Pronouns: slow loris
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 ‘slow loris’, the pronoun ‘it’ 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 slow loris has an extremely long tongue, which it uses to drink the nectar that is often deep inside a flower.
2) The mother slow loris was sleeping. She was rolled up into a ball with her head between her legs.
2) Slow lorises are nocturnal primates. They have forward-facing eyes and human-like hands.
Did you know?
Slow lorises are part of the primate family. This is a group that includes over 200 species including gorillas, monkeys, lemurs, gibbons and humans.