your
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Meaning
belonging to or associated with the person or people that the speaker is addressing
belonging to or associated with any person in general
Usage
Is this your book?
Your health is very important.
You must follow your own instincts.
Etymology
The word 'your' originates from the Old English 'ēower', the genitive plural form of the pronoun 'gē' (you). This Old English form descended from Proto-Germanic izweraz, which was itself derived from the Proto-Indo-European base yu-, a second-person plural pronoun. Over time, the distinction between singular and plural 'you' was lost in English, and 'your' became the standard possessive form for both numbers. Its evolution reflects a common linguistic pattern where genitive case endings of pronouns become fossilized into standalone possessive determiners.
Analysis
The word 'your' is a possessive pronoun form derived from the genitive case of the pronoun 'you'. It is a single, unsegmentable morpheme in Modern English.