Possessive pronouns in English: highlights

A pronoun is part of a speech that is used instead of a name. Not "Peter Vasilyevich," but "he," not "the author of these lines," but "I". Possessive pronouns, just like personal ones, allow you to make the message more concise. Compare: "shoes of Peter Vasilyevich" and "his shoes". Possessive pronouns in English, as well as in Russian, answer the questions of "Whose?", "Who owns?".

This is my hat. "This is my hat."

Her cat is trampled on my tulips! "Her cat trampled on my tulips!"

Your offer is very attractive, but I've already found the job. - Your offer is very attractive, but I already found a job.

Types of pronouns

Possessive pronouns in English can be divided into two large groups depending on how they take the grammatical form - absolute or relative. Pronouns in absolute form are quite independent, while relative pronouns can not be used autonomously - just before the noun.

Compare:

This is my suitcase (This is my suitcase). This suitcase is mine.

As you can see, in Russian the form of the pronoun has not changed. And in both cases we use the same word - "my". However, in these two sentences, there is a different semantic emphasis. The second statement is more categorical. But it's not only that. An independent possessive pronoun is often necessary in order to avoid cluttering the speech with excessive repetitions. For example, take this dialogue:

- Is it your car? (This is your car?).

- No, it is not my car. (No, this is not my car.).

And now another version of the same dialogue:

- Is it your car? (This is your car?).

- No, it is not mine. (No, not mine.).

And if the two know what it is about, then the dialogue may look even shorter.

- Is it yours? (This yours?).

- No, it is not mine. (No, not mine).

Relative possessive pronouns in English, as already mentioned, are used only before nouns. There are several subtleties: if there is a pronoun, then the article is no longer needed. After the pronoun there can be another adjective. For example: my funny red ball - my cheerful sonorous ball. However, there are two adjectives that are used before the relative possessive pronouns: both and all. For example: All my balls are red (All my balls are red).

The summary table of pronouns in English is given below.

The main difficulties

The study of forms usually does not cause difficulties, as well as understanding and translation of English texts. But here with the reverse translation, from Russian to English, there are some difficulties. For example, "I called him" and "this is his hat". It would seem that we see here two completely identical words - "his". But can we translate them equally? If you understand the essence of possessive pronouns well, then in this situation you will not get confused. The possessive pronoun is used here only in the second case. Whose hat is this? - Him. That is - his. But in the sentence "I called him," the pronoun in no way characterizes belonging. This pronoun in the genitive case, answering the question "who?", Respectively, here it is necessary to use the pronoun he in the genitive case - him.

There is another common mistake. In Russian there is a universal pronoun "own". In English there is no such thing, we will speak instead of "our" - her, instead of "our" - theirs and so on. And what is important, this pronoun in some cases replaces the definite article, especially before nouns, meaning personal things, close people or part of the body. For example, "He put on his glasses." As we see, we consider it superfluous to indicate that he has put on his glasses. This is implied. When constructing a phrase in English, we must use either the definite article or the possessive pronoun before the word. In this case, the pronoun will sound more natural. He puts on his glasses.

How to learn possessive pronouns in English

According to the advice of experienced teachers, it will be easy to learn grammar if one follows the rules: do not rush, disassemble all the grammatical rules on examples, independently compile tables. In fact, pronouns are one of the simplest topics that contain English. Exercises, possessive pronouns in which repeat in one form or another, can be found in a variety of tasks. The main exercise for fixing the above material, which occurs in textbooks or tests, is sentences with missing words, where you need to insert the correct form of a possessive pronoun. In most cases, to master this topic, it is enough to perform 4-5 such exercises and analyze several texts.