Editing Apostrophe (section)

===== Joint or separate possession =====

For two nouns (or noun phrases) joined by ''and'', there are several ways of expressing possession, including:
:1. marking of the last noun (e.g. "Jack and Jill's children")
:2. marking of both nouns (e.g. "Jack's and Jill's children").<ref name="Cambridge Grammar: Coordination and genitives">{{cite book |last1=Huddleston |first1=Rodney |author1-link=Rodney Huddleston |last2=Pullum |first2=Geoffrey |author2-link=Geoffrey Pullum |title=The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language |date=2002 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=0521431468 |pages=1330–1332}}</ref>
Some grammars make no distinction in meaning between the two forms.{{NoteTag|For instance:
*''[[The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language]]'', explicitly states
::"Types I [Jack and Jill's] and II [Jack's and Jill's] are not semantically contrastive. Both allow either a joint or distributive interpretation of the genitive relation."<ref name="Cambridge Grammar: Coordination and genitives"/>
*''[[A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language]]'' explicitly states
::"A coordination of genitives such as ''John's and Mary's children'' may be interpreted in either a combinatory or a segregatory fashion:
:::combinatory meaning:
:::::'the children who are joint offspring of John and Mary'
::: segregatory meaning:
:::::'John's child and Mary's child'
::: or 'John's children and Mary's child'
::: or 'John's child and Mary's children'
::: or 'John's children and Mary's children' "<ref name="Comprehensive Grammar: Coordination of genitives">{{cite book |last1=Quirk |first1=Randolph |author-link1=Randolph Quirk |last2=Greenbaum |first2=Sidney |author-link2=Sidney Greenbaum |last3=Leech |first3=Geoffrey |author-link3=Geoffrey Leech |last4=Svartvik |first4=Jan |date=1985 |title=A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language |url=https://archive.org/details/comprehensivegra00quir |url-access=registration |location=Harlow |publisher=Longman |isbn=9780582517349 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/comprehensivegra00quir/page/963 963–965]}}</ref>}} Some publishers' style guides, however, make a distinction, assigning the "segregatory" (or "distributive") meaning to the form "John's and Mary's" and the "combinatorial" (or "joint") meaning to the form "John and Mary's".{{NoteTag|For instance:
*''[[The Chicago Manual of Style]]'' (16th ed.) states:
:"Closely linked nouns are considered a single unit in forming the possessive when the thing being 'possessed' is the same for both; only the second element takes the possessive form.
::my aunt and uncle's house [...]
:When the things possessed are discrete, both nouns take the possessive form.
::my aunt's and uncle's medical profiles [...]"<ref name="CMS: Joint versus separate possession">{{cite book |title=The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors, and Publishers |publisher=University of Chicago Press |date=1993 |isbn=9780226103891 |edition=14th |page=356}}</ref>
*''[[New Hart's Rules]]'' states:
:"Use ''{{'}}s'' after the last of a set of linked nouns where the nouns are acting together [...] but repeat ''{{'}}s'' after each noun in a set where the nouns are acting separately"<ref name="New Hart's Rules: Possession ">{{cite book |chapter=New Hart's Rules |title=New Oxford Style Manual |date=2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780199657223 |page=64}}</ref>
*''[[Garner's Modern American Usage]]'' states
:"For joint possession, an apostrophe goes with the last element in a series of names. If you put an apostrophe with each element in the series, you signal individual possession."<ref name="Garner's: Joint possessives">{{cite book |last=Garner |first=Bryan A. |author-link=Bryan A. Garner |title=Garner's Modern American Usage |url=https://archive.org/details/garnersmodername00garn |url-access=registration |date=2003 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=9780195161915 |page=[https://archive.org/details/garnersmodername00garn/page/625 625]}}</ref>}} A third alternative is a construction of the form "Jack's children and Jill's", which is always distributive, i.e. it designates the combined set of Jack's children and Jill's children.<ref name="Cambridge Grammar: Coordination and genitives" />

When a coordinate possessive construction has two personal pronouns, the normal possessive inflection is used, and there is no apostrophe (e.g., "his and her children"). The issue of the use of the apostrophe arises when the coordinate construction includes a noun (phrase) and a pronoun. In this case, the inflection of only the last item may sometimes be, at least marginally, acceptable ("you and your spouse's bank account").<ref name="Cambridge Grammar: Coordination and genitives"/><ref name="Comprehensive Grammar: Coordination of genitives"/> The inflection of both is normally preferred (e.g. Jack's and your dogs), but there is a tendency to avoid this construction, too, in favour of a construction that does not use a coordinate possessive (e.g. by using "Jack's letters and yours").<ref name="Cambridge Grammar: Coordination and genitives"/> Where a construction like "Jack's and your dogs" is used, the interpretation is usually "segregatory" (i.e. not joint possession).<ref name="Comprehensive Grammar: Coordination of genitives" />