Possessive Pronouns

Possessive pronouns are words that replace nouns in a sentence and show ownership. The common possessive pronouns are mine, yours, his, hers, theirs, and ours.

Possessive pronouns are different than possessive adjectives, which come before the noun they are modifying. We use possessive pronouns to replace both a noun and its possessive adjective. Possessive pronouns are especially helpful when you want to avoid repeating an object's name or when it is already clear what you are talking about.

For example, we could say, "That is my book." This sentence uses a possessive adjective + a noun. Or, if we don't want to say "book," we can replace "my book" with a possessive pronoun, as in, "That is mine."

We also use possessive pronouns to make comparisons. For example, "My car is faster than his." In this case, we are comparing "my car" to "his car," but we replace "his car" with the possessive pronoun "his."