В пособии рассматриваются основные моменты английской грамматики: части речи имя существительное, имя прилагательное и наречие; видо-временные формы глагола; модальные глаголы; неличные формы глагола

5. Possessive case

A. Form
1.’s is used with singular nouns and irregular plural nouns (i.e. not ending
in s):
a man’s job men’s job
a woman’s intuition women’s intuition
a child’s room children’s room
the butcher’s (shop), the people’s choice
2. An apostrophe (’) only is used with plural nouns ending in s:
a girls’ school the parents’ house the Smiths’ car
3. Classical names ending in s usually add only the apostrophe:
Archimedes’ Law Sophocles’ plays
4. Other names ending in s can take ’s or the apostrophe alone:
Yeats’s (or Yeats’) poems
5. With compounds, the last word takes the ’s:
my sister-in-law’s parents
6. ’s may be added not only to a single word but to a whole group of words:
Henry the Eighth’s wives
Mr and Mrs Smith’s children
the Prime Minister of England’s residence
7. ’s can also be used after initials:
the MP’s speech the VIP’s escort


B. Use of the possessive case
The possessive case can be used in several different ways: to talk about
possession, relationship, physical features and characteristics, non-physical
qualities, and measurements.
It is chiefly used of people, animals and countries. But it can be also used:
1. Of ships and boats: the ship’s bell
2. In time expressions: a week’s holiday today’s paper
in two years’ time tomorrow’s weather
ten minutes’ break two hours’ delay
a ten-minute break, a two-hour delay are also possible, but with another
punctuation: We have ten minutes’ break / a ten-minute break.
3. In expressions of money + worth:
$1’s worth of stamps ten pounds’ worth of ice-cream
4. With for + noun + sake: for heaven’s sake for goodness’ sake
5. In some set phrases:
a pin’s head journey’s end a needle’s point duty’s call
6. Sometimes certain nouns can be used in the possessive case without the
second noun which usually denotes a building (a school, a church, a
hospital, a house, a shop, an office, a surgery etc.):
You can buy it at the chemist’s. He went to the dentist’s.
Names of the owners of some businesses can be used in the same way:
Sotheby’s Claridge’s
But some very well-known shops call themselves without the apostrophe:
Harrods.
7. Names of people can be used similarly to mean ‘....’s house’:
We’ll have a party at Bill’s.
8. Possessive case can be used as a pronoun, with no following noun (with
the same kind of meaning as mine, yours, etc.):
‘Whose is that?’ - ‘Virginia’s’
Escalation is neither in Russia’s interests nor in the West’s.
9. Double possessive.
Note the special construction: of + possessive
He’s a friend of my father’s.(=one of my father’s friends)
He turned up wearing an old coat of Patrick’s.
In other cases it is safer to use of + noun construction.