Submitted to the Faculty of Arts in fulfilment of the requirements for Master of Arts in the Department of African Languages at the University of Zululand, 1990. / This study is a review of the Possessive in Zulu. Many grammarians that have dealt with the possessive in Zulu over—emphasised the structure of the possessive thus very often neglecting the meaning of the possessive in Zulu, and the so-called unmarked possessive. Different approaches to word identification have been discussed. The implications of the two approaches to word identification for the possessive in Zulu, namely, the conjunctive5^ and the semi- X conjunctive approach, have been discussed. The conjunctivists indicate that the possessive is one word made up of three parts, the agreement morpheme, the possessive norpheme and the possessor. e.g. i + a - urafana yomf sr. = ■' of the boy ! The semi-conjunctivists indicate that a possessive consists of two words, namely, a possessive particle and a complement- e.g. ya-umfana ' (of the boy) Possessives that are direct in manner have been distinguished by inter alia Dotee- These possessives are semantically and morphologically regular. e.g. ibhola lomfana (the ball of the boy) Some structures do not include the possessive particle and yet they do carry a possessive meaning. e.g. uyihlo (your father} There are possessives that are indirect in nature, having possessive particles, but which do not imply true possession. The noun-possessor, and the noun-possessee are thus not semantically in a true possessive relationship in an example such as the following. e.g. intalantala yomsebenzi (a lot of work) Possessives which are structurally irregular in that they contain no possessive particle, are also discussed in this study. The possessor and the posses see are in a part-whole relationship in this sentence. e.g. ngiphule umfana ingalo (I broke the boy * s arm)