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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 ...
alternative meanings of ambiguous morpheme, e.g. 2/3 for a morpheme that may be either 2nd or 3rd person, or DAT/GEN for a suffix used for both dative and genitive. [ 27 ] [ 6 ] [optional in place of period] a morpheme indicated by or affected by mutation, as in Väter-n (father\ PL-DAT.PL ) "to (our) fathers" (singular form Vater )
Use the apostrophe in expressions such as two years' time, several hours' delay etc. An apostrophe should be used to indicate the plural of single letters - p's and q's. How about this: Possessives To form the possessive of a singular noun that ends in s, the general rule is to add an apostrophe and an s, for example, Charles's book. Exceptions ...
The Oxford Companion to the English Language notes that "a plural s after a set of numbers is often preceded by an apostrophe, as in 3's and 4's..., but many housestyles and individuals now favour 3s and 4s". [8] Most style guides prefer the lack of apostrophe for groups of years (e.g. 1980s) [71] and will prefer 90s or '90s over 90's or '90's ...
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.
The apostrophe (ʼ) is not usually considered part of the English alphabet nor used as a diacritic, even in loanwords. But it is used for two important purposes in written English: to mark the "possessive" [r] and to mark contracted words. Current standards require its use for both purposes.
Five years' imprisonment, Three weeks' holiday, etc. Years and weeks may be treated as possessives and given an apostrophe or as adjectival nouns without one. The former is perhaps better, as to conform to what is inevitable in the singular – a year's imprisonment , a fortnight's holiday .
The personal pronouns of many languages correspond to both a set of possessive determiners and a set of possessive pronouns.For example, the English personal pronouns I, you, he, she, it, we and they correspond to the possessive determiners my, your, his, her, its, our and their and also to the (substantive) possessive pronouns mine, yours, his, hers, its (rare), ours and theirs.