1.112 typical use

You use possessive pronouns when you are talking about the same type of thing that has just been mentioned but want to indicate that it belongs to someone else.

For example, in the sentence 'Jane showed them her passport, then Richard showed them his', 'his' refers to a passport and indicates that it belongs to Richard.

Possessive pronouns are often used to contrast two things of the same type which belong to or are associated with different people. For example, 'Sarah's house is much bigger than ours'.

• Her parents were in Malaya, and so were mine.
• He grinned at her and laid his hand on hers.
• Is that coffee yours or mine?
• My marks were higher than his.
• Fred gambled his profits away while Julia spent hers all on dresses.
• ...the difference between his ideas and ours.
• It was his fault, not theirs.