pro-forms

Please take a look at a few examples:

1. Mary is pretty; so is her sister. (Mary is very beautiful, so is her sister.)

2. Mary speaks French; so does her sister. (Mary speaks French, so does her sister.)

3. Mary is pretty; she is also smart. (Mary is very beautiful, she is also very smart.)

In sentence 1, the adverb so is used instead of the previous adjective pretty to avoid repetition.In sentence 2, the auxiliary verb does substitute for speaking to avoid repetition.The third sentence is to replace the noun Mary with the pronoun she to avoid repetition.Words like so, do, and she can be collectively called pro-forms.Among various pronouns, one that is more prone to errors when writing and is therefore more worth discussing is pronouns.

A pronoun is a kind of word class used to replace noun phrases to avoid repetition.For example:

1. The dog ate the bone. (The dog eats the bone.)

2. He liked it. (It likes it very much.)

He and it in sentence 2 are synonyms, replacing the noun phrases in sentence 1 the dog and the bone respectively to avoid duplication.The dog and the bone are called antecedents.

Pronouns are relatively simple words, but there are still many mistakes in modern nouns when writing, so next we will sort out some of the most common mistakes when using pronouns to remind readers to pay attention.

The pronoun must be consistent with the predecessor’s name

People often think that our difficulties are unique. (Usually people often think that the difficulties we encounter are unique.)

The synonym of the sentence is our, and the avant-garde represents people.However, people are in the third person and ours are in the first person, which is not consistent.The following two modifications meet the requirements of consistency and are acceptable:

• People often think that their difficulties are unique.

• We often think that our difficulties are unique.

The pronoun and the plural must be consistent

If the campaign succeeds in raising huge sums, the spons will devote it all to disaster relief.

The pronoun it is an singular, but the avant-garde it replaces is a plural and inconsistent.The following two modifications are possible:

• If the campaign succeeds in raising huge sums, the spons will devote them all to disaster relief.

• If the campaign succeeds in raising a huge sum, the spons will devote it all to disaster relief.

Gender considerations for pronouns

When a teacher takes his students on a field trip, he is fully responsible and must bring every one of them safely back to school with him.(Unfortable)(The teacher is fully responsible and must bring every one of them safely back to school with him.(Unfortable)(The teacher is fully responsible when taking students on outdoor trips, and must bring each student back to school safely.)

There is a problem that you will encounter when writing.If the aforementioned word is someone and the gender is unclear, the previous practice was to treat it as a male or a synonym using he.However, since the rise of the feminist movement and some pioneers of the feminist movement took the lead in deconstructing language and writing, it is no longer suitable to regard the above situation as men and women, but should be synonymous with the phrase he or she, which is a more gender equality phrase.However, the usage of he or she can sometimes appear bulky.Like the above sentence, respecting feminism may require this:

• When a teacher takes his or her students on a field trip, he or she is fully responsible and must bring every one of them safely back to school with him or her.(poor)

This statement is still not good because it is too long-winded.If you encounter this situation, the best way is to simply treat it as a woman, and you can balance it:

• When a teacher takes her students on a field trip, she is fully responsible and must bring every one of them safely back to school with her.

There must be a predecessor for a pronoun

Although the new regulations allow them to do it, high school graduates seldom go abroad for higher education.(Unfortable)

The pronoun it must have a precursor, and this precursor should be a noun phrase.But the precursor to it is not found in the whole sentence.Judging from the meaning, it seems to represent go abroad for higher education, but it is a “predicate” mainly based on the verb go, not a noun phrase, so it is not suitable to use the pronoun it as a substitute.It should be rewritten as follows:

• Although the new regulations allow them to do so, high school graduates seldom go abroad for higher education. Change it to do so, without a synonym, becomes an auxiliary verb do and add the adverb so, “doing this” represents the following part of go abroad for higher education.

There can only be one predecessor in a pronoun

There can only be one reasonable predecessor for a pronoun.If a pronoun has more than two avant-garde words and it makes sense, then this sentence does not make the words clear and is a bad sentence.For example:

• When tourists first arrived in this new resort, the locals thought they were very lucky people. (Poor) (When tourists first arrived at this new resort, locals thought they were very lucky people.)

This sentence is not good because I didn’t explain it clearly.The pronoun they have two possible predecessors: tourists and the locals.This situation can lead to ambiguity.If their avant-garde word is tourists, the sentence means “the locals think these tourists are lucky” - it may be that they envy these tourists for their wealth and leisure.On the contrary, if their predecessor is the locals, this sentence must be interpreted as “the locals think they are lucky” - perhaps because they think of making a fortune in sightseeing.Both statements make sense, indicating that this sentence does not make the words clear.If there are two possible avant-garde words for a pronoun, this will result, which is a common problem when writing, so pay special attention.

The above sentence should avoid the use of pronouns, otherwise the ambiguous shortcomings cannot be avoided.The two meanings can be modified separately as follows:

• When tourists first arrived in this new resort, the locals thought these outsiders were very lucky people.

• When tourists first arrived in this new resort, the locals considered themselves very lucky people.