Difference Between Yours and Your’s

Main Difference – Yours vs Your’s

A possessive pronoun is a pronoun that determines ownership. In English, there are seven possessive pronouns. They are mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours and theirs. Yours is the possessive pronoun that corresponds to the second person pronoun, you. Some of you may have thought that your’s is the possessive pronoun of you, but this is not so. Your’s, in fact, is not a grammatically accurate term. The main difference between Yours and Your’s is that yours is the second person possessive pronoun whereas your’s is an incorrect formation to indicate the same.

Yours and Your’s – Meaning and Usage

As mentioned above, yours is the second person possessive pronoun. The main function of yours is to indicate possession or ownership.

You can come with us or stay here; the choice is yours.

He signed the letter as, ‘yours, sincerely.”

I found this on the road – Is this yours?

I read her essay; it’s not good as yours.

Anything you want can be yours if you work really hard.

My dog is bigger than yours.

I know both of your voices. His is rough, and yours is soft.

The house is yours; you decide who’s going to make dinner.

The possessive form of a noun is generally formed by adding an apostrophe and an s. For example,

dog  → dog’s

teacher → teacher’s

mother → mother’s

table → table’s

This is why English learners, even some native English speakers add the apostrophe and the ‘s’ after the pronoun your. But this is incorrect. Personal pronouns can be turned into possessive from by merely adding an ‘s. In fact, personal pronouns have set variations. They cannot be created; the only way to know them is to memorize them. Given below is a list of these variations.

Personal Pronoun	Subjective Case	Objective case	Possessive Pronoun	Possessive Adjective
First person singular	I	Me	Mine	My
Second person singular/plural	You	You	Yours	Your
Third-person singular masculine	He	Him	His	His
Third-person singular feminine	She	Her	Hers	Her
Third-person singular neuter	It	It	Its	Its
First person plural	We	Us	Ours	Our
Third person plural	They	Them	Theirs	Their

It is very important to note that there is no such word as your’s. Therefore, it is best to eliminate this from your vocabulary if you have been using it.  Yours is always written without an apostrophe.

Difference Between Yours and Your’s

• Yours is the possessive pronoun of the second personal pronoun.

• Your’s is an incorrect formation.

• The main function of yours is to indicate possession.

• Yours should always be written without an apostrophe.

Image Courtesy:

“The world is yours” by Claudiana Gois (CC BY 2.0) via Flickr

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