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Imagine your house has just been cleaned by a helper. So after the cleaning finished, you check around if everthing was placed properly, and you see that a mat or (a piece of rug) that you normally use in the living room was mistakenly placed in another room.

Can I say it this way (pointing my finger at the rug):

It is not here's. It is the living room's. (as in the case of "It is not mine, it is hers.")

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  • No. It's not grammatical, and the sentence doesn't make sense. There is no possessive form of here or there. It would be more natural to say something like.: "This [rug] should be in the living room." or perhaps "This [rug] goes in the living room".
    – Billy Kerr
    Commented Aug 25 at 13:56
  • It's the living room's. OK for it belongs in the living room.
    – Lambie
    Commented Sep 7 at 12:40

2 Answers 2

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You could say

Here's [here is] where it goes.

It goes here.

It belongs here.

The last, with "belongs", is the closest you can get to the notion of possessive.

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  • Very good answer thanks. So, can I say: "Here is not where it goes. There is where it goes."
    – Yunus
    Commented Aug 26 at 18:51
  • Putting "here" and "there" at the beginning like that puts great emphasis on them. Such emphasis could convey frustration or anger. So yes, you can say that if you are giving a reprimand: this is not the first time the person has put something in the wrong place. The person keeps putting it in the wrong place again and again despite being instructed otherwise.
    – TimR
    Commented Aug 27 at 11:04
  • it is always good to learn. We were taught at school that "Here is ....." is used when you are giving something to someone, e.g "Here is your key." Now I have understood that the same structure is also used for giving a reprimand. Makes sense because you are still giving something :)
    – Yunus
    Commented Aug 27 at 11:45
  • @Yunus: What suggests it a reprimand is specific to the situation, the word order, and the mirroring of the two clauses: Here is not where it goes. There is where it goes. This could be perfectly neutral: Here is where we keep the presta valves.
    – TimR
    Commented Aug 27 at 12:02
  • @Yunus Also, the negative in the first sentence suggests reprimand. Here is not where it goes.
    – TimR
    Commented Aug 27 at 12:11
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A possessives/genitive is one of a handful of pronouns/determiners (my, your, his, her, our, their, its, whose and one's) or a noun plus a possessive suffix. "Here" and "there" are adverbs; i.e. they have no "possessive form".

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  • In this link which is a discussion on "here/there" acting as a noun, it is said that "here" and "there" can also be used as a noun. Then I wonder why it can become a noun but not a possesive form exists? Don't all nouns have a possesive form with an apostrophe? ell.stackexchange.com/questions/83570/…
    – Yunus
    Commented Aug 25 at 19:22
  • You might equally well describe this use of here and there as pronouns, in which case you would not expect them to take 's.
    – Colin Fine
    Commented Aug 25 at 19:49

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