Possessive Plural Pronoun Agreement

Rules are necessary and important to know when trying to properly write a sentence.

Specifically when talking about plural pronouns, when and how to use them can be confusing. Just like many other rules in English grammar, they are made to be broken. Just when you think you have an understanding of a rule, an exception raises its head and leaves you scratching yours. Regardless, the rules are necessary and important to know when trying to properly write a sentence.

Significance

Without pronoun agreement, your sentence will not make sense, and the reader can easily get confused about who is doing what in the sentence. A pronoun is a word that stands in the place of a noun in a sentence. The noun that is replaced is called the antecedent. Pronouns must agree with their antecedents in both number and gender. If Nancy is the noun, then the pronoun can be "her" or "she." It wouldn't work to have "him," "them," or "they" because Nancy is typically a woman's name, and there is only one Nancy.

Types

Personal pronouns are broken into three different categories: subjective, objective and possessive. Subjective pronouns are found in the subject of a sentence. Some plural subjective pronouns are we, you, and they. Objective pronouns are used as the object of the sentence, and some plural objective pronouns are us, you, and them. Finally possessive pronouns show ownership. Some examples are our, your and their.

Regular Plural Antecedents

Nouns that are traditionally made plural by adding an -s or an -es must have a plural pronoun. Remember, the pronoun must match its antecedent in number and gender. Look at the sentence: A lot of boys cut their own hair. "Boys" is the antecedent, and it is plural. It is coupled with the plural pronoun "their."

Compound Antecedents

Whenever two or more antecedents are joined together by a conjunction, it is called a compound antecedent. A plural pronoun must be used with a compound antecedent. For example, if you were to use "Betty and Jane" in a sentence, the pronoun would have to be "their," "they," or "them" depending on where "Betty and Jane" was written in the sentence.

Collective Nouns

Because collective nouns are referring to a group of some sort, they are commonly misused with plural pronouns. Even though the collective noun inherently refers to more than one noun, it must be used with a singular pronoun. For example, the sentence "The firm represented their first client" is not correct. "Firm" is a collective noun that is talking about a group of people, but only one "firm." The correct way to write the sentence would be to say "The firm represented its first client."

References

• Acadweb.wwu.edu: The Writing Center