Pronoun Reference

By Abhishek Tomar on Aug 22, 2009 with Comments 0

When you encounter one of the pronoun than you should ask only one question to yourself that to which noun (or pronoun ) this pronoun refers back to. Or which noun or pronoun is this pronoun replacing. Yes, if you got your answer that you don’t have this error in the sentence, if the answer is “confusion” you better put it in suspected list.

Example

Danny exercised daily so that HE would stay in good shape.

Here DANNY is a noun and HE is a pronoun. As HE is referring back to DANNY so this pronoun can be classified as Pronoun by reference. In grammar language, He is a pronoun and DANNY is the antecedent.

Previous sentence was too easy to make you understand, but in GMAT the sentence contain more than one noun and may contain only one pronoun. Now the ambiguity arises that the present pronoun refers to which noun. now you will have two antecedent and for a given pronoun. In these case the sentences should be rewritten so that there is only on possible pronoun referent.

Example

DANNY exercised daily with JOHN so that HE could stay in good shape.

Now here we have two antecedent DANNY and JOHN and only one pronoun HE. Can you guess that HE is referring back to which noun DANNY or JOHN. The better way to say this sentence is that

DANNY hopes to stay fit so HE exercised daily with JOHN.

Now every thing is clear. HE is referred back to DANNY. Sometime in GMAT sentence correction pronoun refers back to some antecedent that really does not exist but seems to be implied. These sentences are the tough GMAT sentences and should be carefully marked.

Always remember implications are not enough and GMAT plays with type of sentences very offend.

Example

Friendship was sometime JAMES truly valued so HE disliked it when THEY talked about HIM behind HIS back.

This is the perfect example of the above said statement. JAMES is the only noun and “HE” “HIM” “HIS” & ” THEY” are pronouns in the example above sentences. In above example HE, HIM and HIS can be related back to JAMES but THEY seems to imply about JAMES Friends which is wrong. Remember implication are not enough to form a correct sentence. Hence it is incorrect.