Indicate the gendr of the bracketed words. I tired them but I am not sure am I right or not. Please look over it and give me suggestion if they are wrong. Thank you!!
(They) told the (children) the (stories) they had heard (themselves).
They - collective
children - collective? dual?
stories - stories
themselves - collective
Are you sure you're being asked about gender?
Here's a section on collective nouns:
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/plurals.htm#collective_nouns
And here's one on collective adjectives:
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/adjectives.htm#collective
To me, though, all these forms in parentheses are simply plurals. The last one is plural and reflexive.
YesYes. The question original is: Indicate the case, person, number and gender of the bracketed words. I only have trouble with indicating the gender.
Thanks!
My other friend with the same assignment put dual for all of them.
In English, none of those has a gender.
To determine the gender of pronouns, we must look at the context and understand the antecedent to which the pronoun refers. In the given sentence, the antecedent of "they" is not provided, so we cannot determine the gender based on this information alone.
However, the word "children" refers to a group of individuals, so it is typically considered a collective noun. In this case, it does not have a specific gender associated with it.
The word "stories" is a plural noun and does not have a gender.
The pronoun "themselves" can be used for both males and females. It is a reflexive pronoun, referring back to the subject (in this case, "they") and indicating that the action described in the sentence is done to or for the subject themselves. Therefore, "themselves" does not indicate a specific gender.
In conclusion, based on the information provided in the sentence, we cannot determine the gender of the pronoun "they." The word "children" is a collective noun, and the words "stories" and "themselves" do not indicate a specific gender.