POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVES

Possessive adjectives help us show ownership or possession.

We use possessive adjectives with a noun. 

The adjective shows who and the noun shows what.

We will start with first person ( me or a group I am part of).

FIRST PERSON POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVES:     My and Our

This is my football.              It is my book.

This is our house.            That is our car.

The first person possessive adjectives are underlined above. 

Which words are the nouns? (football is the noun in the first sentence)

Circle the nouns.  (These are the words that follow the possessive adjectives).

Now we will look at examples of second person.  Do you remember second person? Second person is not me or us.  Second person is you, someone I am talking to.

SECOND PERSON POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVE:    Your

This is your shoe.  It is your house.

That is your football.

Circle the second person possessive adjectives and the nouns that they possess. 

Is the word your used as the second person possessive adjective because the noun we describe belongs to you? (Yes, we use your because we are talking about something that you possess).

Do you remember third person?  Third person means we are talking about someone else.  For example, I tell you about something that belongs to him, her, or them.

THIRD PERSON POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVES:            His, Her, and Their

That is his car.  This is her house.

It is their school. He has his football.  She lost her mobile. They are in their house.

By now you know that the underlined words are the third person possessive adjectives.  Can you circle the nouns that these possess?  When you have finished circling the nouns we will look at another way to show possession.  It is also an easy exercise and it will be on possessive pronouns.

II.            POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS

Possessive pronouns replace the possessive adjectives and nouns like we used to show first person, second person and third person possessive.  What does this mean?  Let’s look at the three sentences below which deal with first person.  The possessive pronoun is underlined.  Do you see how it can replace the noun and the possessive adjective?

I have a new football.  It is my football.  It is mine.

Where is the possessive adjective?  Circle it.  Where is the noun that the adjective possesses?  Underline it. Was that easy?  Let’s look at some more.

1. You have a nice car.  This is your car.  It is yours.

2. He bought a new laptop.  That is his laptop.  That is his.

3. I have a yellow house.  This is my house.  It is mine.

4. We have a good football team.  This is our team.  This is ours.

5. They have sixty sheep.  Those are their sheep.  They are theirs.

6. You have a big horse. That is your horse.  That is yours.

Now look at each set of three sentences above. The last sentence of each group will have a possessive pronoun.  Underline the possessive pronoun.  Another sentence in each group will have a possessive adjective and a noun.  Circle them.  Which of the sentences are second person?  Which are third person? Is there a sentence that shows first person possessive?

There is also a sentence on each line above that has a pronoun.  This pronoun is not a possessive pronoun.  Can you find these pronouns?