"My eyes met hers'"'?
- Thread starter garbonzo
- Start date
We write "his dog" and "her dog", not "his' dog" and "her' dog".
The words "his" and "her" are possessive pronouns. They don't need an extra apostrophe to indicate possession because the words themselves indicate possession.
A common point of confusion is between "its" and "it's". The word "its" is like "his" or "her" - it is a possessive pronoun, so it needs no apostrophe. The word "it's", on the other hand, is a contraction of two words "it is".
The following make no sense:
1. "The dog brought the newspaper to it's owner."
2. "Its a nice day today."
Sentence 1 reads "The god brought the newpapre to it is owner."
Sentence 2 reads "Something unnamed owns something else (also unnamed) that does something unspecified to a nice day today."
The words "his" and "her" are possessive pronouns. They don't need an extra apostrophe to indicate possession because the words themselves indicate possession.
A common point of confusion is between "its" and "it's". The word "its" is like "his" or "her" - it is a possessive pronoun, so it needs no apostrophe. The word "it's", on the other hand, is a contraction of two words "it is".
The following make no sense:
1. "The dog brought the newspaper to it's owner."
2. "Its a nice day today."
Sentence 1 reads "The god brought the newpapre to it is owner."
Sentence 2 reads "Something unnamed owns something else (also unnamed) that does something unspecified to a nice day today."
"hers" is a possessive pronoun already and therefore doesn't need an additional marker to express possession.
Compare "Her eyes met mine."
Pronouns
Unlike with other noun phrases which only have a single possessive form, personal pronouns in English have two possessive forms: possessive determiners (used to form noun phrases such as "her success") and possessive pronouns (used in place of nouns as in "I prefer hers", and also in predicative expressions as in "the success was hers"). In most cases these are different from each other.
For example, the pronoun I has possessive determiner my and possessive pronoun mine; you has your and yours; he has his for both; she has her and hers; it has its for both (though rarely used as a possessive pronoun); we has our and ours; they has their and theirs. The archaic thou has thy and thine. For a full table and further details, see English personal pronouns.
Note that possessive its has no apostrophe, although it is sometimes written with one in error, by confusion with the common possessive ending -'s and the contraction it's used for it is and it has. Possessive its was originally formed with an apostrophe in the 17th century, but this was dropped in the early 19th century, presumably to make it more similar to the other personal pronoun possessives.[4]
The interrogative and relative pronoun who has the possessive whose. In its relative (but not interrogative) use, whose can also serve as a possessive of which (i.e. to refer to things and abstracts as well as people).
Other pronouns that form possessives (mainly indefinite pronouns) do so in the same way as nouns, with -'s, for example one's, somebody's (and somebody else's). Certain pronouns, such as the demonstratives this, that, these, those, do not have possessive forms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_possessive#Semantics
Haha, thanks a bunch! /thread.
jamesshaffer85
Registered Member
I dunno why you want to add the apostrophe at the end of a possessive pronoun. We use apostrophe only when we form a possessive by adding an ending s and apostrophe to a personal noun. As to the pronouns, they do not require apostrophes: his, her, etc.