PRONOUN ANTECEDENT AGREEMENT

PRONOUN ANTECEDENT AGREEMENT

When a pronoun is used in place of a noun, the noun that it replaced is called the antecedent of that pronoun.

Manisha says she is tired.

[Here Manisha is the antecedent of she]

Because a pronoun renames, or stands in place of its antecedent, the pronoun should be as similar to the antecedent as possible. This means that the pronoun should agree in both number and gender with its antecedent.

**Always use a plural pronoun to represent two or more antecedents connected by and

Jack and Jackey are on their way up the hill.

Rony and his wife deserve whatever awards they receive.

But you should also remember the exception.

The treasurer and secretary submitted his reports.

The treasurer and the secretary submitted their reports.

**When two antecedents are connected by or, nor, either – or, neither --- nor, the pronoun should agree in number and person with the nearer antecedent.

Neither the manager nor the players gave freely

of their time.

**The phrase connected with a preposition does not affect on determining the antecedent of a sentence.

The students of this class have learnt their lessons.

**When antecedents are preceded by each, either, neither, every, many a, the pronoun should be always singular.

Each of the boys has done his duty.

**When locating the antecedent, ignore explanatory phrases beginning with as well as, in addition to, and not, together with, accompanied by or with, rather than etc. Here pronoun should be according to its real antecedent.

Jony, as well as his brother, is on his way.

**Collective nouns such as committee jury, faculty, class, crowd, army etc. May be either singer or plural depending upon their meaning in the sentence. So when you are referring to that group as a single unit, use a singular pronoun.

The class had its picture taken.

The Jury brought in their split verdict.

**Any Proper nouns such as company names or language name are generally considered as singular. So they require singular pronouns as well as singular verb fir grammatical correctness.

Lever Brothers is having its biggest storewide sale in years.