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Difficulty: MediumPronouns and Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

Consider the following sentence: "Neither the principal investigator nor the laboratory technicians had remembered to submit _____ weekly safety logs to the department head." Which of the following pronouns correctly completes the sentence in accordance with formal English pronoun-antecedent agreement rules?

  1. theirAnswer
  2. B
    his or her
  3. C
    its
  4. D
    his

Answer

The correct pronoun is 'their' because the nearer antecedent in the compound subject joined by 'neither... nor' is the plural noun 'laboratory technicians'.
When antecedents are connected by 'neither... nor', the pronoun must agree with the antecedent that is closer to it in the sentence. Since 'laboratory technicians' is plural and is closest to the blank, the plural possessive pronoun 'their' is required.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the antecedent structure in the sentence.
The subject contains a compound antecedent joined by the correlative conjunction 'neither... nor': 'the principal investigator' (singular) and 'the laboratory technicians' (plural).
The rule of proximity dictates that when antecedents of different grammatical numbers are connected by 'neither... nor', the pronoun agrees with the noun closer to it.
2
Determine the closer antecedent to the blank.
The noun phrase immediately preceding the pronoun blank is 'laboratory technicians', which is plural.
The pronoun must agree in number and person with 'technicians'.
3
Select the correct plural possessive pronoun.
'their' is the third-person plural possessive pronoun that corresponds to 'laboratory technicians'.
A plural antecedent requires a plural possessive pronoun.

Key Concept

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement with Correlative Conjunctions (Rule of Proximity)
Estimated Time:1m 0s
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Topics

Pronouns and Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

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