Pronouns

• What is a Pronoun?

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Why It Matters

Practice and Apply

Pronouns

Pronoun

A pronoun is a word that is used in place of a noun or another pronoun.

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A pronoun can refer to a person, place, thing,or idea.

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The word that a pronoun refers to is called its antecedent.

REFERS TO

Ronal visited Death Valley, and he was impressed.

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Pronouns such as we, I, he, them and it are called personal pronouns.

Personal pronouns have a variety of forms to indicate different persons, numbers, and cases.

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There are first-person, second-person, and third-person personal pronouns, each having both singular and plural forms.

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Each personal pronoun forms three cases: subject, object, and possessive.

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Choose the pronoun form depending on the pronoun’s function in the sentence.

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Pronouns help you talk about people concisely when you’re telling a story.

Why It Matters

Practice and Apply

Write the personal pronoun in the sentence below.

1. Death Valley is famous for its strange moving boulders.

PRACTICE

Write the personal pronoun in the sentence below.

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PRACTICE

2. The rocks slide and leave long tracks behind them.

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Write the personal pronoun in the sentence below.

PRACTICE

3. Do you know why this happens?

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Why It Matters

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Pronoun Agreement

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Antecedent

The antecedent is the noun or pronoun that a pronoun replaces or refers to.

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One story has its setting in Egypt.

Use a singular pronoun to refer to a singular antecedent.

REFERS TO

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Use a plural pronoun to refer to a plural antecedent.

The characters have their motives for murder.

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The pronoun must agree in person with the antecedent.

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Rosi likes his mysteries to have surprise endings.

THIRD PERSON

The gender of the pronoun must be the same as the gender of its antecedent.

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Personal pronouns have three gender forms:

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•masculine he, his, him

•feminine she, her, hers

•neuter it, its

Agnez Mo sets many of her stories in England.

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The hero has to use all his wits to solve the crime.

FEMININE

MASCULINE

In your writing, you will sometimes refer to several people or groups of people.

Correct pronoun-antecedent agreement will help your readers keep track of who is who in your writing.

Why It Matters

Practice and Apply

Write the pronouns and their antecedents in this sentence.PRACTICE

4. Agatha loved real-life mysteries of the past. She helped to investigate them in the Middle East

PRACTICE Write the pronouns and their antecedents in this sentence.

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5. Agatha and her husband went on many archaeological trips and found them exciting.

PRACTICE Write the pronouns and their antecedents in this sentence.

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6. A mystery writer may use exotic places and backgrounds for his or her stories.