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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 basic grammatical rules for the formation of relative clauses in English are given here. [2] More details can be found in the article on who.. The basic relative pronouns are considered to be who, which and that, but an alternative analysis of that as a relativizer is presented in a succeeding section.
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 ...
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 rules of suppression in Arabic are identical to those of Hebrew: obligatory suppression in the case that the pronoun is the subject of the relative clause, obligatory retention in the case that the pronoun is the object of a preposition, and at the discretion of the speaker if the pronoun is the direct object.
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 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.
The English pronouns form a relatively small category of words in Modern English whose primary semantic function is that of a pro-form for a noun phrase. [1] Traditional grammars consider them to be a distinct part of speech, while most modern grammars see them as a subcategory of noun, contrasting with common and proper nouns.