◊ GRAMMAR
Possessive determiners show who or what something belongs to or is connected with.
The possessive determiners are:
You choose a possessive determiner according to the identity of the person or thing who has the thing you are talking about. For example, if you are talking about a pen belonging to a woman, you say 'her pen', but if the pen belongs to a man, you say 'his pen'.
Soon after five that day the vicar called at my house.
Sir Thomas More built his house there.
I walked out of her house and collided with a pillar box.
Sometimes I would sleep in their house all night.
The same determiner is used whether the noun after the possessive determiner is singular or plural, or refers to a person or a thing.
I just went on writing in my notebook.
My parents don't trust me.
◊ WARNING
You do not use another determiner with a possessive determiner. For example, you do not say 'I took off the my shoes'. You say 'I took off my shoes'.
◊ 'the' instead of possessive
Sometimes the determiner 'the' is used when there is an obvious possessive meaning, particularly when you are talking about someone doing something to a part of someone else's body.
They hit him over the head with a stick.
He took his daughters by the hand and led them away.
You can also use 'the' when referring to one of your possessions. For example, you can say 'I'll go and get the car' instead of 'I'll go and get my car'.
I went back to the house.
The noise from the washing-machine is getting worse.
However, you cannot use 'the' like this when referring to something that someone is wearing. For example, you say 'My watch is slow'. You do not say 'The watch is slow'.
It is not usual to use 'the' with a possessive meaning when referring to a relative such as an uncle or a sister. However, people often refer to their children as 'the children' or 'the kids'.
When the children had gone to bed I said, 'I'm going out for a while'.
Note that possessive determiners are more commonly used to indicate that something belongs to a person than to a thing. For example, it is more usual to say 'the door' than to say 'its door' when referring to the door of a room.
For more information on when to use a possessive determiner, see entry at ↑