MODULE 1 UPOU UGNAYAN NG PAHINUNGOD

NAMING NAMES: NOUNS AND PRONOUNS FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Introduction

Before you study this module, you may want to watch any of these supplementary resources and
see how these clips demonstrate the significance of learning different topics concerned with the
use of English (in both the American and British varieties) and or realize how some people may
incorrectly apply the rules and principles in a variety of communication situations.

Sketch Show UK English Study Group (original version)

Running time: 1:34
This clip is a comedy sketch or skit which demonstrates how certain aspects of learning and
using English may result in potential chaotic and confusing (albeit amusing) communication
situations.

The Sketch Show English Study Group (US version)

Running time: 1:44
This clip is a variation of the video above. It uses American English and the context slightly
varies to reflect American culture.

Do You Speak English?

Running time: 1:28
A comedy sketch prepared by BBC Studios as part of the Big Train collection of clips. It is
demonstrated in this hypothetical scenario the possible problems or challenges which may
occur whenever we struggle to use any language, especially if we are in an unfamiliar place (in
this case, English vs. selected European languages).

Relate your current situation and prior experiences from the scenarios demonstrated in
the video clips and answer the following self-reflection questions:

▪ What are your weaknesses when you write and speak in English?
▪ Have these weaknesses ever caused problems to you as you communicate with other
people?
▪ How do you strive to improve?
▪ Despite recognizing and accepting the many varieties of English (World Englishes), why
should we still try to exercise careful thought and consideration in our messages—be it oral
or written?

As you reflect your strengths and weaknesses concerning the use of English in both oral
and written forms, test yourself through the various diagnostic assessments online, one
of which is this Diagnostic Grammar Test from World-English.org. The test is composed
of three sections which check your grammar skills and/ or how well you can still remember your
previous grammar lessons. After each section is answered, you may look at the correct answers
and read the brief explanations that made each answer correct. You may choose which section/s
to answer or answer all three to find out the areas you need to focus more on.

Did you get majority of the answers correct?

What items did you find easy to answer?
Which specific topic/s did you find confusing?

BE 101-A: MODULE 1
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MODULE 1 UPOU UGNAYAN NG PAHINUNGOD
NAMING NAMES: NOUNS AND PRONOUNS FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Take note of the items and topics that you had difficulty answering. You may want to focus more
on reading the discussions about these in the succeeding discussions and review.

Certainly, to some extent you have been exposed to the endless lectures, practice exercises, and
drills concerning English grammar and usage during your stay in grade school and high school.

For instance, you know that a complete sentence is composed of a subject and a predicate, and
the predicate begins with a verb (or the predicate is the verb in the case of those verbs that can
stand alone, or what you may remember as the “intransitive verbs”). Before going over the
sentence structure, or the particular form of a sentence as a whole, let us recall the parts of
speech as the elements that make up a sentence and review the problem areas that should be
addressed when they are used.

If you can still recall from your home and grade school lessons, the parts of speech are:

1. Noun: is a word that names a person, place, thing, event, or idea.

2. Pronoun: is word that replaces a noun.

3. Verb: is a word that connotes/ represents an action or a state of existence/ being.

Modifiers (words that are used to describe, qualify someone or something):

4. Adjective: is a word that describes a noun or pronoun. In sentences, this may come in the
form of a phrase or clause (not just one word).

5. Adverb: is word that describes a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. In sentences, this
may come in the form of a phrase or clause (not just one word)

Other parts of speech

6. Conjunction: is a word that combines or joins words or groups of words to indicate

importance or relationship (of one word or groups of words to another).

7. Preposition: is a word that also connects and show relationships—mostly how a noun or
pronoun is related to some other word in the sentence.

8. Interjection: is a word that expresses strong emotion (often, showing excitement).

For this bridge course, the focus will just be reviewing the first seven parts of speech.

In this first module, let us start with nouns and pronouns.

Can you recall what a noun means?

Do you remember what a noun does?
How about a pronoun?
What are the similarities between nouns and pronouns, and what are the differences?

Bridge Course module originally designed by AKTMarcial for the

Faculty of Education, UP Open University (2015)
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MODULE 1 UPOU UGNAYAN NG PAHINUNGOD
NAMING NAMES: NOUNS AND PRONOUNS FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Module Objectives

After studying the resources and doing the activities for this module, you should be able to:
• distinguish noun and pronouns;
• identify the roles of nouns and pronouns in sentences; and
• follow subject and verb agreement rules as well as pronoun-antecedent agreement guides

Activities and Resources

Topic 1. Nouns as subjects: subject-verb agreement

A noun is the part of speech that represents names and labels; the pronoun, on the other hand,
serves as a substitute or alternative to these names. Both nouns and pronouns can be the subject
of a sentence, the complement of the subject, the receiver of an action, or the object of another
element in the sentence (see examples below).

as subject of a sentence
• Rocha had already invited all the band members before Sam mentioned that the event was
a private affair.
• She had already invited all the band members before Sam mentioned that the event was a
private affair.

as complement of the subject

• The officials, Mary and John, would like to hear from all active members of the standing
committee.
• The officials, Mary and he, would like to hear from all active members of the standing
committee.

as receiver of an action (direct object)

• The young learners helped Mr. Rivera decorate the classroom.
• The younger learners helped him decorate the classroom.
as object of another element in the sentence (indirect object)
• The senior high school class officers cleaned the court for Michael and the other pre-school
students to play on.
• The senior high school class officers cleaned the court for them to play on.

Of the problem areas concerning nouns and pronouns, subject and verb agreement is one of the
most common. Go over the activities and resources below to check how much of the subject-verb
agreement rules you can still remember and apply.

Take a look at the terms in the box below. Do you still remember the rules of usage concerning
each kind of noun?

Collective nouns (e.g. platoon, class, herd)

Mass and Count nouns (e.g. sugar, rice, water)
Singular nouns ending in –s (e.g. Physics, mumps)
Plural nouns not ending in –s (e.g. media, alumni)
Zero plurals (nouns that have the same singular and plural forms such as
sheep, deer, and moose)

Bridge Course module originally designed by AKTMarcial for the

Faculty of Education, UP Open University (2015)
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MODULE 1 UPOU UGNAYAN NG PAHINUNGOD
NAMING NAMES: NOUNS AND PRONOUNS FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Go over the list of subject and verb agreement rules from Purdue’s Online Writing Lab. The
embedded resource is an online handout. Try to compare the list and examples from this resource
to the subject and verb agreement guidelines stated in this page from Capital Community College
Foundation’s Guide to Grammar and Writing.

From these two resources, what are the most common rules and guidelines which you
can take note of when considering how your nouns or pronouns agree with the verb/s in
a sentence?

In addition, refer to the discussion and notes on special kinds of nouns and the implication from
the following resources:

Plural nouns
This is a webpage which lists the common rules on subject-verb agreement considering the
various plural forms of selected noun types.

Count and noncount nouns

This webpage focuses on the rules on subject-verb agreement concerning mostly mass nouns
(noncount) and abstract nouns

Most, if not all, of these resources feature practice exercises which you can attempt to answer to
test if you have understood the various rules on subject and verb agreement.

Before we leave the discussions (review) for this topic, take note of the following points.

✓ Stick to the general rule: singular subject (whether as nouns or pronouns)

goes with a singular verb; a plural subject, with a plural verb.
✓ The key lies in identifying what your subject is.
✓ Some cases follow “special” rules of agreement, so you must take note of
these as you write or speak.

Topic 2. Pronoun cases and pronoun-antecedent agreement

What is a pronoun? A strip from Calvin and Hobbes comics released in February 1986 turned to
humour and word play to describe the term. You may view the strip through this link. The
character of Hobbes and his definition may be wrong, but seriously, what is a pronoun? What
purpose does it serve, especially in sentences and paragraphs?

As noun substitutes, pronouns have the same roles as nouns in a sentence. Pronouns are used
to avoid unnecessary repetition of the nouns (names) in our sentences. However, writers and
speakers often encounter two problem areas:

1) making the pronouns agree with the nouns they replace or refer to, and
2) using the proper pronoun case/s in a sentence.

Bridge Course module originally designed by AKTMarcial for the

Faculty of Education, UP Open University (2015)
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MODULE 1 UPOU UGNAYAN NG PAHINUNGOD
NAMING NAMES: NOUNS AND PRONOUNS FACULTY OF EDUCATION

In terms of ensuring that the pronouns represent the nouns they refer to correctly, it really takes
practice and a conscious effort to clarify your intended message but a few rules can guide you in
doing so. Pronoun cases, on the other hand, refer to the nominative (or subject pronouns),
objective (or object pronoun), and possessive categories. Read the sample sentences below and
note the differences in terms of the use of the underlined pronouns.

Giselle and Janette brought four bottles of wine to the party.

a. They bought crackers and cheese to go with the wine as well.

– Pronoun in the nominative

b. The party host thank them for the treats.

– Pronoun in the objective

c. Everyone at the party appreciated their gesture.

– Pronoun in the possessive

Topic 2.1. Kinds of pronouns and pronoun-antecedent agreement

Read the self-teaching unit on pronouns made available by Towson University in their Online
Writing Support website. The discussion will give you an overview of the important guidelines
you need to remember in replacing nouns in a sentence using the correct pronouns.

The page also features links to three practice exercises which you can try to answer
after each major discussion about pronouns. Exercise 1 asks you to replace the
underlined words with the correct pronoun. Exercise 2 asks you to supply the correct
pronoun based on the noun it should be replacing to complete each sentence.
Exercise 3 asks you to encode the correct pronoun to agree or be consistent with the pronoun
already provided in each sentence. Follow the instructions for each exercise and read the
explanations in case you get confused with some items.

As a supplementary material, you may also watch Khan Academy’s quick discussion on
pronoun-antecedent agreement. The video clip reviews the basic principle of ensuring that the
pronoun matches the noun that it replaces.

Bridge Course module originally designed by AKTMarcial for the

Faculty of Education, UP Open University (2015)
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MODULE 1 UPOU UGNAYAN NG PAHINUNGOD
NAMING NAMES: NOUNS AND PRONOUNS FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Topic 2.2. Pronoun cases

As stated, pronouns assume three roles in a sentence: the nominative, objective, and
possessive cases. Read the online handout on pronoun cases made available by Towson
University to know what pronoun to use depending on its function in a sentence.

As an added review, click on the links to Quiz 1 and Quiz 2 of the online
handout titled “Cases of Nouns and Pronouns” in the Guide to Grammar and
Writing site of Capital Community College Foundation. Both quizzes have drop-
down option menus, so you simply have to choose the correct pronoun to use to
complete each given sentence.

Take note:

✓ Any pronoun that you will use in a sentence should refer to a specific noun (its
antecedent).
✓ The pronoun and its antecedent should agree in terms of the following:
a. In number (singular pronoun for a singular noun)
b. In gender (feminine pronoun for a feminine noun)
c. In person (i.e. first person pronoun for a first person noun)
d. In case (subject pronoun for a subject noun; object pronoun for an object noun;
possessive pronoun for a possessive noun)

Module References

Benner, M.L. (2002). Self-Teaching Unit: Pronoun - Antecedent Agreement Pronouns. Online
Writing Support. http://www.towson.edu/ows/modulepaa.htm

Capital Community College Foundation (n.d.). Cases of Nouns and Pronouns. Guide to
Grammar and Writing. http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/cases.htm

Capital Community College Foundation (n.d.) Count and Non-count Nouns. Guide to Grammar
and Writing. http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/noncount.htm

Capital Community College Foundation (n.d.) Plural Noun Forms. Guide to Grammar and
Writing. http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/plurals.htm

Khan Academy (2016, August 23). Pronoun-antecedent agreement | Syntax | Khan Academy
[Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9kIACViG60

World English (n.d.). Diagnostic Grammar Test. World-English. Retrieved February 17, 2015
from http://www.world-english.org/diagnostic_grammar.htm

Towson University (n.d.). Usage - Pronoun Case. Online Writing Support.

http://www.towson.edu/ows/procase.htm

Bridge Course module originally designed by AKTMarcial for the

Faculty of Education, UP Open University (2015)
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MODULE 1 UPOU UGNAYAN NG PAHINUNGOD
NAMING NAMES: NOUNS AND PRONOUNS FACULTY OF EDUCATION

Citation guidelines
This module is licensed under the creative commons license Attribution-NonCommercial-
ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA)

Specifically, under this term, you must “give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and
indicate if changes were made. You may not use the materials for commercial purposes.
If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the
same license as the original.”

Adopt this format when you use and cite this module:

Marcial, AKT (2020, May). Module 1: Naming Names: Nouns and Pronouns [Bridge Course
Content]. Ugnayan ng Pahinungod, UP Open University. insert complete web address of the
learning management system where the course is found

Bridge Course module originally designed by AKTMarcial for the

Faculty of Education, UP Open University (2015)
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