Monday, September 15, 2008

Major mistake in grammar

I had made a lot of mistakes with pronoun reference in my first writing assignment. Mistakes in pronoun references are due to the assumption made that the reader understood the implied references. Pronouns usually refer to the other words, called their antecedent. A pronoun’s antecedent may be a noun or another pronoun. Hence, in both cases, it must be clear what the antecedent is. For example, in a mistake made in my recent assignment, “These changes are met with resistance as it may vary with each individual”. The antecedent in the preceding sentence, in this case, is changes. However, the reference is not clear and requires elaboration. Thus, it should be written as the following; “These changes in technology are met with resistance as the degree of adjustment to these changes may vary with each individual”. In addition, a pronoun should have only one possible antecedent. In addition, that antecedent should be clear and unmistakable. For example, the following sentence has more than one antecedent; “You should take the computer out of the car and fix it”. Anyone who read this sentence would not know which item was to be fixed. The pronoun it has two possible noun antecedents because it can refer to the computer or the car. Hence, to fix the sentence, a noun is substitute for the pronoun. For example, the sentence can be rewritten as such; “You should take the computer out of the car and fix the computer”. Finally, another issue to be highlighted is using a pronoun without giving any antecedent at all. For example, “Although Jack was rich, he did not make use of it to give to her poor sister”. The pronoun it cannot refer to rich as rich is not a noun. Hence, the correct version should be; “Although Jack had a lot of money, he did not make use of it to give to her poor sister”. In this sentence, the pronoun it has a clear noun antecedent; money. To conclude, a pronoun should have only one antecedent and one should never use a pronoun without an antecedent.

2 comments:

NgChanWay said...

Pronoun is a common error for most of us. Sometimes, I would wonder why poets can use more than one pronoun's antecedent in one sentence but we cannot. Maybe they are not doing academic writing but we are.

Hong En said...

It is important to be specific in what we are referring to whenever we are writing essays. It is a good practice to use one pronoun with an antecedent. This will hopefully prevent any confusion or misunderstanding when the readers are reading our essays.