possessive determiners

◊ GRAMMAR

Possessive determiners show who or what something belongs to or is connected with.

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The possessive determiners are:

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You choose a possessive determiner according to the identity of the person or thing who has the thing you are talking about. For example, if you are talking about a pen belonging to a woman, you say `her pen', but if the pen belongs to a man, you say `his pen'.

Soon after five that day the vicar called at my house.

Sir Thomas More built his house there.

I walked out of her house and collided with a pillar box.

Sometimes I would sleep in their house all night.

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The same determiner is used whether the noun after the possessive determiner is singular or plural, or refers to a person or a thing.

I just went on writing in my notebook.

My parents don't trust me.

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◊ WARNING

You do not use another determiner with a possessive determiner. For example, you do not say `I took off the my shoes'. You say `I took off my shoes'.

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◊ 'the' instead of possessive

Sometimes the determiner `the' is used when there is an obvious possessive meaning, particularly when you are talking about someone doing something to a part of someone else's body.

They hit him over the head with a stick.

He took his daughters by the hand and led them away.

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You can also use `the' when referring to one of your possessions. For example, you can say `I'll go and get the car' instead of `I'll go and get my car'.

I went back to the house.

The noise from the washing-machine is getting worse.

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However, you cannot use `the' like this when referring to something that someone is wearing. For example, you say `My watch is slow'. You do not say `The watch is slow'.

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It is not usual to use `the' with a possessive meaning when referring to a relative such as an uncle or a sister. However, people often refer to their children as `the children' or `the kids'.

When the children had gone to bed I said, `I'm going out for a while'.

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Note that possessive determiners are more commonly used to indicate that something belongs to a person than to a thing. For example, it is more usual to say `the door' than to say `its door' when referring to the door of a room.

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For more information on when to use a possessive determiner, see entry at ↑ Possession and other relationships.

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