15 votes

What is the possessive case and the objective case of "ye?"

In Early Modern English, ye was the nominative case and the objective and possessives were the familiar you (objective), your (possessive determiner) and yours (possessive pronoun).
Mark Beadles's user avatar
  • 22.5k
6 votes

What is the possessive case and the objective case of "ye?"

Genesis 18:5 And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to your servant. Here is an example from the Bible showing all ...
chasly - supports Monica's user avatar
3 votes

"A quarter of us is going to lose our jobs" or "A quarter of us is going to lose his job"

Since you’re talking about [some of] us (first person plural), your subject and verb must agree in person and number, and if the object maps one-to-one with the subject (e.g., each person has ...
Jeff Zeitlin's user avatar
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3 votes
Accepted

Possessive case with who(m)ever in an object noun phrase

Whomever’s is never viable — not as a possessive, not as a contraction, not anywhere. That leaves whosever and whoever’s as possibilities (see Later at end for more on that). You have already learned ...
Tinfoil Hat's user avatar
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2 votes

'My' or 'mine'?

"Mine" is correct, but in this context, I would suggest using an alternative term such as "Personal"
Myles's user avatar
  • 21
2 votes
Accepted

'My' or 'mine'?

You are correct. Mine, as a pronoun (m-w, usage 2), should be used here. My is an adjective (m-w) and requires a noun.
Nathaniel is protesting's user avatar
2 votes
Accepted

Singular/Plural determiner

I think the answer you're after is the number (singular or plural) of a verb must agree with its subject. There is no grammatical requirement for the number of any objects of verbs to also agree.
Ross Murray's user avatar
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2 votes

Possessive case with who(m)ever in an object noun phrase

Somehow you are overthinking this terribly and coming to a nonsensical conclusion. You ask us to choose between incorrect assumptions. Parents should use who(m)ever's last name is shorter on the form....
tchrist's user avatar
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1 vote

Possessive determiners, ambiguous references, and the question of the relevance of context

Yes, these are grammatically correct. The antecedent of a pronoun can often only be determined from context. To adapt an example from Wikipedia: The large ball crashed right through the table because ...
alphabet's user avatar
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1 vote

What possessive is used when "everybody" is the antecedent?

Animacy, not Gender If you don’t know what someone’s gender is, you cannot call them an “it”, for “it” is not about gender. It is therefore ungrammatical in English to use its to refer to a human ...
tchrist's user avatar
  • 133k
1 vote

Is the possessive "its" or "their" after "all of the country's states and territories"?

Disclaimer: I am not a native English speaker nor an English teacher, rather an advanced learner. The answer below was written primarily based on common sense and the logic of grammar and might ...
Eugene Zalyubovsky's user avatar
1 vote

What do you make of the quoted paragraph below?

Common sense tells us what the paragraph is trying to say, but it does read oddly because logically it could be telling us that the young people do their own shopping etc. I don't think that ...
Kate Bunting's user avatar
  • 23.2k
1 vote

a brother/sister of mine - one of my brothers/sisters

A “something” of mine usually means it is one of many, and it doesn’t matter much which one. “A friend of mine had his bicycle stolen”, “a teacher of mine came to school wearing non-matching sox”. My “...
gnasher729's user avatar
  • 2,378
1 vote

Apostrophe 's, "of", or nothing to show possession/ownership?

why do we sometimes show possession/ownership using 's or of, why sometime not? Neither the Saxon genitive (the family's name), nor "of" (the name of the family), nor noun1 + noun2 (the ...
Greybeard's user avatar
  • 39.7k
1 vote

Apostrophe 's, "of", or nothing to show possession/ownership?

As your suggested alternatives indicate, there are any number of ways of showing ownership, both specifically and generally by simply subtracting an 's or adding a couple of words (as in "the dog'...
rhetorician's user avatar
  • 19.3k
1 vote

'my picture' - ownership vs. depiction

The difference between the sentences is the meaning of the components, which may be determined from context. As Kris notes, the sentences are grammatically the same. When presented with a photograph, ...
xiota's user avatar
  • 871
1 vote

Which one of these sentences is better? A thesis title - Apostrophes Showing Possession

In a comment, John Lawler wrote: When you're already using apostrophes to represent non-English phonetics or spelling, using an apostrophized possessive in addition is a risk. My suggestion: ...
1 vote
Accepted

Some types of nouns feel ungrammatical in "His every [noun]"?

The second sentence is grammatically correct though the passive form sounds rather formal. The possiblity of the Passive Voice here can be illustrated by an example from Reverso.context.net: She ...
user307254's user avatar
  • 5,493
1 vote

Difference between "the train" and "his train"

If someone was visiting you by a particular train and he doesn't arrive by expected time you can say he may have missed the train. Here the refers to a particular train and possibly well known to ...
Rolen Koh's user avatar
  • 338
1 vote

'my and (name)'... 'his and (name)'

I agree that the second one feels really awkward. If you need to refer to their shared experience, and you have also mentioned about it before, or you are already talking about both people involved(...
Pania's user avatar
  • 36
1 vote

'my and (name)'... 'his and (name)'

They are both correct, but I agree that the second one in particular feels awkward. I think the awkwardness comes from thinking about taking "and Anya's" out of the second sentence, which would ...
Max Williams's user avatar
1 vote

Which determiner to use with degrees: “a” or “my/his/her/your”?

One would use a in the case where none of the people involved in the conversation has a similar qualification: She has a Ph.D. in biophysics, (me, I have an O-level). But if everyone involved had a ...
Brian Hooper's user avatar
  • 36.7k
1 vote

"Its" as a Possessive Pronoun

To complement and update tchrist's excellent answer: the new on-line version of the OED has 6 examples of "its" as a possessive pronoun: 1623 Shakespeare & J. Fletcher Henry VIII i. i. 18 ...
fdb's user avatar
  • 5,513
1 vote

When is a gerund supposed to be preceded by a possessive adjective/determiner?

This would be my "common usage" (and non-formal) take: He resents your being more popular than he is. (either your-you) Most of the members paid their dues without my asking them. (my preferred) They ...
Cargill's user avatar
  • 1,794

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