1ST QUARTER

English
PRONOUN ANTTECEDENT
PRONOUN - is a word that refers to or replaces a noun.
WHAT IS AN ANTECEDENT?
An antecedent is the noun or pronoun that a pronoun refers to or replaces.
A pronoun must agree with the antecedent in person, gender, and number.
Agreement in Number
If the antecedent is singular, use a singular pronoun. If it is plural, use a plural pronoun.
Examples:
Because this dollhouse is almost 300 years old, it is historically important.
The furnishings are noticeably different from their modern counterparts.
Compound Subjects – A plural pronoun is used to refer to nouns or pronouns joined by and.
Example:
The tiny chest and dresser still have their original hardware.
A pronoun that refers to nouns or pronouns joined by or or nor should agree with the noun or pronoun nearest
to it.
Examples:
Neither the astronauts nor NASA neglected its duties.
Neither NASA nor the astronauts neglected their duties.
With Collective Nouns – A collective noun such as class, crew, team, audience, or family may be referred to by
either a singular or a plural pronoun, depending upon the meaning of the noun in the sentence.
A pronoun that refers to a collective noun should be singular if the collective noun names a group acting as a unit.
Example:
The family that owns the house loaned its treasure to the library.
(singular - The family is acting as a single unit)
A pronoun that refers to a collective noun should be plural if the collective noun names the members or parts of a
group acting individually.
Example:
The family wanted their friends to see the house.
(plural - The family members are acting individually)

Agreement in Gender and Person

The gender of the pronoun – masculine (he, his, him), feminine (she, her, hers) or neuter (it, its) – must be the same
as the gender of its antecedent.
The person (first, second, third) of the pronoun also must agree with the person of its antecedent.
Examples:
You would be proud to see your work appreciated by future generations. Any artist would like his or her creation to last
for hundreds of years.
An astronaut conducts his or her experiments during the flight.
NOTE
Examples:
Artists would like their creation to last for hundreds of years.
Astronauts conduct their experiments during the flight.

Reflexive and intensive pronouns are formed when -self or -selves is added to a personal pronoun. Neither reflexive nor
intensive pronouns can be used without an antecedent.
First Person myself, ourselves
Second Person yourself, yourselves
Third Person himself, herself, itself, themselves
A reflexive pronoun refers to the noun or pronoun that is the subject of a sentence. Reflexive pronouns can function as
the direct and indirect objects of verbs and as objects of prepositions.
Examples:
We should make ourselves at home.
He hummed to himself as he made himself a sandwich.
Intensive pronouns add emphasis to a noun or pronoun but are not essential to the meaning of the sentence.
Examples:
Thank you, but I’ll do it myself.
My mother herself changed the flat tire.

I Want to Be a Cub-Pilot
Mark Twain
(Excerpt from Life on the Mississippi)
Months afterward the hope within me struggled to a reluctant death, and I found myself without
an ambition. But I was ashamed to go home. I was in Cincinnati, and I set to work to map out a new career. I had been
reading about the recent exploration of the river Amazon by an expedition sent out by our government. It was said that
the expedition, owing to difficulties, had not thoroughly explored a part of the country lying about the head-waters,
some four thousand miles from the mouth of the river. It was only about fifteen hundred miles from Cincinnati to New
Orleans, where I could doubtless get a ship. I had thirty dollars left; I would go and complete the exploration of the
Amazon. This was all the thought I gave to
the subject. I never was great in matters of detail. I packed my valise, and took passage on an ancient tub called the
‘Paul Jones,’ for New Orleans. For the sum of sixteen dollars I had the scarred and tarnished splendors of ‘her’ main
saloon principally to myself, for she was not a creature to attract the eye of wiser travelers.
When we presently got under way and went poking down the broad Ohio, I became a new being, and the subject of my
own admiration. I was a traveler! A word never had tasted so good in my mouth before. I had anexultant sense of being
bound for mysterious lands and distant climes which I never have felt in so uplifting a degree since. I was in such a
glorified condition that all ignoble feelings departed out of me, and I was able to look down and pity the untraveled
with a compassion that had hardly a trace of contempt in it. Still, when we stopped at villages and wood-yards, I could
not help lolling carelessly upon the railings of the boiler deck to enjoy the envy of the country boys on the bank. If they
did not seem to discover me, I presently sneezed to attract their attention, or moved to a position where they could not
help seeing me. And as soon as I knew they saw me I gaped and stretched, and gave other signs of being mightily bored
with traveling. I kept my hat off all the time, and stayed where the wind and the sun could strike me, because I wanted
to get the bronzed and
weather-beaten look of an old traveler. Before the second day was half gone I experienced a joy which filled me with
the purest gratitude; for I saw that the skin had begun to blister and peel off my face and neck. I wished that the boys
and girls at home could see me now.

We reached Louisville in time—at least the neighborhood of it. We stuck hard and fast on the rocks in the middle of the
river, and lay there four days. I was now beginning to feel a strong sense of being a part of the boat’s family, a sort of
infant son to the captain and younger brother to the officers. There is no estimating the pride I took in this grandeur, or
the affection that began to swell and grow in me for those people. I could not know how the lordly steam boatman
scorns that sort of presumption in a mere landsman. I particularly longed to acquire the least trifle of notice from the
big stormy mate, and I was on the alert for an opportunity to do him a service to that end. It came at last. The riotous
pow-wow of setting a spar was going on down on the forecastle, and I went down there and stood around in the way—
or mostly skipping out of it—till the mate suddenly roared a general order for somebody to bring him a capstan bar. I
sprang to his side and said: ‘Tell me where it is—I’ll fetch it!’
If a rag-picker had offered to do a diplomatic service for the Emperor of Russia, the monarch could not have been more
astounded than the mate was. He even stopped swearing. He stood and stared down at me. It took him ten seconds to
scrape his disjointed remains together again. Then he said impressively: Well, if this don’t beat hell!’ and turned to his
work with the air of a man who had been confronted with a problem too
abstruse for solution. I crept away, and courted solitude for the rest of the day. I did not go to dinner; I stayed away
from supper until everybody else had finished. I did not feel so much like a member of the boat’s family now as before.
However, my spirits returned, in installments, as we pursued our way down the river. I was sorry I hated the mate so,
because it was not in (young) human nature not to admire him. He was huge and muscular, his face was bearded and
whiskered all over; he had a red woman and a blue woman tattooed on his right arm,—one on each side of a blue
anchor with a red rope to it; and in the matter of profanity he was sublime. When he was getting out cargo at a landing,
I was always where I could see and hear. He felt all the majesty of his great position, and made the world feel it, too.
When he gave even the simplest order, he discharged it like a blast of

lightning, and sent a long, reverberating peal of profanity thundering after it. I could not help contrasting the way in
which the average landsman would give an order, with the mate’s way of doing it. If the landsman should wish the
gang-plank moved a foot farther forward, he would probably say: ‘James, or William, one of you push that plank
forward, please;’ but put the mate in his place and he would roar out: ‘Here, now, start that gang-plank forward! Lively,
now! What’re you about! Snatch it! Snatch it! There! There! Aft again! Aft again! Don’t you hear me? Dash it to dash!
are you going to sleep over it! ’Vast heaving. ’Vast heaving, I tell you! Going to heave it clear astern? Where’re you
going with that barrel! Forward with it ’fore Imake you
swallow it, you dash-dash-dash-dashed split between a tired mud-turtle and a crippled hearse-horse!’ I wished I could
talk like that. When the soreness of my adventure with the mate had somewhat worn off, I began timidly to make up to
the humblest official connected with the boat—the night watchman. He snubbed my advances at first, but I presently
ventured to offer him a new chalk pipe; and that softened him. So he allowed me to sit with him by the big bell on the
hurricane deck, and in time he melted into conversation. He could not well have helped it, I hung with such homage on
his words and so plainly showed that I felt honored by his notice. He told me the names of dim capes and shadowy
islands as we glided by them in the solemnity of the night, under the winking stars, and by and by got to talking about
himself. He seemed over-sentimental for a man whose salary was six dollars a week—or rather he might have seemed
so to an older person than I. But I drank in his words hungrily, and with a faith that might have moved mountains if it
had been applied judiciously. What was it to me that he was soiled and
seedy and fragrant with gin? What was it to me that his grammar was bad, his construction worse, and his profanity so
void of
art that it was an element of weakness rather than strength in his conversation? He was a wronged man, a man who
had seen trouble, and that was enough for me. As he mellowed into his plaintive history his tears dripped upon the
lantern in his lap, and I cried, too, from sympathy. He said he was the son of an English nobleman—either an earl or an
alderman, he could not remember which, but believed was both; his father, the nobleman, loved him, but his mother
hated him from the cradle; and so while he was still a little boy he was sent to ‘one of them old, ancient colleges’—he
couldn’t remember which; and by and by his father died and his mother seized the property and ‘shook’ him as he
phrased it. After his mother shook him, members
of the nobility with whom he was acquainted used their influence to get him the position of ‘loblolly-boy in a ship;’ and
from that point my watchman threw off all trammels of date and locality and branched out into a narrative that
bristled all along with incredible adventures; a narrative that was so reeking with bloodshed and so crammed with hair-
breadth escapes and the most engaging and unconscious personal villainies, that I sat speechless, enjoying, shuddering,
wondering, worshipping. It was a sore blight to find out afterwards that he was a low, vulgar, ignorant, sentimental,
half-witted humbug, an untraveled native of the wilds of Illinois, who had absorbed wildcat literature and appropriated
its marvels, until in time he had woven odds and ends of the mess into this yarn, and then gone on telling it to
fledglings like me, until he had come to believe it himself.

ELEMENTS OF A STORY
1. Plot- traces the parts of the story from beginning to end. It moves from one situation to the next to overcome a
conflict ora problem within the story. It follows the pattern of Freytag’s Pyramid, named after the German novelist
Gustav Freytag who discovered common structures and patterns within short stories and plots. The Freytag’s Pyramid

a. Exposition- the portion of a story that introduces important background information to the audience; for example,
information about the setting, events occurring before the main plot, characters’ back stories.
b. Rising Action- a series of related incidents that build toward the point of greatest interest. It begins immediately
after
the exposition (introduction) of the story and builds up to the climax.
c. Climax- the highest or most intense point in the development or resolution of the conflict.
d. Falling Action- the events resulting from or leading from the climax.
e. Denouement- the ending of the story in which the author answers all remaining questions, reveals how the
characters feel about what took place, and sometimes suggests what is in store for the characters.

2. Characters- the characters of a story are the people- or even animals, or other creatures- interacting within it.
Two Types of Characters:
 Protagonist- the hero
 Antagonist- the villain
Characters can also be either flat (characters that do not develop or change within the story) or round (characters that
develop, change, and interact like real people within the story).

3. Setting- the setting is the time and place in which the story takes place or develops. It may change depending on the
plot or the length of the story.

4. Point of View- the perspective from which the authors tell the story. Three Points of View:
1. First person point of view- the author tells the story from his or her vantage point. The personal pronouns used are:
I, me, myself, my, and mine.
2. Second person point of view- the author involves the reader in the story by speaking directly to him or her. The
pronouns used are you and your. It is the most uncommon point of view used in telling stories.
3. Third person point of view- the author tells the story from either one character’s perspective (also called third
person limited) or an allknowing perspective (also called third person omniscient)
 Third person limited- the reader has access only to a chosen character’s thoughts and experiences.
 Third person omniscient- the reader has access to the thoughts and experiences of all the characters. The pronouns
used are: she, he and they.

5. Theme- the underlying idea or message that the author wants to convey.

FLASHBACK AND FORESHADOWING

What is a Flashback

A flashback is a literary device that interrupts the chronological sequence of the plot in order to recall an earlier
happening. This method is often used in films and novels to share a memory or a past experience with the audience.
For example, imagine a story where a man is afraid of heights, there might be a flashback to the incident that made
him afraid of heights. This literary device is commonly used by authors to provide background details of the characters.
Flashbacks help the readers understand different motivations of the characters. They also act as plot structures and
create tension in the story.

Some stories are entirely in the form of flashback. For example, in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the character Marlow
narrates about a journey he once took up the Congo River. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is also told entirely in
flashback from Scout’s point of view.

What is Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing is a figure of speech in which the author gives hints and clues about the events that are going to take
place in the story. Authors often use indicative words and phrases as hints without spoiling the suspense or revealing
the story. However, they may be subtle, and the readers won’t be able to grasp them in the first reading itself.
Foreshadowing is used by writers to prepare the readers for some shocking twist in the story and to shift the mood of
the story. Mystery and suspense writers also use foreshadowing to strength the sense of mystery in their story.
The following phrases and clauses are some examples of foreshadowing from literature.

“Go ask his name.—If he be married.

My grave is like to be my wedding bed.”
– Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare

Just as this dialogue indicates, Juliet’s wedding bed turns out to be her grave since she falls in love with her family’s
enemy, Romeo and die with him.
Sophocles’s Oedipus Rex, Oedipus’ words to Tiresius “You’ve lost your power, stone-blind, stone-deaf – senses, eyes
blind as stone!” turns out to be an example of foreshadowing as Oedipus loses all his power and becomes blind and
deaf at the end.

Difference Between Flashback and Foreshadowing

Definition
 Flashback is a scene set at a time earlier than the present.
Foreshadowing refers to the hints given by the author about the events that are going to take place.
Time
Flashback refers to the past.
Foreshadowing refers to the present.
Use
Flashback can be used throughout an entire book.
Foreshadowing can be only used in certain instances.

 Coordination and Subordination

You know the old joke about putting the em-PHA-sis on the wrong syl-LA-ble. Well, proper emphasis is as important for
the written word as it is for the spoken.

Deciding which ideas to play up and which to tone down is a big part of effective writing. When properly applied,
emphasis highlights key messages, giving readers a way to gauge which details stand front and centre, and which, by
default, stay in the background.

Stressing a syllable in spoken English is easy: draw it out a tad, give it more breath, and presto. But controlling stress in
the written language is a more difficult skill, one that comes down to two little-known—and dauntingly named—
methods of grammatical connection: coordination and subordination.

Big words, big impact

For all that they sound like complicated (not to mention yawn-inducing) rhetorical constructs, coordination and
subordination are actually simple and fascinating techniques. Here’s how they work.

Coordination: Involves joining ideas with coordinating conjunctions (FANBOYS: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so). Gives

different ideas equal emphasis.

 Fabien went through the mall’s administrative offices to the retail area and browsed around for a while; then he
continued to the food court and spotted his long-lost twin at Serious Sushi.

Coordinating conjunctions create parallelism between ideas, bringing them into balance and conveying the sense that
they are on an equal footing. When we read the sample sentence above, which relies on and as a connector, we don’t
come away thinking that any one idea is more (or less) important than the others.

Subordination: Involves putting the main idea in an independent (grammatically complete) structure and secondary
idea(s) in a subordinate (grammatically incomplete) structure. Gives different ideas different emphasis.

 After going through the mall’s administrative offices to the retail area and browsing around for a while, Fabien
spotted his long-lost twin in the food court, at Serious Sushi.

This example, though worded much like the previous one, has a far different feel. "Fabien spotted his long-lost twin in
the food court, at Serious Sushi" strikes us as the main idea; in fact, we’d expect to see it picked up in the next
sentence. That’s because the idea forms an independent clause, or complete thought. In contrast, "After going
through . . . and browsing around for a while" is a grammatically subordinate, or incomplete, structure. As we read it,
we’re thinking "After all that stuff, what happened?" That’s why the first part of the sentence comes across as a less
important lead-in.
 It’s important to realize that the different emphasis in the second example comes not from the order of the ideas (it’s
not because the main idea occurs at the end) but from the grammatical structures. Independent structures carry
emphasis; dependent ones don’t. And that’s coordination and subordination in a nutshell.

Pros and cons of coordination

Coordination is the technique of choice when the ideas you want to join carry equal weight:

 You can run, but you can’t hide.

 At the end of medical school, Glenda faced a difficult decision: either specialize in internal medicine or switch
over to spiritual healing.

The main pitfall of coordination is that you can have too much of it. Some balance is great, but yoking too many ideas
together equally, without assigning them relative importance, results in run-on sentences and unsophisticated writing:

 I worked hard and I turned out a first-rate video, but I missed my deadline and my producer was angry.
(excessive coordination)

It’s difficult, in such a loose freight train of a sentence, to know what the writer is driving at. Is the main point the hard
work and great video, the missed deadline or the angry producer? With some judicious subordination, the relationships
fall into place:

 Even though I worked hard and turned out a first-rate video, my producer was angry because I missed my
deadline. (effective subordination)

This revision stresses the idea that the producer was angry—the independent clause—while slightly sidelining the
information about working hard and turning out a first-rate video.

Pros and cons of subordination

As we’ve seen, subordination helps readers decipher, almost unconsciously, what matters more in a sentence and what
matters less. This makes subordination a powerful technique, one that can radically change a sentence’s impact.
Consider this alternative to the previous example:

 Even though my producer was angry because I missed my deadline, I had worked hard and turned out a first-
rate video. (effective subordination)

This sentence puts forth a different message entirely: instead of being about an angry producer, it’s about a hard
worker.

Two sentences, two different focuses . . . yet the words are the same. Could there be more convincing proof of the
power of subordination?

That power is what will work against you if you apply subordination carelessly. Improper subordination stresses the
wrong information, leading the reader to linger over supporting details and miss the point. It can especially skew
analytical writing, as in this passage:

 Investigators of the train derailment assessed the condition of the personnel on board. They found that the
operating crew, who were qualified for their positions and met all fitness and rest standards, consisted of two
locomotive engineers. (misleading subordination)
 Because the investigators’ findings—that the crew members were qualified and met the required standards—appear in
a subordinate structure, they are minimized. Yet those are the details that are critical to the investigation; they
certainly outweigh the information that both were engineers. Adjusting the subordination shifts the emphasis:

 Investigators of the train derailment assessed the condition of the personnel on board. They found that the
operating crew, consisting of two locomotive engineers, were qualified for their positions and met all fitness and rest
standards. (effective subordination)

Notice how coordination fits into this example as well. The two sets of findings, concerning qualifications and standards
respectively, are joined by and, signalling that they are equally important in the analysis.

In the end, the content of your sentence is up to you; it depends on your meaning, perspective and vocabulary. But the
emphasis of your sentence is anything but subjective. It all comes down to grammar, and two high-toned terms that
will impress anyone you try them out on.