Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement
The grammatical principle of pronoun-antecedent agreement requires that pronouns agree with their antecedents in number, gender, and person. The antecedent of a noun is the word or phrase a pronoun refers to or takes the place of. To make pronouns agree with their antecedents, a writer should:
Use a third person singular pronoun to refer to a singular antecedent.
Use a third person plural pronoun to refer to a plural antecedent.
For example, men, a plural noun naming males, would never be the antecedent of she, a singular feminine pronoun.
Examples
A writer may be tempted to use the plural pronoun they (or their) to refer to a singular antecedent, especially when the singular antecedent is an indefinite pronoun, a generic noun, or a collective noun.
Examples
Correcting Pronoun-Antecedent Disagreement
When there is a mismatch between the pronoun and its antecedents, a writer can use one of the following correction strategies:
- Replace they with he or she (or their with his or her).
- Make the singular antecedent plural.
- Rewrite the sentence.
To avoid wordiness, writers prefer using the second or third correction strategy over the first one.
Most antecedents are easily identified as singular or plural, and the choice of pronoun is obvious. In some cases, however, determining the number of the antecedent may be difficult.
Case 1: When a pronoun is separated from its antecedent by one or more prepositional phrases, the antecedent is usually not found within the prepositional phrase(s)
Examples
Case 2: When the conjunction and joins two or more antecedents, the antecedents are plural, and the pronoun must also be plural.
Examples
Case 3: When two or more antecedents are joined together by or, nor, either…or, or neither…nor, the antecedent closest to the pronoun determines if the pronoun is singular or plural.
Examples
Case 4: When the antecedent is a collective noun that represents a group of people acting as a whole, the pronoun is singular. When the antecedent is a collective noun but the members within the group are acting individually, the pronoun is plural. Collective nouns include class, committee, company, crew, family, group, jury, and team.
Examples
Case 5: When the antecedent is an indefinite pronoun, the pronoun is singular or plural according to which pronoun is used. The following indefinite pronouns take singular personal pronouns:
Examples