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For most singular nouns, you add an apostrophe and “s” to make it possessive or to show ownership. For example, “The cat’s litter box.” Most plural nouns only need an apostrophe, such as ...
The possessive form of an English noun, or more generally a noun phrase, is made by suffixing a morpheme which is represented orthographically as ' s (the letter s preceded by an apostrophe), and is pronounced in the same way as the regular English plural ending (e)s: namely, as / ɪ z / when following a sibilant sound (/ s /, / z /, / ʃ /, / ʒ /, / tʃ / or / dʒ /), as / s / when following ...
For possessive plurals of words ending in a silent x, z or s, the few authorities that address the issue at all typically call for an added s and suggest that the apostrophe precede the s: The Loucheux's homeland is in the Yukon; Compare the two Dumas's literary achievements.
Possession may be marked in many ways, such as simple juxtaposition of nouns, possessive case, possessed case, construct state (as in Arabic and Nêlêmwa), [3] or adpositions (possessive suffixes, possessive adjectives). For example, English uses a possessive clitic, 's; a preposition, of; and adjectives, my, your, his, her, etc.
Timothy Pulju, a senior lecturer in linguistics at Dartmouth College, said that until the 17th or 18th century, the possessive of proper names ending in S — such as Jesus or Moses — often was simply the name itself with no apostrophe or additional S. Eventually, the apostrophe was added (Jesus' or Moses') to denote possession, though the ...
See English plural § Singulars with collective meaning treated as plural. English nouns are not marked for case as they are in some languages, but they have possessive forms, through the addition of -'s (as in John's , children's ) or just an apostrophe (with no change in pronunciation) in the case of -[e]s plurals ( the dogs' owners ) and ...
The plural of individual letters is usually written with -'s: [22] there are two h's in this sentence; mind your p's and q's; dot the i's and cross the t's. Some people extend this use of the apostrophe to other cases, such as plurals of numbers written in figures (e.g. "1990's"), words used as terms (e.g. "his writing uses a lot of but's").
A possessive or ktetic form (abbreviated POS or POSS; from Latin: possessivus; Ancient Greek: κτητικός, romanized: ktētikós) is a word or grammatical construction indicating a relationship of possession in a broad sense. This can include strict ownership, or a number of other types of relation to a greater or lesser degree analogous ...