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Difficulty: EasyPronouns and Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

Complete the sentence below by supplying the correct possessive pronoun that agrees with its antecedent.

Answer:Neither the school principal nor the teachers submitted 【their】 annual reports before the administrative deadline.

Answer

their
When subjects of different grammatical numbers are connected by 'neither... nor...', the possessive pronoun agrees with the antecedent closest to it. In this sentence, the plural noun 'teachers' is nearer to the blank than the singular noun 'principal', making the plural possessive pronoun 'their' the grammatically correct choice.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the compound antecedent and the conjunction connecting its components.
The subjects 'the school principal' (singular) and 'the teachers' (plural) are joined by the correlative conjunction 'neither... nor...'.
Rules of proximity govern pronoun-antecedent agreement when subjects are connected by correlative conjunctions.
2
Determine which component of the antecedent is closer to the pronoun slot.
'the teachers' is the plural noun phrase closest to the blank space.
When antecedents differ in number and are joined by 'neither... nor...', the pronoun must agree with the nearer antecedent.
3
Select the possessive pronoun that matches the plural antecedent.
The third-person plural possessive pronoun 'their' correctly completes the sentence.
Using a singular pronoun would violate proximity agreement rules with the plural noun 'teachers'.

Key Concept

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement with Correlative Conjunctions
Estimated Time:45s
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Topics

Pronouns and Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

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