Pronoun-antecedent agreement | Syntax | Khan Academy Video Lecture | Complete Course on English Grammar: Upgrade your Speaking & Listening - Personal Skills

hello grammarians hello visiting cousin
Beth hello cousin David so today we're
going to be talking about pronoun
antecedent agreement and what is that so
an antecedent is a thing that goes
before so anta means before and c dn't
is like a go anything so what I mean by
that is if we're talking about if we set
up something in a sentence so okay so
we've got a sentence like Gillian rode
her bike to the grocery store fine
straight up sentence pretty ordinary if
we want to refer to Gillian again but we
want to use a pronoun
well we'd refer to Gillian as she that's
a woman's name so she she bought some
garlic and a spoon like you normally
would when you go to the grocery store
so when we talk about this pronoun she
in relation to this word this proper
noun Gillian Gillian is the antecedent
is the thing that goes before the
pronoun she' so whenever you use a
pronoun you are referring back to
something else the thing that went
before the antecedent the thing that has
come previously and so you want to make
sure that these things match up so for
example we know from living in this
culture that Gillian is a woman's name
so it would probably be incorrect to
refer to her as heat
Gillian rode her bike to the grocery
store he bought some garlic and a spoon
this sounds like we're talking about
someone else
right so even within this initial
sentence - Gillian rode her bike to the
grocery store we're referring back to
Gillian using this possessive pronoun to
define the bicycle oh because it's a
longer sentence well we're using it to
demonstrate the relationship between
Gillian and the bicycle gotcha yeah you
also want to make sure that pronouns and
their antecedents agree in number so if
you said what's a fun animal monkeys
monkeys
so the monkeys threw snowballs but they
had crummy aim right so we're using they
to refer back to the monkeys so this
thing is a plural noun right
we're referring to multiple monkeys so
it'd be incorrect to say the monkeys
threw snowballs but it had crumby a
because this makes it seem like we're
talking about one monkey when in fact we
are talking about an army of snowball
chuck in monkeys so we've got our little
monkey maybe a colobus monkey or maybe a
diana monkey it's got a little tuft it's
thrown a snowball but that's an old
world monkey it probably doesn't have
two prehensile tail just sort of has a
little tail but let's say we have a
whole bunch of them right we want to
make sure that we are operating under
the standards of agreement that's any
questions so you have can't have it
anymore because now you've got four
monkeys right let me get rid of that so
what should it be instead bath they
because they is plural and we don't know
if they're he's or she's and even if we
didn't were they kind of eliminates any
kind of gender distinction right so the
monkeys threw snowballs but they had
crummy aim although these monkeys seemed
to be doing pretty good at hitting each
other in the heads the tails with their
with their snowballs
so that's pronoun antecedent agreement
so remember to make sure to line things
up when relevant by gender so Gillian
rode her bike she bought some garlic and
a spoon and by number so the monkeys
threw snowballs but they had crummy aim
so there's more than one monkey so you'd
want to use the plural third person
pronoun you can learn anything Dave it
out and Beth out