Possessives. When you state something belongs to something else.
Example: I love Emily’s cookies. “Emily’s cookies.” They are the cookies owned by Emily, so they are Emily’s cookies.
If you want to make something possessive, you add either apostrophe-s or an apostrophe. Apostrophe-s is for singular nouns, and an apostrophe is for plural nouns.
Example: Emily’s cookies are enjoyed by her classmates’ hungry stomachs.
So that’s all nice and simple, right? There are, however, the exceptions (when isn’t there one in the complicated world of the English language?). And they would be most relative pronouns. Who's means “who is,” while the possessive form of “who” is “whose.” “His” is possessive, “her” is possessive, “their” is possessive, and “my” is possessive. Most of these are built into your brain by now though, so they shouldn't be an issue.
The exception that does tend to be an issue, however, is “its.” This is because, if you were to follow the normal possessive rules, the possessive of “it” would be “it’s.” See the problem? “It’s” is the contracted form of “it is.” And we can’t have “it’s” meaning two different things! No, that would lead to mass confusion and hysteria. Instead, when we want to use the possessive form of it, we write “its,” sans apostrophe.
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