Page 155 - New Grammar with a Smile 8

4. is added if a singular noun is not a proper noun but ends with an s, followed by
an s. For example,
• The princess’s bodyguard = the bodyguard of the princess

5. added to form the possessive in the case of compound nouns by first pluralising
the main noun. For example,
• My two sisters-in-law’s children = the children of my two sisters-in-law.

In Contractions
There are some cases in which two words which occur together are joined and some
letters in between are omitted. In such cases, the apostrophe is used to signify the
missing letters. Three cases in which this happens frequently are:

♦ Noun/Pronoun + Auxiliary Verb (Primary or Modal)

For example,
• I’m = I am I’m late = I am late.

• You’re = You are You’re late = You are late

• She’s = She is/She has. She’s late = She is late.
She’s woken up late = She has woken up late.

• I’d = I would/I had I’d like to wake up late = I would like to wake
up late.

• I’d woken up late = I had woken up late.

Note: In this case and the previous one, only the context can tell us which verb
is meant.
• They’ve = They have They’ve woken up late = They have
woken up late.

• We’ll = We will/shall be late He’ll be late = He will be late.

♦ Modal Verb + have
This happens with the four past tense forms of modals. For example,

should’ve = should have; would’ve = would have; could’ve = could have;
might’ve = might have.

♦ Auxiliary Verb + not
Each of the primary auxiliaries and modal auxiliaries has a negative contracted
form. These are all listed below.

Primary Auxiliaries: are/am, is, was, were, have, has, had, does, do, and did

Negative form of the above auxiliaries: aren’t, isn’t, wasn’t, weren’t, haven’t,
hasn’t, hadn’t, doesn’t, don’t and didn’t, respectively.

155