ACT® · English: Usage Conventions
Agreement with Indefinite Pronoun Subjects
Indefinite pronouns like everyone, each, and neither are grammatically singular no matter how many people they describe, while words like none and all borrow their number from the noun that follows them.
Indefinite pronouns stand in for people or things without naming them, and the test cares about one question: is the pronoun singular or plural? Some are always singular: everyone, everybody, everything, someone, anybody, nobody, each, either, neither, one. It doesn't matter if 'everyone' means a stadium of fans. Grammatically it's one unit, so it gets a singular verb and later a singular pronoun. 'Everyone brings a bag,' not 'their bag,' because 'everyone' and 'their' don't match in number.
A smaller group of pronouns, like none, all, some, and most, are flexible. They borrow their number from the noun in the phrase that follows them. 'None of the water was' because water is a mass noun treated as singular. 'None of the bottles were' because bottles is countable and plural. The verb has to match whatever noun is actually doing the describing after 'of,' not the pronoun itself.
This matters beyond the verb. Once you've fixed whether an indefinite pronoun is singular or plural, any pronoun that refers back to it later in the sentence has to agree too. 'Each of the workers wore his or her own harness' keeps 'each' singular throughout. Mixing in 'their' breaks that chain. The skill connects directly to subject-verb agreement with tricky intervening phrases, since the real subject is often buried after words like 'of the.'
Key terms
- Indefinite pronoun
- A pronoun that refers to an unspecified person or thing, such as everyone, none, or each.
- Always singular
- A group of indefinite pronouns, including each, either, neither, and everyone, that take singular verbs regardless of meaning.
- Number-flexible pronoun
- Pronouns like none, all, and some whose singular or plural status depends on the noun that follows them.
- Mass noun
- A noun like water or sand that names a substance and is treated as singular, not counted in units.
Watch it explained
- How it worksHow do indefinite pronouns split into always singular, always plural, and it depends on what follows?
- Worked exampleFind the verb for 'Neither of the proposals ___ the budget' choosing between meet and meets.
- Going furtherWhat happens with 'none of the water' versus 'none of the bottles', where the verb changes number?
- Ties togetherHow does an indefinite pronoun subject also decide which pronoun may refer back to it later on?
Check yourself
End of topic.