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Possessive determiners are used to modify a following noun : Your book, John's book. ('Your' / 'John's' : Possessive determiner).

This book is yours. (Here, 'yours' ----> a possessive pronoun.)

This book is John's. (Here, 'John's' -----> a possessive noun)

I know the double possessive follows a noun. But can we use double possessive after the 'be'-verbs?

(1) This book is of yours (instead of, "This is a book of yours. )

(2) This book is of John's (instead of "This is a bookof John's.)

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  • I guess that's a rearrangement of "this is John's book".
    – Cardinal
    May 11, 2020 at 6:25
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    Yours is a possessive pronoun, and John's is a possessive noun. May 11, 2020 at 14:01
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    Your question doesn't deserve the negativity it got. For instance, this is perfectly valid: This book is one of yours. This is also fine: This is a book of words. So, you could easily wonder why this book is of yours could not also be used. I wouldn't even say that is of yours is flat-out syntactically incorrect. But it's definitely unusual. The meaning is clear (so you wouldn't be misunderstood), but it's at least strange enough to be poetic rather than something you should write. (Sort of like Yoda's speech patterns in Star Wars.) May 11, 2020 at 16:19
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    I would provide some kind of actual helpful answer for you. Unfortunately, I can't think of a good way of framing it. May 11, 2020 at 16:24
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    A very basic answer: "This book is of yours" is definitely not correct. (The sentence is jumbled. English depends on word ordering, and you can't flip words around. )
    – Sam
    May 13, 2020 at 21:55

1 Answer 1

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The phrase "is of" is a preposition phrase which has the meaning "to possess intrinsically; give rise to." The words can appear together (This book is of high quality) or separated by the item being referred to (This is a book of high quality)

You are using the word 'of' in this case as a function word to indicate belonging or a possessive relationship.

Thus, using it with the second possessive (yours or John's) is redundant, and creates a conflict with the commonly understood meaning of "is of," which basically makes the sentence incomprehensible, even though we can probably glean the intention of the writer.

Of: definition

ELL: What is the meaning of "Is of?"

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