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Reference.com/Encyclopedia/Antecedent (grammar) In grammar, an antecedent is generally the noun or noun phrase to which an anaphor refers in a coreference, however an antecedent also can be a clause, especially when the anaphor is a demonstrative. Occasionally, the antecedent may be missing from the discourse, as when someone wonders out loud: "I wonder where I put it?", with no clear antecedent for the pronoun "it." Also the antecedent may not occur in the current discourse but instead refer to an object familiar to both speaker and listener, for example "the FBI." Antecedents are of particular importance in connection with relative pronouns; the pronoun usually opens the relative clause, but the antecedent is located in the main clause. www.reference.com /browse/wiki/Antecedent_(grammar)   (404 words)

Antecedent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A logical antecedent is the first half of a hypothetical proposition. A grammatical antecedent is the word to which a pronoun refers. Antecedents are the life history and previous convictions of a defendant in a criminal case. en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Antecedent   (219 words)

Antecedent, poems for kindergarten - Agreement: pronoun-antecedent Antecedent moisture is a hydrologic term describing the relative wetness In logic, an antecedent is the first half of a hypothetical proposition. An antecedent is a word, phrase, or clause referred to endophorically by another expression which precedes or follows it. In number 1, neighbors is the antecedent; their is the pronoun. poems-for-kindergarten.onlineinfosource.com /?q=poems-for-kindergarten-antecedent   (212 words)

Antecedent (grammar) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In grammar, an antecedent is the noun or noun phrase to which a pronoun refers. A common stylistic problem in writing, often leading to ambiguity, is the use of a pronoun for which the antecedent is not clear. Antecedents are of particular importance in connection with relative pronouns; the pronoun usually opens the relative clause, but the antecedent is located in the main clause. en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Antecedent_(grammar)   (188 words)

'Grammar' @ encyclopaediaOnline: the FREE online encyclopaedia (encyclopedia), dictionary, and grammar reference site A "grammar" is a formal definition of the structure of a language. The science which treats of the principles of language; the study of forms of speech, and their relations to one another; the art concerned with the right use and application of the rules of a language, in speaking or writing. A grammar can be used either to parse a sentence (see parser) or to generate one. www.encyclopaediaonline.com /grammar.html   (518 words)

Polytrope: Web Log But the rules of grammar tend to be pretty straightforward, basic principles, and for that reason, it is reasonable and appropriate to expect even ordinary people to know them. Many grammar manuals insist that a pronoun such as "her" should refer only to a noun, not, as in the case of the possessive "Toni Morrison's," an adjective. In English, as in nearly all European languages, the rule that determines the antecedent of a pronoun is straightforward: a pronoun's antecedent is presumed to be the nearest, preceding eligible noun. www.polytrope.com /blog/20030515grammar.html   (1302 words)

The Great Pronoun Debate English grammar states that a pronoun must agree with its antecedent (the word to which it refers) in number and gender. For instance, if the antecedent is the singular "a woman," the pronoun used to refer to this antecedent is she or her; if the antecedent is "a man," the pronoun is he, him, or his. The new phrasing would change the antecedent to plural so that a plural pronoun could be correctly used, or it would eliminate the need for a pronoun altogether. www.grammarmudge.cityslide.com /articles/article/307084/22324.htm   (1369 words)

Spanish Grammar drill Proper use of relative pronoun with antecedent a non-personal object of a preposition. Improper use of relative pronoun with antecedent a non-personal object of a preposition. Improper use of relative pronoun in a restrictive sentence with antecedent an indirect object. www.columbia.edu /~fms5/hrel.html   (1664 words)

Materials for Writing Tutors: Addressing Specific Problems: Grammar For example, if antecedent references are unclear, and most of the fragments don't have subjects, then you might guess that the writer is having trouble naming her topic. Grammar is not as tough as you think, and what you don't know you can easily find in any of the grammar handbooks on the shelves in RWIT. What you should know about grammar is that there are two ways of looking at it: prescriptively (which means that grammar rules ought to prescribe our usage) and descriptively (which means that grammar "rules" aren't rules at all, but instead are descriptions of the way we use our language). www.dartmouth.edu /~writing/materials/tutor/problems/grammar.shtml   (2675 words)

Haussamen: Between Restrictive and Nonrestrictive: Amplifying Clauses They say, and we say, that students ‘learn grammar’ or that we ‘teach grammar,’ but the knowledge that is taken for granted by that term is varied, and in the case of many of its basic terms and ideas, extremely old. Writing behavior is in part social behavior, and so grammar is a social issue, a matter of social class and even political orientation, and I think these are the aspects of grammar that we should not avoid if we are going to have thorough discussions about why we are teaching it. Linguistic grammars use the terms, as conventional grammars do, to describe not only relative clauses but modifiers of all kinds in their relation to the term they modify. www.ateg.org /conferences/c6/haussamen.htm   (1799 words)

English Grammar - PERSONAL PRONOUNS - Word Power The pronoun he is used to refer to male antecedents, and the pronoun she is used to refer to female antecedents. However, when the thing named by the antecedent is referred to as if it had human qualities, the pronoun he or she may be used. The rules for the agreement of pronouns with their antecedents are the same for pronouns in the objective case as for the corresponding pronouns in the subjective case. www.wordpower.ws /grammar/gramch18.html   (2226 words)

Attraction (grammar) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Attraction is the process by which a relative pronoun takes on -- that is, is "attracted to" -- the case of its antecedent, rather than having the case appropriate to its function in the relative clause. This is the boss of the man whose I met yesterday. Because the antecedent, "[of] the man", is possessive, the relative pronoun has become possessive too. en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Attraction_(grammar)   (157 words)

Academic Center: Grammar and Punctuation Handouts   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22) The connection between the pronoun and its antecedent or referent must always be clear in order to avoid confusion: pronouns need to agree in person, number, and gender with their antecedents. In grammar when we talk about person, we are really talking about the relationship between the writer, the reader, and the subject of the conversation. When two or more singular antecedents are joined by the word "or" or "nor," then the pronoun referring to the antecedents should agree with the nearest of the antecedents. www.vic.uh.edu /ac/grammar/pronoun.html   (842 words)

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement An antecedent is the word or group of words to which a pronoun refers. Singular antecedents such as man, person, customer, employee, everybody, one, anyone, and each are referred to by a singular pronoun. NOTE: This author believes that the use of "he or she," "him or her," and "his or her" is essentially silly – a point of view expressed in an essay in the Essays and Articles section, entitled Every Writer Should Choose His Pronouns Carefully. www.grammarmudge.cityslide.com /articles/article/426348/9181.htm   (753 words)

English Grammar and Punctuation A pronoun is a word that is used in a sentence as a substitute for a noun.  The noun for which the pronoun stands is referred to as its antecedent.  Examples: In order to avoid the repetitive use of phrases such as "his or her," "she or he," and "hers or his," use a plural antecedent. When a compound antecedent is preceded by "each" or "every," as in the second example, use a singular pronoun. www.geocities.com /Athens/Aegean/6354/grammar.html   (2139 words)

Grammar Lesson One Pronouns and antecedents can also cause problems if they are placed "too far" away from each other in the sentence or paragraph. Sometimes the pronouns and antecedents appear in the same sentence, sometimes in different sentences. Dante Alighieri was born in Florence in 1265. www.teachersfirst.com /lessons/dante/grammar1.htm   (361 words)

Academic Center: Grammar and Punctuation Handouts   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22) You can learn what this troublesome grammar issue is and how to fix it in your writing by reading this handout. Pronoun/Antecedent Agreement: This grammar problem is arguably the most prevalent in current use, and it’s one that is so common it’s difficult to “hear.” This handout walks you through the most common agreement errors and shows you how to get rid of them. For a quick review of the parts of speech and their use in sentences before or while you are using this handout, see Parts of Speech. www.uhv.edu /ac/grammar/main.html   (920 words)

Faculty Composition Manual for the Department of English @ SIUE Grammar refers to much more that surface errors like sentence fragments or misuse of commas; grammar includes idiomatic usage, parallel construction of terms or ideas, coordination and subordination of ideas, concise use of terms, consistency in tone, appropriate use of appositives, relative clause usage, and so on. Basic grammar is learnable-students who cannot or will not write at a level of grammar competency expected by most university faculty should be made aware that they are not likely to pass English 101. Students whose papers are sprinkled, not riddled, with grammar errors are probably acquiring grammar skills at their own paces and showing every sign of becoming competent writers. www.siue.edu /ENGLISH/Comp_Manual/language_and_grammar.html   (643 words)

Lessons 21-25 Boy is the antecedent for he, and football is the antecedent for it. The antecedent always comes before the pronoun for which it is the antecedent. They is the antecedent for themselves, and you is the antecedent for your. www.dailygrammar.com /021to025.shtml   (443 words)

Workout 6: Stretch 1   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22) The antecedent usually comes before the pronoun in a sentence or a preceding sentence.The pronoun and antecedent are both necessary. However, in normal prose, the writer must make sure to give the reader the antecedent of a pronoun--not necessarily in the same sentence, but close enough for clarity. With no antecedent in the text, the default antecedent is the reader. athena.english.vt.edu /~IDLE/Gym2/workout6/w6.stretch1.html   (336 words)

Bankers Online: Grammar Question: Him/her/it??? Your antecedent is gender-neutral and singular, so "his", "her", and "their" are all incorrect and "its" is a very strange choice. I think that the use of a plural pronoun, even though it does not match the antecedent, is a good solution and is in such common usage that in fact it is becoming acceptable. However, the rules of grammar, while they are often bent in common usage (or, more accurately, ignored out of ignorance), do not and should not change as much or as often as people would seem to desire. www.bankersonline.com /ubbthreads/showthreaded.php/Number/190730   (502 words)

SSILA 2004 Abstracts   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22) So, when a listener is presented with a pronoun and the grammar prescribes a unique antecedent for that pronoun, then there is immediate reactivation of that antecedent only. These theoretical conclusions predict that when a Navajo speaker is presented with the pronoun yi-, then the grammar prescribes a unique antecedent for that pronoun, which limits the interpretation of yi- to the focus of the sentence. In (4), the antecedent of the pronoun yi- must be boy. wings.buffalo.edu /linguistics/ssila/meetings/SSILA04/abstracts/oconnor.htm   (340 words)

Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement Writing:  To use revision skills to correct errors in pronoun-antecedent agreement and to remove indefinite and ambiguous pronoun references. The teacher will teach the class as a whole group explaining that an antecedent is the noun or pronoun for which another pronoun stands and to which it refers. Agreement in number: the teacher will explain if the antecedent of a pronoun is singular, a singular pronoun is required. www.saumag.edu /edavis/PronounLessonPlanmain.htm   (355 words)

§ 51. pronouns, agreement of. 1. Grammar. The American Heritage Book of English Usage. 1996 An antecedent, of course, is a noun or pronoun referred to by a pronoun. Usually an antecedent comes before its pronoun (as in Dave played his guitar this morning) but sometimes the pronoun anticipates the antecedent (as in Although he knew he would be late, Mr. Similar problems arise in sentences with singular antecedents of undetermined gender, such as A good judge should never indulge (his/her/their) personal prejudices. www.bartleby.com /64/C001/051.html   (323 words)

Lynch, Guide to Grammar and Style — A grammar is that the parts of a sentence should agree with each other. A technical term in grammar for the word or phrase to which a relative pronoun refers. Grammatical "rules" have no absolute, independent existence; there is no Grammar Corps to track you down for using "whose" when "of which" is more proper, just as Miss Manners employs no shock troops to massacre people who eat their salads with fish forks. andromeda.rutgers.edu /~jlynch/Writing/a.html   (3745 words)

Stevens Institute of Technology - Humanities Department Writing Instruction Tutorial Pronouns must agree with their antecedents (the nouns for which they are substituting) in number, gender, and person. The rule, then, is when the pronoun follows a be verb and its antecedent is in the subjunctive case, the pronoun must also be in the subjunctive case. Relative pronouns do not change to indicate number, so it is always necessary to refer back to their antecedents to make the verbs and other pronouns agree with the antecedents. www.stevens-tech.edu /wit/grammar/pronouns.shtml   (1030 words)

Grammar Handbook: Pronoun/Antecedent Agreement A pronoun is a substitute for a noun. A pronoun and its antecedent are in agreement if they are both singular or both plural. Frequent misuse of plural pronouns occurs with two types of singular antecedents: indefinite pronouns and generic nouns. www.english.uiuc.edu /CWS/wWORKSHOP/writer_resources/grammar_handbook/pronoun_antecedent_agreement.htm   (350 words)

Fallacies [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]   (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22) A conditional is an if-then statement; the if-part is the antecedent, and the then-part is the consequent. This invalid argument is an instance of denying the antecedent. The consequent is the then-part, and the antecedent is the if-part. www.iep.utm.edu /f/fallacies.htm   (13501 words)

Abstracts of Available Papers The procedure yields an AVM with a reconstructed antecedent contained VP in which the SLASH feature, whose INDEX value is unified with the REL feature that is bound off by the head noun of the relative clause containing the elided VP, is lexically grounded within the SUBCAT feature of a reconstructed verb or preposition. However, unlike pronominal anaphora, which is resolved in a text by matching a pronoun with an antecedent noun phrase, the interpretation of an ellipsis fragment (or sequence of fragments) generally involves mapping it (them) into a sentential structure by association with an antecedent clause. The internal structure of the null VP is left unspecified by the grammar, to be reconstructed by the postprocessor. semantics.phil.kcl.ac.uk /ellip/abstr.html   (2933 words)

Pronoun-antecedent agr Gender agreement is seldom a problem with most pronoun/antecedent relationships when the antecedent is a noun because most of us have enough experience with the language to know when an object or being is naturally or traditionally assigned to one sex or another grammatically. When plural antecedents are joined to singular antecedents, the antecedent nearest the pronoun determines its person, number, and gender. The only time agreement between a relative pronoun and its antecedent becomes important is when the relative pronoun is the subject of a clause; then it determines the form of the verb. utminers.utep.edu /ajkline/u3pnagr.htm   (1148 words)

newsobserver.com |Triangle Grammar Guide One rule of grammar is that pronouns must agree in number with their antecedents. Most people who care about antecedents and pronouns would say no. But I ran across an instance recently where the writer seems to have had a good reason for violating the pronoun agreement rule. Mistakes of grammar, usage or word choice that we overlook show us why we have to be on our toes all the time. blogs.newsobserver.com /grammar/index.php   (4796 words)

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