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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 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.
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".
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 ...
Sentence b, in contrast, is bad because the subject reflexive pronoun himself outranks its postcedent Larry. In other words, this approach in terms of rank is assuming that within its binding domain, a reflexive pronoun may not outrank its antecedent (or postcedent). Consider the third example sentence from the previous section in this regard:
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 ...
Pronouns are not the only deictic words though. For example now is deictic, but it's not a pronoun. [6] Also, dummy pronouns and interrogative pronouns are not deictic. In contrast, most noun phrases headed by common or proper nouns are not deictic. For example, a book typically has the same denotation regardless of the situation in which it is ...
The antecedent usually precedes the pronoun, either in the same sentence or in a previous sentence (although in some cases the pronoun may come before the antecedent). 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.