Question

Which sentence has a pronoun-antecedent disagreement error?

Each journalist has to decide what beat they want to cover.



It was so crowded that one of the girls lost her doll.



Every student should hand in his or her assignment.



Every boy scout has to sell his own cookies.

Answer 1

The correct answer is A. Each journalist has to decide what beat they want to cover.

Step-by-step explanation:

In grammar, a pronoun refers to a word that replaces a noun, for example, "boy" can be replaced by the pronoun "he" or related words such as "his". In sentences, it is common nouns or proper names are not repeated over and over but pronouns are used to refer to the noun or antecedent. In this context, the antecedent and pronoun replacing it must agree in number and gender. In the case of "Each journalist has to decide what beat they want to cover" there is a pronoun-antecedent disagreement error because the pronoun used to replace "each journalist" is "they"; however, "journalist" is singular and should be replaced by "she or he wants to cover".

Answer 2

The sentence that has a pronoun-antecedent disagreement error is "Each journalist has to decide what beat they want to cover." Option A.

Since "journalist" the antecedent is singular and the pronoun "their" is in the plural form, the pronoun disagrees with the antecedent, so that, there is a pronoun-antecedent agreement error in the sentence. The way to correct the mistake is either by becoming both the pronoun and antecedent singular or plural.