The possessive was used in Elizabethan literature to indicate that the noun it modified was the owner of something. For example, in the sentence "The cat's toys were spread out across the room," cat is the owner of the toys. Additionally, there were different forms of the possessive depending on whether the noun it modified was singular or plural. For singular nouns, the possessive was formed by adding an apostrophe and -s (e.g., cat's). For plural nouns, the possessive was formed by adding an apostrophe only (e.g., cats').