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In grammar, an antecedent is one or more words that establish the meaning of a pronoun or other pro-form. [1] 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.
The pronoun may then be said to "replace" or "stand for" the antecedent, and to be used so as to avoid repeating the antecedent. Some examples: John hid and we couldn't find him. (John is the antecedent of him) After he lost his job, my father set up a small grocer's shop. (my father is the antecedent of he, although it comes after the pronoun)
The English personal pronouns are a subset of English pronouns taking various forms according to number, person, case and grammatical gender. Modern English has very little inflection of nouns or adjectives, to the point where some authors describe it as an analytic language, but the Modern English system of personal pronouns has preserved some of the inflectional complexity of Old English and ...
Examples of accepted, disputed, and impossible constructions in English include: All people get hungry, so they eat. Acceptable (All people is plural.) All people get hungry, so she eats. Incorrect if all people is the intended antecedent of she (singular pronoun cannot have a plural antecedent.) Each one gets thirsty, so he drinks.
The use of pronouns often involves anaphora, where the meaning of the pronoun is dependent on an antecedent. For example, in the sentence That poor man looks as if he needs a new coat, the meaning of the pronoun he is dependent on its antecedent, that poor man. The adjective form of the word "pronoun" is "pronominal".
He had three genders in Old English, but in Middle English, the neuter and feminine genders split off. Today, he is the only masculine pronoun in English. In the 18th century, it was suggested as a gender-neutral pronoun, and was thereafter often prescribed in manuals of style and school textbooks until the 1960s. [6]
A viral post shared on X claims New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently removed her preferred pronouns from her bio on the platform. Verdict: False An archived screenshot of ...
The choice of relative pronoun typically depends on whether the antecedent is human or non-human: for example, who and its derivatives (whom, whoever, etc.—apart from whose) are generally restricted to human antecedents, while which and what and their derivatives refer in most cases to things, including animals.