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Question

Difficulty: MediumPronoun-Antecedent Agreement

Neither the principal investigator nor the research assistants were able to complete its designated tasks before the laboratory's funding cycle ended.

Which of the following is the correct replacement for the underlined word?

  1. A
    NO CHANGE
  2. theirAnswer
  3. C
    they're
  4. D
    his or her

Answer

The correct answer is 'their'.
The correct option is the plural possessive pronoun 'their'. In the sentence, the singular noun phrase 'the principal investigator' and the plural noun phrase 'the research assistants' are joined by the correlative conjunctions 'neither... nor...'. When a singular and a plural antecedent are joined this way, the pronoun must agree in number with the closer antecedent. Since 'the research assistants' (plural) is closer to the pronoun, the pronoun must be plural ('their').

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the compound subject joined by 'neither... nor...' and locate the pronoun that refers to it.
The antecedents are 'the principal investigator' (singular) and 'the research assistants' (plural).
Finding the antecedent is the first step in resolving pronoun-antecedent agreement.
2
Apply the rule for pronoun-antecedent agreement with compound subjects joined by 'neither... nor...'.
The pronoun must agree in number with the closer antecedent, which is the plural noun phrase 'the research assistants'.
Correlative conjunctions require the pronoun to match the closer noun.
3
Select the correct plural possessive pronoun and eliminate incorrect alternatives.
'their' is the correct plural possessive pronoun. The original 'its' and the alternative 'his or her' are singular, while 'they're' is a contraction.
The possessive pronoun must be plural and correctly spelled as 'their' to match the antecedent.

Key Concept

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement with Correlative Conjunctions
Estimated Time:1m 0s
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Topics

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

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