What Is an Antecedent?
Whatever kind of pronoun you have, the pronoun
takes the place of a specific noun you’ve already mentioned. The noun that a
pronoun refers to is called an antecedent. Not all pronouns will refer to an antecedent,
however.
In the sentence “The driver
totaled his car,” the word “his” refers back to “driver,” so “driver” is the
antecedent of the pronoun “his.” It would sound silly to repeat the noun: “The
driver totaled the driver’s car.” So, in simple sentences like this, readers are clear on what pronoun is replacing
what noun.
Everyone here earns
over a thousand dollars a day.
The word "everyone" has no antecedent.
Problem 1: Missing or Faraway
Antecedents
"It" and "they" seem to be especially
tempting to use without an antecedent or with the wrong antecedent, so be
especially vigilant around them.
Our
first antecedent problem concerns antecedents that are missing or very far from
their corresponding pronouns. For example, it would be incorrect to write,
“Here at work they expect us to show initiative” (1). In that case, “they” does
not refer back to any plural noun. Those lurking bosses are implied but not
actually mentioned. Therefore, the antecedent is missing. To solve this
particular error, we just need to name who “they” is: “Our bosses expect us to
show initiative.”
Now for the first of those silly sentences we promised you. This
one comes courtesy of the useful Grammar
Desk Reference: “Breathe in through your nose, hold it for a few seconds,
then breathe out through your mouth” (2). This crazy sentence illustrates how
easy it is for readers to accidentally think that the antecedent is the noun
closest to the pronoun. The pronoun “it” seems to refer to “nose,” the singular
noun closest to the word “it”; however, the writer did not mean for you to hold
your nose. What’s missing here is a clear antecedent: “your breath.”
For some reason the pronouns "it" and "they"
seem to be especially tempting to use without an antecedent or with the wrong
antecedent as you saw in the last two examples, so be especially vigilant
around them (3). “It” and “they” also seem to be likely to appear far from
their antecedents. Making your reader search through an entire paragraph to
find the antecedent for a lagging "it" or "they" won't
endear you to your audience (4). So when you use an “it” or a “they,” make sure
a specific and definite antecedent is nearby.
Problem 2: Anticipatory
Reference
Our
second antecedent problem is what’s called “anticipatory reference,” which
Bryan Garner calls “the vice of referring to something that is yet to be
mentioned (5)," meaning that the writer puts the pronoun before the
antecedent—a no no.
Whoever
came up with the phrases “Don’t put the cart before the horse” and “Don’t count
your chickens before they hatch” could have been talking about pronouns that
appear before their antecedents. For example, if you say, “If it’s available,
be sure to order the champagne,” your readers will wonder what “it” refers to.
Only when readers get to the end of the sentence do they learn that “it” means
“champagne.”
To
avoid confusing your readers, make sure the antecedent comes first. In many
cases, you can solve the problem by switching around the noun and pronoun: “If champagne’s available, be sure to
order it.”
Problem 3: Ambiguous
Antecedents
The
third and last antecedent problem concerns ambiguous antecedents. Pronouns pop
up in almost every sentence, and sometimes readers may feel as if they are
juggling. They’re trying to remember which nouns have already been mentioned so
that they can correctly match them up with later-appearing pronouns. Don’t turn
your readers into a circus act. Your job is to provide a pleasurable and easy
reading experience. Ensure that your pronouns and antecedents are clearly
marked.
Take this odd pair of sentences, in which we meet an ambiguous antecedent: “The
room contained a chair, a desk, and a lone light bulb. It was twenty-six feet
long by seventeen feet wide.” That’s a pretty big light bulb! The pronoun “it”
could, in theory, refer to various singular nouns in this sentence: “room,”
“chair,” “desk,” or “light bulb.” Naturally, readers pair “it” with “light
bulb,” the closest singular noun, and so you get an absurd sentence.
In
this case, repeating the antecedent could help, but it sounds awkward: “The
room contained a chair, a desk, and a lone light bulb. The room was twenty-six
feet long by seventeen feet wide.” A better move is to combine the sentences:
“The room, twenty-six feet long by seventeen feet wide, contained a chair, a
desk, and a lone light bulb.”
Here is the last promised ridiculous sentence, this one quoted from a church
bulletin and featured in Sin
and Syntax by Constance
Hale. I hope this odd sentence will convince you to monitor your pronouns more
carefully: “The ladies of the church have cast off clothing of every kind, and
they can be seen in the church basement Friday afternoon” (6). The pronoun
“they” finds itself in an awkward position. Does it refer to the ladies or the
clothing? Well, we can guess that “items of clothing” is the intended
antecedent, but it doesn’t appear that way.
Of course, there's another problem with that
sentence--one could also interpret it to mean the church ladies are running
around in their birthday suits, but we'll save that problem for another
day.
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