When saying "it's", that's an abbreviation of "it is" or "it has".
When expressing ownership using the same pattern, "something's", what's the "full name" of the " 's " expression?
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2Do you mean "possessive"?– Hot LicksCommented Sep 20, 2020 at 1:04
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The " 's " is variously known as "The genitive s", the possessive s, the possessive, apostrophe s, the Anglo-Saxon s, the Anglo-Saxon genitive s, and some other terms.. It never has been a true possessive as it marks an implied association of some sort between [noun1's] and [noun2] rather than a possession. This is because possession implies absolute control of something. Hence, the frequent unwillingness to use the apostrophe s as a suffix to inanimate objects, etc. e.g. "The door's key" or "The land that John rented is not John's land - it is possessed by the landlord."– GreybeardCommented Sep 20, 2020 at 9:03
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You can find out the origin and history of 's on Wikipedia, which explains it better than I can en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_possessive#History– Stuart FCommented Jun 17, 2021 at 13:41
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1 Answer
Possessive forms of nouns, pronouns, and noun phrases are not abbreviations of anything.
It doesn't matter whether it's Peter's or those cats' suppers or yours or mine. It's always its own thing. There is no unabbreviated version that would somehow be the "full name".
I suppose you could swap it around and have the suppers of those cats, but that's something altogether different. Plus it doesn't always work: a picture of me and a picture of mine are two completely different things even though both are my picture.
