The possessive case

Forming possessives

· Showing possession in English is a relatively easy matter. By adding an apostrophe and an s we can manage to transform most singular nouns into their possessive form :
· Charles's car
· Bartkowski's book

· Most plural nouns already end in s. To create their possessive, simply add an apostrophe after the s :

· The Pepins' house is the big blue one on the corner
· The lions' usual source of water has dried up
· The witches' brooms were hidden in the corner
· The babies' beds were all in a row

And when we want the possessive of a pluralized family name, we pluralize first and then simply make the name possessive with the use of an apostrophe.

Thus, we might travel in the Smiths' car when we visit the Joneses (members of the Jones family) at the Joneses' home.
(When the last name ends in a hard "z" sound, we usually don't add an "s" or the "-es" and simply add the apostrophe: "the Chambers' new baby.")

· But with nouns whose plurals are irregular, you will need to add an apostrophe followed by an s to create the possessive form.
· She plans on opening a women's clothing boutique
· Children's programming is not a high priority
· The geese's food supply was endangered


Practice :

Sentence:
"Those are Martha books sitting on the table."
Is the possessive case required?
Yes. We have a case of possession. We can apply this brief procedure :

1. Assume possession.
Ask: To whom/what do the books belong?
2. Answer: The books belong to Martha.
3. Place the apostrophe immediately after the complete answer : Martha'.
4. Place an "s" after the ' if an "s" is needed.
The possessive does not end with an "s," so we place one after the ': Martha's.
· "Those are Martha's books sitting on the table."



Special cases


Joint possession and compound structure

· With some structures, the place of the apostrophe depends on whether the nouns are acting separately or together :
· Miguel's and Cecilia's new cars are in the parking lot.
This means that each of them has at least one new car and that their ownership is a separate matter.
· Miguel and Cecilia's new cars are in the parking lot.
This means that Miguel and Cecilia share ownership of these cars. The possessive (indicated by 's) belongs to the entire phrase, not just to Cecilia.

· When one of the possessors in a compound possessive is a personal pronoun, we have to put both possessors in the possessive form :
· Bill's and my car had to be towed last night.
Compound Nouns

· Compound nouns are nouns made up of more than one word and may be written as solid words (schoolteacher), as spaced words (attorney general), or as hyphenated words (mother-in-law).

Let's look at a few examples of singular and plural compound nouns in their possessive cases :
Compound nouns may be written as solid words.
"I often borrowed my roommate's car."
"I often borrowed my roommates' cars."

Compound words may also be written as spaced words.
"At a major newspaper, the editor in chief 's responsibilities are many and varied."
"At the convention, the editors in chief 's decision was to not hold a convention next year."

Compound words may also be written as hyphenated words.
"My sister-in-law's novel won a prize."
"My sisters-in-law's novels both won prizes."

· Generally, the apostrophe -s is simply added to the end of the compound structure: my daughter-in-law's car, a friend of mine's car. If this sounds clumsy, use the "of" construction to avoid the apostrophe: the car of a friend of mine, etc.
This is especially useful in pluralized compound structures : the daughters-in-law's car sounds quite strange, but it's correct. We're better off with : the car of the daughters-in-law.


Amounts

· We can use the possessive case to show amounts of time and money.
For instance,
"After a minute's consideration, I made my decision not to attend the meeting."
or
"Your seven months' leave of absence has been approved."
or
"Ms. Spivak won a year's supply of free dog food for her pet."


Idiomatic Expressions

· Idiomatic expressions are phrases and sentences that are used in certain ways to mean certain things.

· In idiomatic expressions, the possessive formation remains singular at all times even though the objects vary between singular and plural.

For instance,
a collector's item, collector's items
a traveller's cheque, traveller's cheques
a writer's cramp, writer's cramps
a tailor's chalk, tailor's chalks
a seller's market, seller's markets
a baker's dozen, baker's dozens
a bull's-eye, bull's-eyes
a rabbit's foot, rabbit's feet

Plurals

· We use the possessive case to show the plural forms of symbols, lower-case letters, and lower-case abbreviations containing internal periods.

For instance,
"I don't understand what the two %'s mean in your letter."
or
"Don't use so many $'s; they tend to confuse me."
or
"Some people are unaware that &'s should not be used to mean 'and' in writing."

· To show the plural of a lower-case letter, simply adding an "s" would be confusing (for example, "as" or "is" or "us"). So to show the plurals, we use the possessive case.
For instance,
"Don't forget to dot your i's and cross your t's."
or
"The plural form of Mr. is Messrs.; both take capital m's."

· When lower-case abbreviations contain internal periods (.'s), we also show the abbreviation plurals by using the possessive case.
For instance,
"Both price quotations considered f.o.b.'s to be Montreal."
or
"On several occasions, his a.k.a.'s have been similar to his real name."