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Zorluk: Çok zorPronouns and Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

Complete the sentence below by filling in each blank with the grammatically correct pronoun that maintains proper pronoun-antecedent agreement.

Cevap:Although neither the chief auditor nor the board members had voiced 【their】 objections during the executive session, every member of the finance subcommittees was requested to submit 【his or her】 independent audit report by Friday.

Cevap

The first blank requires 'their' to agree with the nearer plural antecedent 'the board members', while the second blank requires 'his or her' (or 'their') to agree with the grammatically singular subject phrase 'every member'.
The correct response utilizes 'their' in the first blank because the nearer antecedent in the 'neither... nor' construction is the plural noun 'board members'. For the second blank, 'his or her' (or gender-neutral singular 'their') is required to agree with the singular indefinite head noun 'every member'.

Adım Adım Çözüm

1
Identify the antecedent for the first blank and apply proximity agreement rules.
The antecedent is a compound subject joined by 'neither... nor' consisting of 'the chief auditor' (singular) and 'the board members' (plural). When antecedents are linked by correlative conjunctions such as 'neither... nor', the pronoun agrees with the nearer antecedent, which is 'the board members' (plural).
The principle of proximity dictates that the pronoun must match the number of the noun phrase closest to it in a disjunctive subject.
2
Determine the correct possessive pronoun for the first blank.
Because 'the board members' is plural, the possessive pronoun for the first blank must be 'their'.
Plural antecedents require plural possessive pronouns.
3
Identify the antecedent for the second blank and analyze its grammatical number.
The antecedent is 'every member of the finance subcommittees'. The head noun is 'member', preceded by the singular distributive determiner 'every'.
Indefinite determiners such as 'every' render the subject grammatically singular regardless of the plural noun in the intervening prepositional phrase ('subcommittees').
4
Determine the correct possessive pronoun for the second blank.
Because 'every member' is grammatically singular, the formal possessive pronoun required is 'his or her' (or accepted singular 'their').
Singular antecedents demand singular possessive pronouns in formal grammatical structure.

Anahtar Kavram

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement with Correlative Conjunctions and Indefinite Pronouns
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Konular

Pronouns and Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement

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