In some of the people I’ve worked together with a dark fear lurks deep down. Whenever they compose complex sentences with singular third person subjects, possessive structures and plurals, some of them become shy and cease to use proper word endings. This writing is dedicated to those who are unsure about the correct use of the ‘s’ at the end of words.
Three Different Functions
English is not typically a sadist with its learners, however it has a feature that can be tricky for learners: the function of ‘s’. There are three distinct grammatical functions where this particle can appear: possessive, plural and third person singular verb usage in present tense. Let’s take a look at the easiest of these, the plural.
When we say plural, we really think about nouns. Although the line between noun and adjective is a little blurry in English, we still understand that saying things like * ‘fasts’¹ and * ‘expensives’ is not exactly right. Let’s focus on the more practical topic; the nouns.
English nouns can be broken down into two main categories: countable and uncountable. Excluding uncountable nouns from this article (since they do not connect with the plural ‘s’) we can say that our life is easy: all we have to do is connect a noun and a +s particle to express plurality.
One cat can eat many pigeons.
one pigeon > more than one pigeon + s > many pigeons.
It’s as easy as that. Of course, sometimes we need to use extra characters in front of the plural particle, like in box > boxes, but this is familiar with all of you. And now we are clear with this: a sentence can have any number of plural nouns. The only limitation is common sense: maybe a sentence with 175 plural nouns in it is not worth keeping in one unit; in this case a list would probably be more effective.
E.x.: The warehouse on River Lane stores tanks, planes, trucks, engine parts, rails, metallic scraps and other items.
Second function: Possessive
Have no fear, you know how to use this too: the owner/possessor is marked by the use of a possessive marker like this: ‘s. Whenever you apply this grammatical function you say that there is an owner and one or more items that he/she/it possesses. Take an example:
In the picture I see Sally’s car and golf bag, Peter’s tennis racket and Casey’s mother’s friend’s daughter Ashley.
Although the sentence may sound a little awkward, there is no magic about it: we have 5 possessors and 3 possessed items. In all cases we had to use the apostrophe-plus-s combo to mark the relation between owner and owned item. If that is clear, your sentence is perfect. The two mistakes you can make is swap owner and owned item and say *golf bag’s Peter or just simply forget about the apostrophe and say *Peters golf bag. By now you must see that the structure implies that there are a number of Peters and one golf bag. Thus the sentence is not only grammatically ill, it is also false. If you keep your focus on these factors, your sentences will be fine.
Third Function: Singular third person verbs in present tense
I believe students see this as the silliest rule of English and since they do they gladly ignore it. Careful though, this is a grave crime in grammar and criminals of this kind lose not only points on a test or exam, but will not be considered good users of the language.
In modern day English, if a sentence is in present tense, has at least one verb and one subject and is a statement, the verb must get a +s particle onto its end. That is the rule and there is no exception. The sentence *John dig his own grave. is grammatically ill, the sentence John digs his own grave. is perfect. Easy as that. The only difficulty comes up when auxiliaries are imported: ‘John can/may/must dig his own grave.’ If the auxiliary is ‘do’ of course, it needs to become ‘does’, but that is all the trickery and wizardry that you need to keep in mind.
The mixture
So, without the intention to give you a heart attack, let’s build a few complex sentences where we make variations of the above mentioned functions.
She sees her mother’s cats. (She has a visual on the 6 pieces of cat that her mother has possession of)
He seems to be a little sarcastic with the boss’s secretary these days. (His way of acting appears to be sarcastic when directed to the secretary of the man who is his employer)
Sonny, the Mexican farmer constantly takes glances of Maria’s fine curves, way of moving and selection of garments. (Sonny, a man originated from Mexico, who works in the agricultural industry frequently looks at a woman named Maria. He considers both her physical and behavioral features)
Helicopters tilt their rotor’s blades in order to turn and descend. (All pieces of Helicopter-type vehicles move the 3, 4, 5 or 6 main parts of the rotor-structures if they wish to turn or go down)
Jane’s sister’s boyfriend’s old room-mate peeps in the women’s shower room through the window in hope of seeing nice shapes, exciting figures and normally concealed surfaces. (A young man, who used to live in one dorm room with another young man, who is now going out with the sister of a girl named Jane is now trying to catch a glimpse of ladies who are showering.)
I hope that you see that all this wasn’t a great deal of magic: we used a lot of –s endings in order to express complex structures. There was no clash, no confusion and no panic: all the –s-es were dealt with and had been used appropriately. The bottom line? Don’t be afraid of a large number of ‘s’, just particles: think about the sentence’s meaning and put it together with a calm, academic approach. In time, you’ll see that this wasn’t something to be worried about! :)
Take it easy,
dan, the man
1- an asterisk/ star symbol represents a grammatically ill feature or segment within a sentence, i.e. a very good bad-example.
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