Antecedent and Pronoun Agreement

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Antecedent and Pronoun Agreement

• Why stop at Subject Verb Agreement?

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Pronouns Agree

• With its antecedents in gender and in number.

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Singular Words

• Each
• Either
• Neither
• One
• Everyone
• Everybody
• No one

• Nobody
• Anybody
• Someone
• Somebody
• All must be referred to by a singular pronoun

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Singular Pronouns

• He
• Him
• His

• She
• Her
• Hers
• It
• its

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Examples of Pronoun Antecedent Agreement

• Each of the students has Genius of Early English
  Theater with him today.
• Someone in the class left her Juicy Couture
  sweatshirt behind.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. Raef 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)

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We did it!

• We all agree now! In Subject and Verb and
  Pronoun and Antecedent!
• Now we can all get along perfectly!