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Difficulty: MediumPronouns and Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

Which of the following pronouns correctly completes the sentence below?

"Neither the senior board members nor the managing director has submitted _____ financial report for the fourth quarter."

  1. hisAnswer
  2. B
    their
  3. C
    theirs
  4. D
    there

Answer

The correct pronoun is 'his'.
When compound antecedents are joined by 'neither... nor', the pronoun must agree in number with the antecedent closest to the blank. In this sentence, 'the managing director' is singular and is closest to the position of the pronoun, requiring the singular possessive pronoun 'his'.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the antecedents and the connecting correlative conjunction.
The antecedents are 'the senior board members' (plural) and 'the managing director' (singular), connected by 'neither... nor'.
Correlative conjunctions dictate specific proximity agreement rules for pronouns.
2
Apply the rule of proximity for pronoun-antecedent agreement.
The pronoun must agree with 'the managing director', which is the antecedent closer to the blank space.
When singular and plural antecedents are joined by 'neither... nor', standard formal English requires the pronoun to agree in number with the nearer antecedent.
3
Select the appropriate singular possessive determiner.
'his' correctly modifies 'financial report' while maintaining agreement with the singular noun 'managing director'.
A singular possessive pronoun is necessary to achieve correct grammatical concord.

Key Concept

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement with Correlative Conjunctions (Neither... Nor)
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Topics

Pronouns and Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

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