Pronoun Agreement (Pronoun Reference)

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What Is Pronoun Agreement?
Agreement in Number
Some Indefinite Pronouns Act as Singular Antecedents
Some Indefinite Pronouns Act as Plural Antecedents
Some Indefinite Pronouns Can Be Both Singular and Plural
Pronoun Agreement With Collective Nouns
Agreement in Person
Agreement in Gender
For Advanced Users—Gendered Language
Singular "They"
Common Errors in Pronoun Agreement
Ambiguous Reference
See Also

What Is Pronoun Agreement?

Definition

Pronoun agreement means that pronouns must match the nouns they refer to, also called the antecedent, in terms of:

number (singular or plural)
person (first, second, third)
gender (masculine, feminine, neuter).

The pronoun “he” replaces the noun “John” in the sentence, “John is working on a movie set. He is an actor.”

The 3rd person singular masculine pronoun he replaces John, which is a 3rd person singular masculine noun.

Agreement in Number
Agreement in Person
Agreement in Gender
Common Errors in Pronoun Agreement

Agreement in Number

When replacing nouns with pronouns, check if they are singular or plural.

Example

The pronoun “he” replaces the noun “The actor” in the sentence, “The actor fell down a ladder, so he will be unavailable for months.”

The singular pronoun he replaces the actor, a 3rd person singular noun.

Replace plural nouns with plural pronouns.

The pronoun “they” replaces the noun “The actors” in the sentence, “The actors seem to be professionals, at least they act like so.” The pronoun “we” replaces the nouns “Jarome and I” in the sentence, “Jarome and I just arrived home. We will watch a movie.”

The plural they replaces the actors, a 3rd person plural noun.

The plural we replaces Jarome and I, a 2nd person plural noun phrase.

Some Indefinite Pronouns Act as Singular Antecedents

Here’s a list of some indefinite pronouns that are singular, even though they can represent many people or objects.

anybody	anyone	anything	each
either	everybody	everyone	everything
neither	nobody	no one	nothing
one	somebody	someone	something

The singular pronoun it replaces the indefinite pronoun one.

Some Indefinite Pronouns Act as Plural Antecedents

Here’s a list of some indefinite pronouns that are plural.

both	many
others	several

The plural pronoun they replaces the indefinite pronoun many.

Some Indefinite Pronouns Can Be Both Singular and Plural

all	most
none	some

Some indefinite pronouns like “all” can be both singular or plural like in the sentences “All the paintings were stolen. Good thing they were insured.” and “All the paint was a dark blue color and it looked great!”

The indefinite pronoun all can be replaced by both singular or plural pronouns.

Pronoun Agreement With Collective Nouns

Collective nouns refer to a group of objects, animals or people.

Use singular pronouns to replace the collective noun if referring to the entire group at a time.

Collective nouns can be referred to with singular pronouns if considering the group as one entity like in the sentence “The crowd showed its support at the red carpet ceremony.”

Even if there are many people in the crowd, it is referred to with a singular possessive pronoun.

Use plural pronouns to replace the collective noun if referring to individual elements within the group.

Collective nouns can be referred to with plural pronouns if considering individual members within the group like in the sentence, “The committee made a decision and they will move on with the vote.”

Even if the committee is a singular collective noun, we are referring to individual members in this committee, therefore we replace the antecedent with a plural pronoun.

Agreement in Person

In grammar, there are 3 persons:

first person - the person or group speaking (I or we)
second person - the person or group spoken to (you)
third person - the person or thing spoken about (he, she, it, they; nouns; indefinite pronouns)

The sentences, “I woke up this morning ready to complete my role.” “You will be on set for 4 hours wearing your costume.” “The actors are ready. They will play the next scene in one take.”

The 1st person singular possessive pronoun my refers to the antecedent I, 1st person singular pronoun.

The 2nd person singular possessive pronoun your refers to the antecedent you, 2nd person singular pronoun. It could also be plural and it would simply change the context, one actor vs multiple actors.

The 3rd person plural pronoun they replaces the antecedent the actors, 3rd person plural noun.

Agreement in Gender

English isn’t a gendered language in general.

However, there is one gendered element:

the feminine pronoun she
the masculine pronoun he

In situations where the antecedent is identified as masculine or feminine, this antecedent and the pronoun replacing it must agree.

Examples

Singular pronouns replace singular nouns like in the sentences “The girl never thought she would be selected.” and “I informed the boy that he will be called next week.”

The singular feminine pronoun she replaces the girl, a 3rd person singular feminine noun.

The singular pronoun he refers to the boy, a 3rd person singular masculine noun.

For Advanced Users—Gendered Language

Tip

In some cases, using the appropriate masculine or feminine pronouns can become complicated.

For example:

Gendered possessive pronoun like in the sentence, “A movie director provides clear instructions to his crew.”

Using only the possessive pronoun his suggests the movie director is male.

Using both gendered possessive pronouns makes it heavy like in the sentence, “A movie director provides clear instructions to his or her crew. “

Using both possessive pronouns his and her is grammatically correct. However, it makes the sentence heavy.

Singular "They"

Using gender neutral “their” to refer to the movie director like in the sentence, “A movie director provides clear instructions to their crew. “.

Using the gender neutral singular possessive pronoun their is one way to be inclusive with the pronoun agreement. However, it is not yet widely accepted in formal writing.

Reformulate the sentence to get a plural antecedent, making the pronoun agree in number.

Using a plural antecedent renders gender irrelevant like in the sentence, “Movie directors provide clear instructions to their crew.”

Since the antecedent movie directors is plural, gender becomes irrelevant grammatically.

Common Errors in Pronoun Agreement

Be careful!

Weak Reference

A weak reference occurs when there is no antecedent at all for the pronoun to refer to.

When a pronoun is used, an antecedent is needed to understand the context. Compare this sentence, “As he was watching the actors, it suddenly turned off, making it impossible to see anything. “ to “As he was watching the actors, a spotlight suddenly turned off, making it impossible to see anything.”

When mentioning something for the first time, use a noun.

Ambiguous Reference

Watch for ambiguous reference: