Pronoun Antecedent Agreement

Making 3rd person flow

What is a pronoun?• The part of speech that

can take the place of a noun in a sentence and function as a noun.

• Jake is a good athlete. He excels at football, soccer, and baseball.

What is an antecedent?• The word, phrase, or clause

referred to by a pronoun.• If a pronoun does not refer

clearly to the word it substitutes for (its antecedent), readers will have difficulty grasping the pronoun’s meaning.

• Jake is a good athlete, and he excels at football, soccer, and baseball.

Pronouns and antecedentsPronoun and

antecedents must

• Agree (in number & kind)

• Be clear

Single Antecedent• Emily Dickinson is sometimes

compared with Jane Austen, but she was quite different.

Clear Revisions:• Emily Dickinson is sometimes

compared with Jane Austen, but Dickinson was quite different.

• Despite occasional comparison, Emily Dickinson and Jane Austen were quite different.

Close Antecedent• Jody found a dress in the attic

that her aunt had worn.

Clear Revisions:

• In the attic Jody found a dress that her aunt had worn.

Pronoun Antecedent Agreement• Homeowners fret over their

tax bills.

• For clarity, a pronoun should always agree with its antecedent in person (first, second, third), number (singular, plural), and gender (masculine, feminine, neuter).

Pronoun Antecedent Agreement• The instructor and the

sergeant have offered their help.

• Note: When each or every precedes the compound antecedent, the pronoun is singular.

• Every boy and man took his seat.

Pronoun Antecedent Agreement• Everyone on the women’s

team now has her own locker.

• Each of the men has his own locker.

Pronoun Antecedent Agreement• Each athlete is entitled to his

own locker.

• All athletes are entitled to their own lockers.

Or• Each athlete is entitled to a

locker.

Where’s the problem?• A reader may often not like

Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” because the story confuses them.

• Readers may often not like Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” because the story confuses them.

Where’s the problem?• An author’s cultural

background can play a large part in their writing.

• An author’s cultural background can play a large part in her writing.

Take a look at this…• Tan planned this trip, so she

could learn more about her mother, such as where she had lived and see her daughters she had left behind.

• Tan planned this trip, so she could learn more about her mother, such as where she had lived and see the daughters that she had left behind.