Possessor

A possessor is a semantic role of someone or something that has possession of other people or things that take on the role of possessee.

For example, in "John’s car is an old banger" the possessor of the car is John.

In English, the wh- word used for possessor is whose.

In English, pronoun agreement is made with the possessor; for example, in both John and his colleague or Michelle and her colleague- the gender of the friend is unspecified. Contrast that in some other languages, agreement is made with the possessee; e.g. French agrees its dependent possessive pronouns with the gender of the possessee; compare Jean et son collègue (“Jean and his male colleague”) with Jean et sa collègue (“Jean and his female colleague”), and Michelle et son collègue (“Michelle and her male colleague”) with Michelle et sa collègue (“Michelle and her female colleague”).