English grammar drills part 12 pdf

The ability of third-person pronouns to substitute for noun phrases is not shared with fi rst- and second-person pronouns, which do not replace anything.. The fi rst-person pronouns I, m

I signaled to him.

I signaled to her.

It: Did you see the new car parked outside the restaurant?

Did you see it?

distant suns

The new telescope can detect them.

Exercise 5.1

Write the appropriate third-person pronoun above the underlined noun phrase Use he/she or

him/her for persons whose gender is not specifi ed.

He/She The taxi cab driver had a GPS system in the cab

1 The Mississippi river system drains the central United States

2 She really enjoyed photographing wild animals in their natural habitat

3 All the senior executives of the company were called to a special meeting

4 My brother intends to continue to run the farm that we inherited from our parents

5 The screenwriter for that movie has been nominated for an Academy Award

6 The whole family plans to celebrate our parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary in July

7 Both of my roommates at school come from Alabama

8 The class interviewed the reporter who wrote the series on judicial misconduct

9 The population of North Dakota is one of the few in the United States that is actually falling

10 It is hospital policy to get blood samples from all patients with unexplained fevers

11 The Southern Cross is the best-known constellation in the Southern Hemisphere

12 I will vote for the candidate that has expressed the greatest concern for health costs

13 My husband and his friends have taken the kids camping this weekend

14 A good portfolio requires a mixture of both stocks and bonds

15 The weather reporter on the 10 o’clock news is predicting more snow this weekend

Third-person pronouns are unique among pronouns The ability of third-person pronouns

to substitute for noun phrases is not shared with fi rst- and second-person pronouns, which do

not replace anything

The fi rst-person pronouns (I, me, we, us) refer only to the speaker or writer of a sentence, and

the second-person pronoun (you) refers only to the real or imagined audience of the sentence For

example, consider the following sentence:

I see you.

Here the fi rst-person pronoun I and the second-person pronoun you do not substitute for other

noun phrases They are just themselves—speaker and audience respectively

Personal pronouns have different forms depending on their person (fi rst, second, or third),

number (singular or plural), and form or case (subject, object, or possessive) The following

chart represents all the personal pronouns, with form and person along the left axis of the chart

and number across the top:

PERSONAL PRONOUNS

First-Person Pronouns

Possessive pronominal mine ours Possessive adjectival my our

Second-Person Pronouns

Possessive pronominal yours yours Possessive adjectival your your

Third-Person Pronouns

Subject he, she, it they Object him, her, it them Possessive pronominal his, hers, its theirs Possessive adjectival his, her, its their

Notice that the possessive pronouns have two different sets of forms The pronominal forms

(mine, ours, yours, his, hers, its, theirs) act as true pronouns in the sense that they can play the

standard noun roles of subject, object, and complement of linking verbs For example:

Subject: Mine was the only correct answer.

Ours didn’t stand a chance.

The children lost theirs again.

The missing purse was hers.

Adjectival forms (my, our, your, his, her, its, their) act as adjectives modifying nouns Here are

some examples of this use:

My answer was the only correct one.

I gave him your program.

It was your decision to make.

Of particular importance are the possessive pronoun forms that are different from each other:

singular & plural singular plural

The adjectival and pronominal forms of his and its are the same Here are some sentences

that illustrate the difference between pronominal and adjectival forms:

Your/yours

Her/hers

Their/theirs

Exercise 5.2

Select the proper form of the two italicized possessive pronouns by underlining the correct form

Mary needs to see her/hers accountant about a tax matter.

1 I couldn’t make out what they were saying about their/theirs.

2 We were naturally very sad to hear about your/yours loss.

3 Nobody had anything to say about his or her/hers decision.

4 My team’s performance was even worse than your/yours.

5 My candidate has not been able to gather much support How about your/yours?

6 In light of all the diffi culties, you really have to admire their/theirs attitude.

7 I got mine Did you get your/yours?

8 The poor quality of produce in the marketplace really made me want to get her/hers.

9 When the lights went out, nobody could fi nd their/theirs way back.

10 Miss Jones was concerned about where she had left her/hers in the classroom.

We need to be careful when we use the masculine and feminine singular pronouns he and she There is no problem using he to refer to males and she to females The problem arises when

we use them in a sexist or stereotyped way One problem is using he to refer to people in general

Here is an example:

Whenever a person makes an investment, he should minimize sales commissions.

Many people would fi nd this sentence to be objectionable because it sends a message that males

are the only kind of people who make investments

There are two ways of rewriting this type of sentence to eliminate the generic he One way is

to replace he with the compound he or she:

Whenever a person makes an investment, he or she should minimize sales commissions.

The other way is to replace he with the plural pronoun they This solution will require the subject

of the sentence to be rewritten as a plural (people rather than a person) so that they will have an

appropriate plural antecedent:

Of the two solutions, the second alternative is usually better even though it requires more

sen-tence revision The option with he or she often seems clumsy.

A second problem is using he and she in a way that stereotypes occupations or tasks For

example:

Let’s fi nd a pilot and see what he says.

Let’s fi nd a nurse and see what she says.

The use of he in the fi rst example and she in the second implies that all pilots are males and all

nurses are females Some people have become very sensitive to this kind of gender stereotyping

You should be careful to avoid it

Again, we can solve the problem by using the compound he or she:

Let’s fi nd a pilot and see what he or she says.

Let’s fi nd a nurse and see what he or she says.

However, since the he or she compound is so awkward, a better solution would be to rewrite the

sentences to avoid the pronoun altogether For example:

Let’s see what a pilot would say

Let’s see what a nurse would say

Exercise 5.3

Rewrite the following sentences to avoid the inappropriate use of he and she Do not use the

com-pound he or she in your answers.

Every employee must wash his hands before returning to work

All employees must wash their hands before returning to work

1 A good writer chooses his words carefully

2 A geologist spends most of his research time in the fi eld

3 A teacher should allow her students time to fi nish their work

4 When a parent arrives, ask her to take a seat.

5 We need someone who will try his best

6 Each farmer in the neighborhood has already harvested his crops by now

7 Every painter has to learn how to keep his brushes in good condition

8 Find an offi cer and tell him what happened

9 Any secretary we hire must have Excel in her resume

10 Any child who is invited here must mind his manners

11 Call a doctor and tell him we have an emergency here

12 No CEO would pass up an opportunity to improve his company

13 We cannot hire any foreign citizen unless we see his green card

14 If a visitor stops by, ask him to wait in the library

15 No member of the Republican Party would lend his name to a cause like that

Refl exive pronouns

Refl exive pronouns are a unique group of pronouns that always end in either -self or -selves Here

is the complete list:

First person myself ourselves Second person yourself yourselves Third person himself themselves

Refl exive pronouns have no independent meaning; they must refer back to some noun (or

pronoun) mentioned earlier in the same sentence This previously mentioned noun is called the

antecedent of the refl exive pronoun The word refl exive comes from a Latin word meaning “to

bend back.” Refl exive pronouns must “bend back” to their antecedent, the nearest

appropri-ate noun—usually but not always the subject of the sentence Here are some examples with the

refl exive pronouns in italics and their antecedents in bold:

The queen smiled at herself in the mirror.

The movie refuses to take itself seriously.

The couple had accidentally locked themselves out of their car.

The computer shut itself off.

I want to do it by myself.

Notice that in all of these examples, the antecedent of the refl exive pronoun is the subject of the

sentence While this is generally the case, the antecedent can also be the object of the preceding

verb For example, look at the following sentence:

Mary told John to help himself to some dessert.

Here the antecedent of the refl exive pronoun himself is not the subject of the sentence, Mary,

but the object, John If we tried to make the subject the antecedent, the result would be

ungrammatical:

X Mary told John to help herself to some dessert.