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Ruslan L. Posted 13 years ago
Grammar

Possessive Pronouns or Adjectives?

My, our, your, etc.... - are they possessive pronouns (which is known from every book on English that I own) or possessive adjectives?
  

Top answer

There were possessive pronouns and absolute forms of possessives as they were called in books.

— Ruslan L.

  • There were possessive pronouns and absolute forms of possessives as they were called in books.
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10 Answers
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There were possessive pronouns and absolute forms of possessives as they were called in books.
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If you take a look at a lot of different books, you'll find a lot of different terminology. These are my recommendations. These will be understood by almost everybody on this website.

I, you, he, she, we, they, ... personal pronouns - nominative
me, you, him, her, us, them, ... personal pronouns - objective
my, your, his, her, our, their, ... possessive det
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Ruslan L.My, our, your, etc. - are they possessive pronouns … or possessive adjectives?
They are genitive* pronouns, inflectional forms of I, we, and you respectively. They can FUNCTION as determiner in noun phrase structure (My shoe is missing)
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Aspara GusThis term is preferable to “possessive”, since the relation between the genitive pronoun and the following head is by no means limited to that of possession.
Which term is preferable to "objective", since "objects" are not limited to inanimates, e.g., I invited Laura? (We cannot say that Laura is an object.)

CJ
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CalifJimWhich term is preferable to "objective", since "objects" are not limited to inanimates, e.g., I invited Laura? (We cannot say that Laura is an object.)
My grammar uses “accusative”.
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Aspara GusNotice that my and your can be replaced by nouns ... Max’s shoe is missing ...
Not in my book. If that replacement is possible, then we should have [My / Max / Larry / The leader] shoe is missing.

CJ
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Aspara GusMy grammar uses “accusative”.
Isn't it odd that so much of modern grammar came about together with a movement that said, "Oh, those inept grammarians of the past! They just wanted to squeeze English into the patterns of Latin. They just could not see that English grammar is not Latin grammar." Now we're back to "genitive" and "accusative".
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CalifJimNot in my book. If that replacement is possible, then we should have [My / Max / Larry / The leader] shoe is missing.
I didn’t mean to give the idea that any noun form was possible. I suppose I should have said that my could be replaced by a genitive noun, then.
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Aspara Gusgenitive noun
OK. Genitive noun. Hmmm. I'm not that familiar with this terminology, however. I may have heard it before. Maybe even from you.
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