In English we use The Saxon Genitive to indicate possession. The structure of the possessive is the following:
Noun + Apostrophe + Object
The possessive 's always comes after a noun, either common or proper nouns. For instance, if we want to say that the cat belongs to Emily:
✅ We say: Emily's cat.
❌ We do not say: The cat of Emily.
There are some special cases you should take into account when using the possessive...
1. When there is more than one noun, that is, more than one person has something, we just place the apostrophe after the last noun:
Hayley and Tim's parents.
Tara, Samantha and Erin's clothes.
2. If the noun is plural we just add an apostrophe, not the 's':
The dogs' toys are in the garden.
3. When it is a proper noun ending in -s, we can either add the apostrophe + 's' or just the apostrophe ':
James's clothes are dirty.
James' clothes are dirty.
*Bear in mind that the pronunciation will be /zɪz/ or /sɪz/.
4. In the case of classic proper names ending in -s, we just add the apostrophe:
We are studying Pythagoras' Theorem in Maths.
5. We can use more than one possessive in a phrase:
We had lunch at my friend's father's house.
6. We use the Saxon Genitive when talking about something belonging to more than one person:
Her dress was nicer than Sophia's.
7. To refer to someone's home, we also use the possessive:
She is at Rebeca's.
8. When referring to a shop like the butcher's, the chemist's, the florist's or the doctor's:
Is the butcher's open on Saturdays?
Mary is at the doctor's.
Did you know...? 💭
Why do English speakers use this form of possessive? Why is it also called the Saxon genitive?
The noun and the apostrophe indicating possession is a surviving inflection from Old English or Anglo-Saxon, which is the oldest form of the English language known. Angles, Saxons and Jutes were Germanic tribes that gradually occupied Great Britain in the 5th century A.D., just after the Roman Empire fell apart. They brought with them their Germanic languages which evolved through the centuries into Old English, Middle English, Modern English and Present-day English as we know it nowadays.
