Possessive pronouns
You learn to find the possessive pronoun: mine, yours, hers, ours or theirs.
How to do the test
- Find the word that says who owns something.
- Check what comes after it.
- If no noun follows, it is a possessive pronoun.
A worked example
Tap the possessive pronoun. The red bike is mine.
- It shows who owns something and stands in for my bike.
- No noun comes after it, so it is a pronoun and not a determiner.
- Mine is the possessive pronoun.
More examples
Tap the possessive pronoun. The garden is ours.
- It shows who owns something and stands in for our garden.
- No noun comes after it, so it is a pronoun and not a determiner.
- Ours is the possessive pronoun.
Tap the possessive pronoun. The cake on the table is mine.
- It shows who owns something and stands in for my cake.
- No noun comes after it, so it is a pronoun and not a determiner.
- Mine is the possessive pronoun.
Watch out
You tap my or your, because it also shows who owns something.
My is followed by a noun (my bike). Mine stands alone (the bike is mine). Only the one that stands alone is the possessive pronoun.
Tips
- Possessive pronouns never have an apostrophe: yours, not your's.
Why it works
A possessive pronoun says who owns something and takes the place of the owner plus the noun. Mine stands for my bike. There is no noun after it, and that is how you tell it from my.