25/2/2016 Viv's possessive 's' worksheet Possessive 'S' by Viv Quarry (www.vivquarry.com) We mainly use possessive 's' with: 1. People I stayed at my uncle's brother's house *1 I went to my parents' house last weekend *2 You can sleep in the children's room *3 The boss' decision / the boss's decision. (in both cases, the pronunciation is /BO SIZ/ ) 2. Animals Don't eat those! They're the dog's biscuits! (= 1 dog) *1 Don't eat those! They're the dogs' biscuits! (= 2 or more dogs) *2 The sheep's wool was very thick *4 The tiger opened its mouth 3. In some time expressions I 'm taking a month's holiday *1 They're giving me three months' salary Difficult cases *1 With plural nouns, the apostrophe comes after the 'S' (see note 2 below) *2 Unless the noun is an irregular plural noun *3 When a word ends in 's' you can either add 's or only an apostrophe *4 Possessive 's' with 'it' has no apostrophe (it's = 'it is' or 'it has') We also use possessive 's with: groups of people: the government's decision countries and continents: Britain's new parliament / Europe's economic problems planets: the earth's core / the world's natural resources companies: BP's profits Apart from possessive 's', English also uses compound nouns and prepositional phrases: We went to Copacabana Beach We kept the wine bottle. (= the empty bottle) We bought a bottle of wine. (= it was full of wine) http://www.vivquarry.com/wkshts/possessive.html 1/2 25/2/2016 Viv's possessive 's' worksheet Possessive 's' practice exercises Back to Grammar worksheets Home http://www.vivquarry.com/wkshts/possessive.html 2/2