Download Guide to Personal Pronouns, Agreement, and Vague References and more Lecture notes Business Management and Analysis in PDF only on Docsity! Personal Pronouns, Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement, and Vague or Unclear Pronoun References PERSONAL PRONOUNS Personal pronouns are pronouns that are used to refer to specific individuals or things. Personal pronouns can be singular or plural, and can refer to someone in the first, second, or third person. First person is used when the speaker or narrator is identifying himself or herself. Second person is used when the speaker or narrator is directly addressing another person who is present. Third person is used when the speaker or narrator is referring to a person who is not present or to anything other than a person, e.g., a boat, a university, a theory. First-, second-, and third-person personal pronouns can all be singular or plural. Also, all of them can be nominative (the subject of a verb), objective (the object of a verb or preposition), or possessive. Personal pronouns tend to change form as they change number and function. Singular Plural 1st person I, me, my, mine We, us, our, ours 2nd person you, you, your, yours you, you, your, yours 3rd person she, her, her, hers he, him, his, his it, it, its they, them, their, theirs Most academic writing uses third-person personal pronouns exclusively and avoids first- and second-person personal pronouns. MORE . . . PRONOUN-ANTECEDENT AGREEMENT A personal pronoun takes the place of a noun. An antecedent is the word, phrase, or clause to which a pronoun refers. In all of the following examples, the antecedent is in bold and the pronoun is italicized: The teacher forgot her book. In this sentence, her is the personal pronoun and teacher is the antecedent. CHECK FOR PRONOUN-ANTECEDENT AGREEMENT: A personal pronoun and its antecedent must agree in . . . Person—first (I, we), second (you), or third (he, she, it, they) Gender—masculine (he), feminine (she), or neuter (it) Number—singular or plural Wrong: The dogs tugged on its leash. Right: The dogs tugged on their leashes. Only in the second sentence does the personal pronoun (their) agree with the antecedent (dogs): both are plural. FOLLOW THESE PRINCIPLES TO AVOID COMMON MISTAKES: Pair a singular noun (that is not collective) with a singular personal pronoun, and not with they or their. Wrong: The teacher greets their students. Right: The teacher greets his or her students. Right: The teacher greets the students. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Wrong: The business closed their doors. Right: The business closed its doors. Pair a singular indefinite noun with a singular personal pronoun and not with they or their. Wrong: Each kid has their own locker. Right: Each kid has his or her own locker. Right: Each kid has a locker. Even though they appear to be singular, collective nouns often take plural pronouns. Wrong: The staff ate its lunch together. Right: The staff ate their lunch together. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ MORE . . .
