the possessive of a plural noun ending in 's' is formed by adding?

Question

another 's' only or an apostrophe only or another 's' and an apostrophe?

which shows the correct possessive form of a plural noun? three dog's bowls or three dogs' bowls or three dogs bowls or none of these?

Answer 1

The correct answer is your second phrase: "Three dogs' bowls".
The rule, in this case, is to simply add the apostrophe to the end of any plural noun ending in -s. The conventions for apostrophe use in English are complicated at times. The first link below should help you out.

The apostrophe is used to indicate where an historical letter has been removed. In Olde English, 'a dog's bowl' would have been written as 'a doges bowl', but in an effort to tidy up orthographic (writing) conventions, and minimise confusion the E was removed and replaced with an apostrophe.

Answer 2

an s can give additional structual information about nouns ... it can show plural, and/or possession. Three dogs' bowls
gives the information about the dogs....
more than one dog with the s
belonging to the dog with the '


and linguists are divided if Chris has a pen if it should be Chris' pen or Chris's pen. Most people from the US say two ses so Chris's would be more accurate.

Answer 3

Three dogs' bowls because if it was one dog it would be possessive (dog's, meaning belonging to one dog) but since there is more than one dog, it is plural (dogs')

Answer 4

Apostrophe only. For example, my fiance's name is Kris. It is Kris' car, not Kris's car.

With your example, it would be "three dogs' bowls" because that indicates more than one dog. "Three dog's bowls" would indicate one dog, and then the sentence doesn't really make sense.

Answer 5

Three dogs' bowls.

Answer 6

Dogs'

Answer 7

three dogs' bowls

achilles' heel

Answer 8

dogs' ten points please.