It's a good question :) The short answer to your question is yes - we can use the possessive 's for things. However, the situation is a bit complicated, and it depends on what the thing is and the context of use.Īs you mentioned, books often teach that the possessive 's cannot be used for things. Feeling a desire to teach children in a large city, he decided to move from his native Jamaica to London.' For example, 'The article deals with Joshua's immigration to England. If you wanted to add in the information about him being a teacher, you could add a semi-colon and another clause: 'The article deals with Joshua's immigration from Jamaica to England Joshua is a teacher.'Īssuming that this sentence occurs in a larger context, though, I think a more elegant solution would be to have either his name or his profession appear in another sentence. Yes, the possessive 's is more natural, but this sentence doesn't work for the reason you mention - its object makes the antecedent of the relative pronoun 'who' unclear.ģ. It's slightly awkward, but not unnatural, and I think is the best way to express all of these ideas in one sentence without a semi-colon (see my comments on 3 below).Ģ. Yes, this sentence is grammatically correct, though a comma is needed before 'who'. Thank you for your help which has always been very useful.ġ. Does the possessive -s sound more idiomatic than ‘the immigration to England of Joshua'? The information that he is a teacher is left out (can it be included somehow?). The article deals with Joshua’s immigration from Jamaica to England. In this case the possessive -s probably works better (the noun is a person), but the relative pronoun ‘who’ does not clearly refer back to Joshua so that the relative clause would be grammatically wrong.ģ. The article deals with Joshua’s immigration to England who is a teacher from Jamaica.

This sentence seems grammatically correct, but does it sound natural? Is the sentence structure ok or would it be better to say 'the immigration of Joshua to England'? Would the relative clause still fit then?Ģ. The article deals with the immigration to England of Joshua who is a teacher from Jamaica. I would be grateful if you could send me a feedback on the following three sentences:ġ. I have got a question concerning the possessives with -of or 's in connection with a relative clause.

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