Antecedent and Pronoun Agreement

Why stop at Subject Verb Agreement?10 slides. Fewer than Friday. . .

Pronouns Agree

With its antecedents in gender and in number.

Singular Words:

Each Either Neither One Everyone Everybody No one

Nobody Anybody Someone Somebody

All must be referred to by a singular pronoun

Singular Pronouns

He Him His

She Her Hers

It its

Examples of Pronoun Antecedent Agreement

Each of the students has The Color of Water with him today.

Someone in the class left her Juicy Couture sweatshirt behind.

Sticky Point 1. . .

When the antecedent can be either masculine or feminine as in some examples, it has been standard practice to use only the masculine forms of pronouns. But now, writers are beginning to use both masculine and feminine pronouns.

Ex. Everybody has his or her Ipod.

Sticky point 2:

Two or more singular antecedents joined by or/nor should be referred to by a singular pronoun.

Neither Noah nor David took his book with him.

Sticky point 3:

Two or more antecedents joined by and should be referred to by a plural pronoun.

Ex.The Madrigal and the Minnesinger

brought their music with them to the concert.

Sticky point 4:

The number of a relative pronoun (who, which, that) is determined by the number of the word to which it refers—(its antecedent).

Ex. Alex is one of those students who are always striving to do their best. (who is plural because it refers to students. Therefore the plural forms are and their are used to agree with who. (see pg. 161)

We did it!

We all agree now! In Subject and Verb and Pronoun and Antecedent!

Now we can all get along perfectly! Seniors: From 127 Exercise 6,

Exercise 7, page 131 review F due tomorrow.