Pronouns & Antecedents BELLWORK

Pronouns and Antecedents

• A pronoun takes the place of a noun or nouns. 

• An antecedent is the noun or nouns to which the pronoun refers.  

• A pronoun and its antecedent must agree in number (singular/plural) and gender (male/female/neutral).

Questions to ask:

• Is the antecedent singular or plural?

• If it is singular, determine whether it is masculine (he, him), feminine (she, her), or neutral (you, it).

• Does my pronoun “agree” with the word or words that it replaces or refers?

Examples:

In the following examples, the pronouns are red, and their antecedents are green:

Jay and I walked to the zoo, and we saw the new exhibit.

Jay called Carla to pick him up from the zoo.

Drag and Drop

A pronoun replaces a ​

Placeholder

.


The word a pronoun refers to is called its ​

Placeholder

.
A pronoun must agree with its antecedent in ​

Placeholder

and ​

Placeholder

.

Drag these tiles and drop them in the correct blank above

noun

antecedent

number

gender

Multiple Choice

Which sentence has a clear pronoun–antecedent match?

• When Maria lost her book, she looked everywhere.

• When Maria lost her book, they looked everywhere.

• When Maria lost her book, it looked everywhere.

• When Maria lost her book, him looked everywhere.

Dropdown

Which pronoun correctly completes the sentence?
Each of the players must bring ​

Select answer

own water bottle.

Dropdown

If students want to succeed, ​

Select answer

must study regularly.

Categorize

Options (11)

she

it

he

him

you

I

they

them

we

us

their

Sort the following pronouns into singular and plural categories.

Singular

Plural

You should be careful to avoid writing sentences with vague antecedents, or sentences where antecedents aren’t provided at all. In paragraphs, antecedents are sometimes found in previous sentences.

• Ex. I talked to Sarah and Michelle, and she will be coming for dinner.

• Ex. The supervisors told the workers that they would receive a bonus.

• Ex. Although John was wealthy, he made poor use of it.

Multiple Choice

Max silenced his phone because ____ was too loud.

• he

• I

• you

• it

Multiple Choice

Aden and Jamie didn't like the questions on the test because they were very difficult.

• Aden and Jamie

• questions

• test

• difficult

Multiple Choice

Nadia doesn't have a car, so I gave her a ride to the airport.

• I

• ride

• Nadia

• airport

Multiple Choice

In sentence (4), who does the pronoun “they” most likely refer to?

• The children

• The parents

• The announcers

• The rides

Multiple Choice

In sentence (8), the pronoun “him” is unclear. What revision would best improve clarity?

• NO CHANGE

• Replace "him" with "her brother"

• Delete "with him."

• Change "him" to "we"