I’ll try to help you, but I’ll need a little more information, so I have a few questions for you:

- On which page did the exercises work for you?
- Do the exercises still work on this page?
- On which pages don’t the exercises work?
- Can you see videos and games on the site?
- Which browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome etc.) are you using? Did you use a different browser the first time you visited LearnEnglish?

Once we have this information we’ll look at the pages and see where the problem might be.

Best wishes,

Peter
The LearnEnglish Team

Hello Alexandra,

In English we have both possessive adjectives (used with nouns) and possessive pronouns (used by themselves).  For example, we can say:

This is her room (my + noun)

or

This is hers (without a noun)

So as you can see, nouns can follow them, but you need to make sure you use the right kind of possessive marker:

my / your / his / her / its / our / their + noun

mine / yours / his / hers / its / ours / theirs without a noun

I hope that clarifies it for you.

Best wishes,

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Hello torontolast!

Who said you can't use that? The only mistake I can see is the capital I on its.

Regards

Jeremy Bee

The LearnEnglish Team

Of course, you can. But, which one do you prefer? 

- No, it is my car

-No, it's mine.

I guess you would prefer the short one.