A decision procedure for inflecting possessive words |
Home |
Is the problematic word singular or plural? |
Is it possessive? | Is it a possessive determiner? |
Append nothing | |||
plural ↓ |
no ↓ |
no ↓ | ||||
↓ | Append nothing | Is it an archaic or mythological name ending in "s"? | Append ' | |||
↓ | no ↓ | |||||
↓ | Append 's | |||||
↓ | ||||||
Is it possessive? | Does plural end in "s"? | Append ' | ||||
no ↓ |
no ↓ |
|||||
↓ | Is it a possessive adjective? |
yes → | Append nothing | |||
↓ | no ↓ | |||||
↓ | Append 's | |||||
↓ | ||||||
Literal or symbolic string? | Append 's | |||||
symbolic ↓ | ||||||
Append nothing |
Contraction: a word with one or more letters removed and replaced by an apostrophe, e.g., cannot -> can't
Singular: exactly one of something, e.g. One cat. One dog.
Plural: more than one of something, e.g. Five cats. Forty-seven dogs.
Possessive: indicating ownership: e.g. The cat's tail. The dog's bone.
Possesive determiner (also called a possessive adjective): my, your, his, her, its, our, your (pl.), their
Archaic or mythological name: the proper name of some ancient personage, e.g., Moses, Jesus, Achilles.
Literal vs. symbolic string: a series of alphanumeric characters that are interpreted literally, as opposed to symbolically (a word), e.g. "r$ie843" can probably only be interpreted as a literal string, as can "aaaiiio334". However "cat" can be interpreted either as the literal string, i.e., "c" followed by an "a" followed by a "t", or as a word for a small domestic animal.