In article , Ronnie Clark
writes
It is the whole region of possessive pronouns not having apostrophes that I
consider bizarre when for nouns apostrophes are used precisely for
indicating possession!

It isn't bizarre. You simply have a wrong mental model of the situation.
Apostrophes are *not* used for indicating possession, they are used for
indicating missing letters. So:

do not - don't
cannot - can't
it is - it's but its (possessive)
he is - he's but his (possessive)
friendes - friend's but friends (plural)

Where did "persones" come from, I hear you ask? English was previously a
much more inflected language than it is now. In particular, it had a
separate genitive case which ended "-es" in the singular and "-se" or
"-ses" in the plural. Over time the "e" stopped being sounded and the
letter started to be omitted in response. So it is replaced by an
apostrophe.

Pronouns are whole words - I me my mine, he him his, it its - and aren't
missing letters. So no apostrophe.

Possessives of nouns are abbreviations of the old genitive case, so
they're missing letters, so need an apostrophe.

--
Clive D.W. Feather, writing for himself | Home:
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