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How to use possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives? For example, which is correct:

Is this your luggage?

or

Is this yours luggage?

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    Can you provide some examples that are confusing you? For each example, please mention which category you guess the example belongs to.
    – Jasper
    Jan 11, 2017 at 6:09
  • Is this your luggage OR Is this yours luggage ? Jan 11, 2017 at 6:15
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    Would you also like to know about "Is this luggage yours?"
    – Jasper
    Jan 11, 2017 at 6:23
  • They are both pronouns. Your first example is fine: "your" is called a dependent genitive pronoun functioning as a determiner. Your second example is ungrammatical: "yours" is an independent genitive pronoun, which means it does not require a following noun; instead you could say: "Is this luggage yours?"
    – BillJ
    Jan 11, 2017 at 9:51

3 Answers 3

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My,your,his,her,its, our, their are possessive adjectives or dependent genitive pronouns used as determiners before nouns.

This is my book.

Mine,yours,his,hers,ours,theirs are possessive pronouns or independent genitive pronouns (thanks BillJ).They don't require nouns after them.

The book is mine. Is that car yours?

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The first case is correct : "Is this your luggage"

'Yours' is a pronoun, so it should not be followed by a noun or noun phrase.

'Your' is a determiner and must be followed by a noun, completing a noun phrase.

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"Your" always goes before the noun. Is this your luggage?

"Yours" always goes alone. Is this yours? or Is this luggage yours?

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