ACT® · English: Usage Conventions
Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement Across Clauses and Sentences
A pronoun must match its antecedent in number even when that antecedent sat in an earlier sentence, so you trace back past any closer nouns to find the one the pronoun was actually sent to replace.
Inside one sentence, a mismatch jumps out: 'the dog chased their tail' sounds wrong immediately because the pronoun sits right next to its antecedent. Push the antecedent back a sentence or two and that alarm goes quiet. By the time you reach the pronoun, other nouns have passed through the sentence, and your ear grabs whichever one is closest instead of whichever one the writer actually meant.
The fix is mechanical: find the pronoun, ask what noun it stands for, and check that noun's number, ignoring every noun that sits between them. 'The company raised wages by 8 percent. They also expanded the parking lot' fails because 'company' is singular and 'they' is plural; the repair is 'It also expanded.' 'Each applicant submits forms, and then they wait for a reply' fails the same way, since 'each applicant' is singular; the repair is 'he or she waits.' Nearness never grants antecedent status on its own, which is exactly why a sentence like 'The council reviewed the architects' drawings for three weeks. They then asked for a second set' tempts you to blame 'architects' when the council is actually the one asking.
This sits next to collective-noun and indefinite-pronoun agreement because the same singular words, company, council, each, everyone, keep causing trouble. It also connects to a paragraph that drifts from 'a researcher' to 'researchers': once the noun itself changes number, every pronoun after it has to shift to match, or the paragraph starts contradicting its own subject.
Key terms
- Antecedent
- The specific noun a pronoun stands in for, which may sit one or more sentences earlier.
- Agreement
- The requirement that a pronoun match its antecedent in number, singular or plural.
- Collective noun
- A singular noun like company or council that names a group but takes a singular pronoun.
- Indefinite pronoun
- A word like each or everyone that is grammatically singular even though it suggests many people.
Watch it explained
- How it worksHow do you trace a pronoun backward past intervening nouns to the one noun it was actually sent for?
- Worked exampleFind the mismatch in 'The company raised wages. They also expanded the parking lot.' and repair it.
- Worked exampleWalk me through fixing 'Each applicant submits forms, and then they wait for a reply.'
- Common mistakeWhy isn't the nearest earlier noun always the antecedent of a pronoun in the sentence that follows?
- Going furtherWhat happens when a paragraph switches from 'a researcher' to 'researchers' halfway through?
Check yourself
End of topic.