Tong Ge,Xinyuan Zhang

This study compares English and French possessive systems from typological and contrastive perspectives. English possessive pronouns, eight invariant forms, exhibit marked analyticity. French, inheriting from Latin, features fifteen inflectional variants where possessive adjectives obligatorily agree with the noun in gender and number, integrating socio-pragmatic norms and the individual/collective distinction. Addressing three typical errors among English-speaking learners, it proposes a ‘three-step’ decisional model to operate the cognitive shift from possessor to properties of the possessed, and explores effective transfer pathways.

English grammar; French grammar; possessive adjectives; gender and number agreement; language transfer

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