のIndicates possession

(A) の (B) = (B) belongs to, or is a quality of (A)

Structure

Noun (A) + の + Noun (B)

Details

Part of Speech
Particle
Word Type
Case Marking Particle
Register
Standard

About の

From the perspective of English, の has several different meanings. It can indicate possession, like putting (A)'s on the end of a word. In Japanese, however, the meaning is a bit broader, and shows that (B) is an attribute/possession of (A).

In the first sentence, we can see that の is showing ownership, however in the second sentence, it is simply showing a relationship between (A) and (B).

の is also often used in the same way as が, to highlight the subject of a statement. Our lesson for が will be covered separately.

Both of these examples are slightly advanced and use adjectives, but don't worry, we will be covering them next!

Caution

の is usually used after nouns, but can also be used after other types of words, specifically when it is transforming them into a noun-like phrase. This is called nominalization in English. We will cover this in detail in the の - Nominalization grammar point.

Synonyms

の
Verb nominalizer, The one who..., That which...
Not studied yet

Examples

--:--

あれは私(わたし)のペンです。

That over there is my pen.

これも私(わたし)のペンです。

This is also my pen.

これは私(わたし)の猫(ねこ)です。

This is my cat.

先生(せんせい)の傘(かさ)です。

(It) is the teacher's umbrella.

あなたの名前(なまえ)は？

Your name is?

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Online
- The 「の」 particle
  Tae Kim
- The Particles の & と
  Imabi

Offline
- Genki I
  Page 16
- Genki I 2nd Edition
  Page 44
- みんなの日本語 I
  Page 14 [CH 1]
- [DBJG] A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar
  Page 312
- Tae Kim's Japanese Grammar Guide
  Page 70
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の – Grammar Discussion

Most Recent Replies (5 in total)

Anthropos888
Interesting, thanks for the explanations. Good to know that it’s relatively free to use の or not in compounds.
Samraku
I don’t remember where I first saw this (I’m pretty sure I didn’t come up with it myself, as I vaguely remember reading something to the effect a few years ago?), but doesn’t の act pretty much identically in most cases to the bang notation for characters in fandoms (eg. dark!Harry, post-HBP!Snape, Time-Turned!Alt-Universe!Hermione, hpmor!Quirrel, rational!Harry, &c.)?
mrnoone
Hey and sorry for the late answer

That’s a really good point! It works very like that.

To be more precise, it lets the preceding noun modify the following noun, expressing some kind of relation between them. In many cases, the first noun works very similarly to an adjective or possesive s.

So there are cases when it will express possession like in アイコのペン (Aiko’s pen), property of something ナイロンのドレス (nylon dress), kind of something チワワの子犬 (chihuahua puppy). Can also express location, subject of something, etc.

The bolded ones are the closest to ! function in my opinion.

Cheers!