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Agreement between pronoun (or corresponding possessive adjective) and antecedent also requires the selection of the correct person. For example, if the antecedent is the first person noun phrase Mary and I , then a first person pronoun ( we/us/our ) is required; however, most noun phrases ( the dog , my cats , Jack and Jill , etc.) are third ...
The ante-in antecedent means 'before; in front of'. Thus, when a pro-form precedes its antecedent, the antecedent is not literally an antecedent, but rather it is a postcedent, post-meaning 'after; behind'. The following examples, wherein the pro-forms are bolded and their postcedents are underlined, illustrate this distinction: a.
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.
In English grammar, a pronoun has a possessive antecedent if its antecedent (the noun that it refers to) appears in the possessive case; for example, in the following sentence, Winston Churchill is a possessive antecedent, serving as it does as the antecedent for the pronoun him: Winston Churchill's history shows him to have been a good writer.
The noun in the main clause that the relative clause modifies is called the head noun, or (particularly when referred back to by a relative pronoun) the antecedent. For example, in the English sentence "The person whom I saw yesterday went home", the relative clause "whom I saw yesterday" modifies the head noun person, and the relative pronoun ...
The following three subsections consider the binding domains that are relevant for the distribution of pronouns and nouns in English. The discussion follows the outline provided by the traditional binding theory (see below), which divides nominals into three basic categories: reflexive and reciprocal pronouns, personal pronouns, and nouns (common and proper).
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 element in the main clause that the relative pronoun in the relative clause stands for (house in the above example) is the antecedent of that pronoun.In most cases the antecedent is a nominal (noun or noun phrase), though the pronoun can also refer to a whole proposition, as in "The train was late, which annoyed me greatly", where the antecedent of the relative pronoun which is the clause ...