Communicative functions: Talking about experience

Who or what is involved?

Showing possession

When we talk about the world around us, we often want to show who owns things:

There are two main resources in the grammar to show ownership: the noun group and verbs of possession:

	The noun group
	Verbs of possession

The noun group

Within the noun group we find various types of possessives:

my bedroom
my parents' bedroom
mine
her own bedroom
a friend of mine

Verbs of possession

Verbs of possession link the owner to the thing that is owned:

My sister has her own bedroom.

To find out more about showing possession, go to the following sections. (To return to this page, use the back button on your browser.) 

	Grammar
Here you will find more information about showing possession by using various grammatical features. The noun group (eg 'pointing') Determiners (eg possessive determiners: my, his, her) Nouns (eg indicating possession: Bozo's, parents') Possessive pronouns (eg mine) Verbs (eg relating verbs: has)

	Text types
Most text types will contain examples of possessives. However they are more likely to occur in text types that involve human participants, such as stories and recounts. Particular Descriptions Recounts Stories