1. William Dietz Writing Specialist Student Learning and Support Center
Pronouns and Articles
William Dietz
Writing Specialist
Student Learning and Support Center

2. What is a pronoun? A pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun.
Examples of pronouns in English include he, she, it, its and they, them and their.
What are some pronouns in Arabic and other languages that you know?

3. Referents We defined a pronoun as a word that replaces a noun.
The noun that the pronoun is replacing is called the referent or antecedent of the pronoun.
A key point is that every pronoun must have a referent in the sentence before.

4. What are the pronouns and referents in the following ?
I live in Doha, and I think that it is a very nice city.
Slaves had different native languages, so they created a new language taken from English and West African to be able to communicate with each other. They established a pidgin that applied English and African vocabulary to the rules of their mother tongue.
Despite these several success that the groups have been able to achieve, the Asian anti-globalization movements continue to face several dilemmas which hinder them from achieving their objectives fully.

5. And the following..
The gap year is for the students who think about improving their skills through this year. Students may think about it because they want to achieve some goals , or to improve skills.
Starting a new business requires hard work and determination, and it also entails taking risks.

6. The expletive “it”
One important exception to this is that the word “it” can often be used without a referent.
This can be seen in sentences that begin with “It is necessary…”, “It is apparent that…”, “It can be clearly seen that”, “It is impossible to..”, and so forth.

7. I looked at the sky and saw that it was cloudy. and `
In the sentences
I looked at the sky and saw that it was cloudy.
and
You should start exercising, because it will help you lose weight.
the antecedents or referents of "it" are "the sky" and "exercising" respectively
However, in the sentences
It is raining heavily.
It is important that we work together.
There is no clear referent for “it”.

8. This vs. It
This can be used to refer to the entirety of the previous sentence in a way that it cannot.
Thus in the following pair of sentences “it” should be replaced by “this”.
Both companies lost their licenses because they were not in compliance with the revised guidelines. It was the main reason they went out of business the following year.

9. Agreement in Number Pronouns can be either plural or singular.
“they” and “them” and “their” are plural, “it” “its”, “he”, and “she” are singular.
The pronoun has to agree in number with its referent- in other words if the referent is singular or “non-plural”, the pronoun is singular, and if the referent is plural, the pronoun is plural.

10. Agreement in number for that, which and who
Relative pronouns like that, which, and who can refer to a plural or singular referent.
However, the form of the verb that they govern depends on whether their referent is singular or plural ( who are vs. who is, or which give vs. which gives)

11. See if you can find the subject verb agreement issues in the following:
The Alpha Medical Center is a center specialized in providing several diagnostic services to their patients. They have been located in Doha since 1988.
Across the years each civilization has developed its own culture that is represented by ethics and morals which unfortunately is lost.
People cross borders from a destination to another in less duration than the embracing duration of the disease, which make the largest number of people vulnerable to capture.

12. And the following:
Another aspect is television violence, lately it became obvious that children show some bad actions which affects their social relationship with others, and those behaviors is because of the amount of violence they have been exposed to.
Yolanda Kakabadse (2002) stated that with globalized trade the consumer- or at least those fortunate enough to be able to consume- have no indication of how their consumption is affecting the environment.
This beautiful island changes after the landing of the boys which force it to demolish.

13. Articles Articles are words in English like the, a, and an.
Many students are unsure when or whether to use an article before a noun and which article to use.

14. A vs. An A is used when the next word begins with a consonant
An is used when the next word begins with a vowel
The word “another” is simply a + other: the a becomes an because other begins with a vowel.

15. A and An vs The (1)
A, an, and another are ALWAYS used with singular countable nouns. No exceptions.
Hence “ a questions” “an answers” and “another reasons” are all grammatically incorrect.
The by contrast can be used with either singular countable, plural countable, or uncountable nouns.

16. A and An vs The (2) The with a singular noun can mean “only one”.
For example, Madrid is the capital of Spain, while Seville is a city in southern Spain.
More to the point, if you write “ The cause of this phenomenon….” you are indicating (whether you mean to or not) that there is one and only one cause, no others.

17. A and An vs. The (2) (continued)
With plural nouns , the is used when you want to talk about a subset, not all members of the group.
Thus a sentence that begins with “The laws” can never be a sentence about all laws or laws in general.
When a reader reads a sentence beginning with “The laws..” her immediate question is , which laws?

18. Which brings us to … General Statements in English
If the noun is countable it can be either plural or singular with a Thus “Spiders have eight legs.” and “ A spider has eight legs.” Both have the same meaning and are statements about all spiders.
If the noun is uncountable it should be without a or the  “ Water contains hydrogen and oxygen.”

19. Note that
“The spider has eight legs”, “The spiders have eight legs” and The water contains hydrogen and oxygen” do not sound like general statements but like claims about a subset of spiders or a particular kind of water.
Note also that the tense should be simple present. Other tenses like the simple past or present perfect particularize your claim.

20. A and An vs The (3)
A or An are used when mentioning something for the first time.
The is used when the same thing is mentioned a 2nd , 3rd, 4th, etc., time.

21. A simple example of a text in which a and the are used this way might run as follows: A crab and a lobster walked into a café together. The crab ordered an espresso, while the lobster ordered a cappuccino. However, the waiter gave the cappuccino to the crab and the espresso to the lobster…..

22. Note that in the following text
Once upon a time there lived an old woman. The old crone lived in house that was also very old and poor. With her in the hovel there also lived her two cats. Both of the felines were old and lame…….
The writer is using the to enhance the cohesion of the text. A/an cannot be used for this purpose.
A reader who understands the way the is used here can also figure out the meaning of “crone”, “hovel” and “feline”.

23. Other topics (which have not been covered)
Arabic influenced errors in pronoun use
Idiomatic uses of the
Pronoun-like uses of such, so, one/ones
That of/ those of

24. Thank you very much for listening!