What are Possessive Pronouns?

"Well Pip, it looks we have found all of our missing items." "But how do we know which item belongs to who?" "It looks like each object has labels, let's see if they help us!" "Okay! But remember, I use he and him pronouns!" "And I use she and her pronouns!" Let's help Detectives Koko and Pip sort the items by learning all about possessive pronouns. Possessive pronouns take the place of nouns to show ownership. Possessive pronouns can be singular, which is when we talk about one subject or object or plural, when talking about multiple subjects or objects. Possessive pronouns can be used in the first person, which is the I and me perspective. First-person possessive pronouns are mine for singular and ours for plural. They can be used in the second person, which is the you perspective. Second-person possessive pronouns are yours for both singular and plural. Finally, possessive pronouns can also be used in the third person, which is the she, he, they, or it perspective. Third-person singular possessive pronouns include his, hers, its and theirs with the plural also being theirs. Detectives Koko and Pip have found some labels on objects to investigate! Here is the first clue, the red bicycle is hers. Here, we have the third-person singular pronoun, hers. Since we know hers is a third-person pronoun for someone that uses female pronouns, we know this object belongs to Koko! We can replace the possessive pronoun with the proper noun to see if it makes sense. The red bicycle is Koko's. This makes sense, as we know from earlier that Koko uses female pronouns! Let's take a look at another clue now. The three juggling balls are his. What is the possessive pronoun you see here? His is the possessive pronoun. What perspective is this? Since we know his is a third-person pronoun for someone that uses male pronouns, we know this object belongs to Pip! If you replace the possessive pronoun with the proper noun, what will the sentence become? The three juggling balls are Pip's. This makes sense, since we know from earlier that Pip uses male pronouns! It looks like Detectives Koko and Pip have found another clue. All of the instruments you see here are ours. What is the possessive pronoun here? The possessive pronoun is ours. What perspective is this? It is the first-person perspective in plural form, which means it is talking about multiple owners. If you replace the possessive pronoun with the proper nouns, what will the sentence become? All of the instruments you see here are Koko's and Pip's. This makes sense, since we know that ours shows multiple owners. While Detectives Koko and Pip sort the rest of the items, let's review! Remember, possessive pronouns take the place of nouns to show ownership. Possessive pronouns can be singular or plural. Possessive pronouns can be used in the first person, which is the I and me perspective. They can also be used in the second person, which is the you perspective. Finally, possessive pronouns can also be used in the third person, which is the she, he, they, or it perspective. "Pip, how is it possible that you have that many items?" "I don't know, but they're all mine!"