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Difficulty: MediumPronouns and Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

Complete the sentence below by supplying the pronoun that correctly agrees with its antecedent in standard formal English.

Answer:Each of the navy vessels returned to 【its】 home port after completing the month-long patrol.

Answer

The correct pronoun to fill the blank is 'its'.
The subject of the sentence is the singular indefinite pronoun 'Each'. In standard formal English, prepositional modifiers such as 'of the navy vessels' do not change the number of the subject. Because 'Each' refers to inanimate objects (vessels), the singular neuter possessive pronoun 'its' is required to establish proper pronoun-antecedent agreement.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Identify the grammatical head word of the subject phrase.
The head word is the indefinite pronoun 'Each', which is grammatically singular.
The prepositional phrase 'of the navy vessels' acts as a modifier and does not alter the singular grammatical number of the subject 'Each'.
2
Determine the gender and nature of the antecedent to select the matching possessive pronoun.
The antecedent refers to inanimate entities ('vessels'), requiring a singular neuter possessive pronoun ('its').
Standard formal English mandates that a singular antecedent representing a non-human entity must be paired with the singular neuter possessive pronoun 'its'.

Key Concept

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement with Singular Indefinite Pronouns
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Topics

Pronouns and Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

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