Antecedent (grammar)

In grammar, an antecedent is one or more words that establish the meaning of a pronoun or other pro-form. For example, in the sentence "John arrived late because traffic held him up," the word "John" is the antecedent of the pronoun "him." Pro-forms usually follow their antecedents, but sometimes precede them. In the latter case the more accurate term would be postcedent, although the distinction is rarely made in common usage. The linguistic term that is closely related to antecedent and proform is anaphora. Theories of syntax explore the distinction between antecedents and postcedents in terms of binding. Almost any can serve as the antecedent to a proform. The following examples illustrate a range of proforms and their antecedents. The proforms are in bold, and their antecedents are underlined a. Willy said he likes chocolate. - Noun as antecedent b. My eccentric uncle likes chocolate. He tells everyone to buy him chocolate. - Noun phrase as antecedent c. Larry was helpful, and so was Kim. - Adjective as antecedent d. He arrived in the afternoon, when nobody was home. - Prepositional phrase as antecedent e. Thomas plays soccer in the park. The kids all congregate there. - Prepositional phrase as antecedent f. Our helpers did it very carefully, and we did it like that as well. - Adverb phrase as antecedent g. Fred works hard, but Tom does not do the same. - Verb phrase as antecedent h. Susan lies all the time, which everybody knows about. - Entire clause as antecedent i. Our politicians have been pandering again. This demotivates the voters. - Entire sentence as antecedent j. Rob is a dentist and, as such, he fixes teeth. - Noun phrase as antecedent k. Someone called who offered to help. She was really friendly. - Discontinuous word combination as antecedent l. The paragraph has in fact been checked by Sam, but Susan won't do it. - Discontinuous word combination as antecedent This list of proforms and the types of antecedents that they take is by no means exhaustive, but rather it is intended to merely deliver an impression of the breadth of expressions that can function as proforms and antecedents.

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Related concepts (3)

Syntax

In linguistics, syntax (ˈsɪntæks ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency), agreement, the nature of crosslinguistic variation, and the relationship between form and meaning (semantics). There are numerous approaches to syntax that differ in their central assumptions and goals.

Pronoun

In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun (abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not consider them to form a single class, in view of the variety of functions they perform cross-linguistically. An example of a pronoun is "you", which can be either singular or plural. Subtypes include personal and possessive pronouns, reflexive and reciprocal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, relative and interrogative pronouns, and indefinite pronouns.