Pronouns: snub-nosed monkey
The Grammar Bit!
Read the three scintillating sentences opposite. They contain a variety of nouns and pronouns.
- A noun is a person, animal, object or place.
- A pronoun is a word used to replace a noun e.g. he, she, it, they, etc.
Look at the first sentence. You’ll notice that instead of repeating the words ‘snub-nosed monkey’, the pronoun ‘he’ is used.
Using a pronoun in this way avoids repetition (saying or writing something over and over again). Why might we want to avoid repetition in our writing?
With your talk partner, read the second and third sentences. Can you identify the pronouns that have been used and the nouns that they replace?
Scintillating Sentences
1) The young snub-nosed monkey is alone in the forest. He has been banished from his troop.
2) The young primate needs to find the other snub-nosed monkeys to huddle up to. If he doesn’t find them soon, he will not survive for long in the freezing cold.
3) High up in the treetops, the snub-nosed monkeys were feeding on lichen. Lichen is neither a plant nor a fungus, but it is brilliant at surviving in extreme environments.
Did you know?
Snub-nosed monkeys have tails which are as long as their bodies. However, they are not prehensile, which means they cannot use their tails to grasp objects or to hang from the branches of trees.