GROUP QUESTION : In the following sentences give the possible referents of the pronouns

A. John said that he would never kiss Jenny.

B. George believes that Jonathan hates himself.
C. While Mary and fanny were sleeping, Jack and Bob were
making dinner for them.
D. While Mary and fanny were sleeping, Jack and Bob were
making dinner for themselves.
E. Sarah told to Edith that she would never be able to live alone.
F. When Harry and Rita wake up too late, he always gets angry.
G. Mrs. Green agreed that her neighbor could give her his keys
while he would be away.
GROUP MEMBERS :

NAME MATRIC NO
METALA NNEOMA FRANCISCA 140333003
ABATI ADENIKE ANTHONIA 140321001
SHABI AYODEJI ADETOLA 140321160
EYITAYO PHILIP TOLULOPE 140321084
ASOOTO DIAMOND OLUWABUNMI 140333001
MOSHOOD ADEBAYO 140333004
ONYEMUCHARA ODINAKE GINIKA 140123036
UMEGBORO JUDITH IJEOMA 150123104
MADUKA GREG 140123025
The notion of “concord”, meaning agreement between grammatical elements, applies in most
cases to items in the subject and verb positions. However, subject-verb agreement is but one of
such agreements that exist between grammatical items in English. In this paper, the focus of
our analysis will be on noun-pronoun agreement and how possible choices of pronouns are
used to refer back to the subject. In English, agreement, which is broken into person (1st, 2nd,
3rd), number (singular, plural) and gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter) must exist between
the subject of a sentence and its object - the deictic reference pronouns which refer back to it
Basically we have two types of reference in English: Endo and Exo-references. Endo reference
can be said to be a reference within a sentence, while Exo-reference can be said to be a
reference outside a sentence. Endo reference is subdivided into two; Anaphoric (which means
referring backward) and Anaphoric (which means referring to something that is yet to be
stated).
Thus, we are going to consider some sentences that contain reference pronouns; the focus of
our consideration is going to be on the possible referents the following pronouns index.
A. John said that he would never kiss Jenny.
B. George believes that Jonathan hates himself
C. While Mary and fanny were sleeping, Jack and Bob were making dinner for them.
D. While Mary and fanny were sleeping, Jack and Bob were making dinner for themselves.
E. Sarah told to Edith that she would never be able to live alone.
F. When Harry and Rita wake up too late, he always gets angry.
G. Mrs. Green agreed that her neighbor could give her his keys while he would be away.

Sentence A is an example of Anaphoric reference because the pronoun he is referring backward

to the noun "John". The pronoun he in the sentence is a personal pronoun suggesting a
masculine gender. We can thus say that it was referring to John because gender affects only 3rd
person singular form and He is acting as a 3rd person singular. Furthermore, we can say he is a
personal pronoun therefore it does not have an antecedent within the clause [that he would
never kiss Jenny]. However, there is a possible antecedent (John) in the previous clause [John
said], since he requires a singular male referent, and John fulfils these criteria. On the other
hand, he can refer to another male, who is not present in this sentence but has previously been
mentioned during the discourse.
In sentence B, the verb “believes” possess two arguments – George, Jonathan hate himself
(NP1, NP2)
Thus, the verb has made it obvious that there are two actors, which are George, the mental
process preceptor and Jonathan whom George believes hates himself.
The pronoun “himself” is identified to be a reflexive pronoun which can only refer back to the
noun that immediately precedes it (antecedent). In effect, the “himself” in the sentence has
Jonathan as its referent. The function of the reflexive pronoun 'himself' is to prevent
redundancy, as in the case with the following
*George believes that Jonathan hates Jonathan.
Also, the pronoun “himself” indicates that its referent is a male. In other words, Jonathan can
be represented thus:
Jonathan [+animate]
[+human]
[+male]
The last two features of Jonathan [+ human], [+ male], indicate the suitability of the reflexive
pronoun “himself”.
In sentence C, the pronoun/antecedent agreement states that a pronoun must agree with the
noun it replaces in number, gender and case. In other words, a pronoun replacing a noun must
agree in number with the noun it replaces: a pronoun replacing a masculine, feminine or neuter
noun must be masculine, feminine or neuter respectively; similarly, a pronoun replacing a noun
in the subjective case should be in the subjective case, while a pronoun replacing a noun in the
objective case should be in the objective case.
The pronoun in the sentence in question is an objective case, third-person plural accusative
personal pronoun - them. There are two sets of nouns in the sentence with each of them
preceding the pronoun. “Them” connotes plurality, so therefore it could be referring to either
of the two sets of nouns. This makes it tricky to identify who “them” specifically refers to. The
pronoun is also neuter, it can refer to either “Mary and Fanny” or “Jack and Bob”, and so
considering this is also not very helpful in pointing a reader to its referent. “Jack and Bob” are
the performers of the action in the sentence while “Mary and Fanny” are the objects - receivers
of the action. Considering that, “them”, being an objective case, third-person plural accusative
personal pronoun, can only replace a noun in the objective case, this is according to the rule
described above. “Jack and Bob” will thus be eliminated as a possible referents of the pronoun.
With “Mary and Fanny” being the objects/receivers of the action described by the verb in the
sentence, we can then say that “Mary and Fanny” is the referent of our pronoun “them”,
because “them” as an objective case can ONLY replace an objective case Noun and never the
subjective.
In sentence D, themselves is a reflexive pronoun, that is, it must have an antecedent within the
clause [Jack and Bob were making dinner for themselves]. The antecedent of themselves must
be plural, thus, Mary, Fanny, Jack and Bob are all participants in the above action, Jack and Bob,
which structurally are conjoined nouns, are the referents of the pronoun themselves.
Furthermore, the reflexive pronoun themselves shows the position or aim of an action which
was Jack and Bob preparing dinner for one another. Therefore, the pronoun themselves
indicates that the two actors in the main clause are its referents.
In some cases, there are problems encountered in the identification of referents some
pronouns index. In such cases, however, one will need to have more information which is only
located when full contextual background is provided. Instances of such ambiguous sentences
are given in sentences (E) and (F).
In (F), there are two conjoined nouns in the subject position of the subordinate clause, clearly
identified as actors, whereas the main clause with the subjective pronoun he has two possible
referents. The first ‘probable’ referent of he is Harry [+male], while the other ‘likely’ referent is
an ‘unnamed’ person in the exophoric context of the sentence. Also in example (E), there is a
case of ambiguity that can be clarified if enough background information is provided. The use of
Nominative pronoun she, off context, could have two possible referents. In other words, Sarah
could be a referent of she, that is, the person who would never be able to sleep alone is Sarah;
it is also assertable that Edith is the referent of she, that is, the person who would never be able
to live alone is Edith.
The examples (E) and (F) show that ambiguity in sentences makes linking of antecedents nouns
to their pronoun counterparts problematic.
Sentence (G), which is a complex one, contains four pronouns which are assigned cases by their
closest verb. The pronoun – her, her, his and he are assigned; Accusative, Accusative, Genitive,
and Nominative cases respectively by the verbs; “agree”, “give” and an INFL “would”. In the
main clause, the verb agreed has two arguments – Mrs. Green and the lower (embedded)
clause (NP S′), while then verb of the embedded clause give has three arguments – her
neighbor, her, his key and a lower embedded clause while he would be (NP, NP, NP, S').
The first pronoun her is the subject of the COMP phrase, the second is the indirect object of the
phrase, while the pronoun his is the direct object of the phrase. The fourth and final pronoun
he is the subject of the second COMP phrase.
In order to establish the referents of the pronouns that have been classified as objective,
possessive and subjective (Accusative, Genitive and Nominative), we need to identify the
principal actors in the context of the sentence. The first actor is represented thus:
Mrs. Green [+human]
[+adult]
[-male]
The title “Mrs.” dictates that the appropriate reference pronoun form to be used in the object
position is her. The second actor (Mrs. Green’s neighbor) is most likely a male, this assumption
is based on the use of the pronoun his as a referent of the ‘male’ neighbor.
REFERENCES
Haegeman, Liliane (1994) Introduction to Government and Binding Theory. (2nd
Ed.) Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Radford, Andrew (1988) Transformational Grammar. Cambridge University Press.
Cambridge, England.