Contractions
can be confusing for English learners, because they aren’t always sure what the
contracted word represents. In a previous post, we saw how confusing the ‘d contraction is. It could be had or would. The ‘s
contraction can be even more confusing. Sometimes it is is (but never was), has or the genitive form of of. Like with ‘d, we can distinguish what ‘s
is in context.
1) He’s got
some free time.
2) She’s late
as usual.
3) Did you
hear that Sarah’s brother got married.
4) What’s your problem?
5) Tomorrow is Mother's Day.6) My mother’s watching a soap opera.
7) Tom’s been
running around all day.
8) I walked
down the city’s empty streets.
9) Their dog’s fed twice a day.
10) The
athlete’s injured his foot.
What helps
us distinguish what comes after ‘s
is the word that comes after.
Looking at
the sentences above, we know when 's is is because after the verb be,
we tend to have…
an adjective (2).
a noun that describes the subject (4).
a gerund in the continuous tenses (6).
a past participle in the passive voice (9).
You can only
contract have when it is used as an
auxiliary verb in the present perfect, so we know when ‘s is has before a past participle (1,7,10).
On the other
hand, we only use a genitive to show that another object belongs to the noun it is
connected to (3,5,8).
Sometimes, you
can also distinguish the ‘s by the word
it is connected to. We can only contract the verb be and have to a subject
but never an object noun. We can attach a genitive
to subject noun (3) or an object noun (5,8), but never to a pronoun.
Whenever you
see the subject pronoun contractions he’s, she’s or it’s, the ‘s can be has (1) or is (2). Instead of adding a genitive
to subject pronouns, we have possessive adjectives: his, her, its. Unfortunately,
since its and it’s are homophones (same sound, different spelling), they are
often confused when written.
Well, I hope this post's explanation's been easy to understand!
Well, I hope this post's explanation's been easy to understand!
No comments:
Post a Comment