<p>I'm having a lot of difficulty figuring out if the pronoun, in general, is supposed to refer to the subject or last noun.
In one sentence, "Most people know about calories and nutrition, but they do not use this knowledge to lose weight permanently and keep it off." This is on page 556 in the BB btw. How does one figure out that "it" refers to weight. Is it because pronouns refer to the last noun in the sentence?
Another sentence is "The convenience and availability of watercolor paint account for its popularity with amateur artists." How do we know "its" refers to paint, or in a sentence correction question, change "its" to "their", so that the pronoun can refer to the plural subject?</p>
<p>The easiest way is simply to backtrack, find the noun that you think could replace the pronoun, and replace the pronoun with the noun you think it refers back to. A lot of this (especially on the SAT and ACT) will be common sense based - why would people trying to “lose weight permanently” try to “keep people/nutrition/knowledge off”? Perhaps they could “keep calories off”, but that’s a kind of nonsensical way to say it, and it makes more sense to keep “weight” off than “calories”. The same goes for the second sentence - would “convenience” and “availability” of paint account for “convenience’s”/“availability’s” popularity or for “paint’s” popularity? Obviously in this context, “paint” makes the most sense. It very well could be the pronoun refers to the nearest noun, but it doesn’t necessarily have to - use your best judgment. </p>
<p>As for plurals in the second sentence - you often just have to memorize the rules for what is considered singular and what is considered plural. AFAIK “paint” is considered a singular subject, so it would be correct as written. “Paints” on the other hand would be plural.</p>
<p>When figuring out the antecedent for a pronoun, I think it’s often best to just keep in mind that the sentence has to make sense. While grammatically analyzing a sentence, it’s easy to forget what the sentence is actually trying to say. If you spend a little time figuring out what the sentence is saying, it’s very easy to figure out the antecedent of a pronoun.</p>
<p>Oh i see. So the pronoun doesn’t necessarily refer back to the last noun. It’s not a systematic approach, it’s just logic, right?
Thanks for the input guys!</p>