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Difficulty: HardPronouns and Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

Identify and supply the correct pronoun that maintains strict pronoun-antecedent agreement in standard formal English.

Answer:Neither the newly enacted policy nor the underlying statute has lost 【its】 binding authority despite recent administrative changes.

Answer

its
The correct pronoun is 'its' because when two singular antecedents ('policy' and 'statute') are connected by 'neither... nor', the pronoun referring to them must be singular. Because the antecedent refers to an inanimate concept, the singular neuter possessive pronoun 'its' is required.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the antecedent nouns and the connecting correlative conjunction.
The antecedents are 'the newly enacted policy' (singular inanimate noun) and 'the underlying statute' (singular inanimate noun), connected by 'neither... nor'.
Establishing the grammatical number of the antecedents and the rule governing the conjunction is essential.
2
Apply the rule of pronoun-antecedent agreement for singular subjects connected by 'neither... nor'.
When two singular antecedents are joined by 'neither... nor', the pronoun referring to them must be singular.
Correlative conjunctions like 'neither... nor' evaluate the connected items individually rather than combining them into a plural subject.
3
Select the correct singular possessive pronoun form.
The singular neuter possessive pronoun 'its' correctly corresponds to the singular inanimate antecedent.
Inanimate nouns take 'its' (without an apostrophe), distinguishing the possessive form from the contraction 'it's'.

Key Concept

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement with Correlative Conjunctions (Neither... Nor)
Estimated Time:1m 0s
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Topics

Pronouns and Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

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