Pronoun reference and agreement

A pronoun copies the number of the noun it replaces. Collective nouns — committee, company, government, team, jury — are singular in American English and take it and its. Inconsistency inside one sentence is the giveaway: if a later clause says it recommended, the earlier their is the error.

Each, every, either, neither, one, everyone, somebody, nobody, anyone are singular and take singular pronouns.

With a person of unstated gender, general written English now widely accepts everyone brought their laptop, but TOEFL error-identification items still mark it wrong and expect his or her — or, better, a rewrite in the plural, which avoids the argument entirely. Items on this page follow the test convention; teach the rewrite as the safe habit.

If two nouns of the same number and gender come before the pronoun, the reader cannot choose between them. Grammar alone will not fix this — the repair is to repeat the noun or to restructure the sentence. Watch for it after when, after, because and in any sentence naming two people or two studies.

A pronoun should point at a noun, not at a whole clause. When the reference is an idea rather than a thing, supply the noun: a finding, a change, a decision, a result. The test is whether you can say this what? and answer with a word from the sentence.

Chomsky's is a modifier, not a noun in the sentence, so there is nothing for he to refer back to. Swap them: name the person in the main clause and let the possessive be the pronoun. This turns up constantly in student writing about sources.

Delete the other person and the ear decides: between … me, not between … I. After any preposition the object form is required. After than and as, choose by completing the thought: She is taller than I (am) but They chose her rather than me.

Answer the clause with he or him: the committee interviewed him gives whom; he was interviewed gives who. Use who for people and which for things; that works for either but only in a clause with no commas. With commas the clause is extra information and takes which or who: The report, which ran to 200 pages, arrived late.

A reflexive needs its own subject earlier in the same clause. Myself is not a polite me. It is correct only when the subject acts on itself (I taught myself) or for emphasis (the director herself reviewed the figures). Each other covers two, one another covers more.

Expand the apostrophe form and read it back: it is, they are, who is. If the expansion is nonsense, the possessive is needed. The pairs to drill are its / it's, their / there / they're, whose / who's and your / you're. Possessive pronouns never take an apostrophe.

Do not drift between one, you, we and a student inside a passage. Whichever you begin with, keep it. This is a writing-score problem as much as a grammar one: you is also too informal for TOEFL essays, so a plural rewrite usually solves both at once.

The relative pronoun already does the work of the object, so a second pronoun repeats it. Common where the speaker's first language allows a resumptive pronoun, and common in the same shape with adverbs: the city where I lived there.

In a comparison, that and those stand in for the repeated noun and must match its number: the climate of Brazil is milder than that of Canada; the results of this trial exceeded those of the earlier one. Leaving them out compares the wrong things: the population of São Paulo is larger than any other city compares a population to a city.