ABSTRACT
The possessive or genitive marker was once part of the inflectional system of English, and in other related languages the corresponding marker is a case marker that occurs on nouns. In English this is no longer entirely true. Because possession is now shown on the end of a noun phrase, the marker can occur on the ends of words that are not nouns. There are two sets of possessive pronouns, the so-called strong and weak forms. The weak possessive pronouns occur before a noun. There is also an old possessive form for the second person singular, thy, which is nowadays used only in religious language – and even then, increasingly rarely. Although the main meaning associated with the possessive is ownership/possession/having, it also has a range of other meanings, all of which have in common that they allow a noun phrase to modify a noun.
