There are many pronouns in the English language. Once you`ve mastered indeterminate pronouns, look at the types of pronouns. This article describes other entities, including personal pronouns, possessive pronouns, interrogation pronouns and more! As a phrase like “Neither my brothers nor my father will sell the house” seems strange, it is probably a good idea to bring the plural subject closer to the verb whenever possible. Should the verb that follows an indeterminate pronoun be singular or plural? Well, it depends! Some indeterminate pronouns are always singular and therefore take a singular verb, while others are always plural and therefore accept a plural verb. But some can be either singular or plural depending on the context. It`s disconcerting! Instructions: Highlight indefinite pronouns in the next paragraph. There are eight in total. Sometimes names take strange forms and can fool us to think that they are plural if they are truly singular and vice versa. You`ll find more help in the section on plural forms of nouns and in the section on collective nouns. Words such as glasses, pants, pliers and scissors are considered plural (and require plural verbs), unless they are followed by the pair of sentences (in this case, the pair of words becomes subject). On the other hand, there is an indeterminate pronoun, none that can be singular or plural; It doesn`t matter if you use a singular or a plural adverb, unless something else in the sentence determines its number. (Writers generally do not consider any to be meaningful and choose a plural verb as in “None of the engines work,” but if something else leads us to consider none as one, we want a singular verb, as in “None of the food is fresh.”) This first worksheet is a simple approach for indeterminate pronouns.
It helps with recognition. If these types of pronouns can be identified, they can be used correctly in future entries. Sometimes modifiers come between a subject and its verb, but these modifiers should not confuse the match between the subject and his verb. Some indeterminate pronouns are particularly annoying Everyone and everyone (listed above, too) certainly feel like more than one person and therefore students are sometimes tempted to use a plural verb with them.