Define Pronouns

A pronoun is used in place of a specific noun mentioned earlier in a sentence so that you don’t have to keep saying/writing that particular noun.

Example:

• Michael is a good boy. He gets up early in the morning. (Here, you don’t have to mention ‘Michael’ again)
• The coach selected several key points. He wanted the team to memorize them. (‘He’ replaces ‘the coach’; ‘them’ replaces ‘several key points’)

The word or phrase that a pronoun replaces is called the antecedent of the pronoun. In the previous example, original noun ‘the coach’ is the antecedent and the pronoun ‘he’ is the referent because it refers back to the original noun. The antecedent and the pronoun/s must agree in terms of number and gender