What is anaphora

1. What is anaphora The use of a linguistic unit, such as a pronoun, to refer back to another unit, as the use of her to refer to Anne in the sentence Anne asked Edward to pass her the salt. Anaphora represents the relationbetween a “proform”(called an “anaphor”) and another term (called an "antecedent"), when the interpretation of the anaphor is in a certain way determined by the interpretation of the antecedent. Barbara Lust, Introduction to Studies in the Acquisition of Anaphora, D. Reidel, 1986 From Dan Cristea „Al.I.Cuza“ University of Iaşi Faculty of Computer Science

2. An example It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him. Orwell, 1984 anaphor antecedent anaphor antecedent From Dan Cristea „Al.I.Cuza“ University of Iaşi Faculty of Computer Science

3. What is cataphora • The use of a linguistic unit, such as a pronoun, to refer ahead to another unit, for example, the use of him to refer to John in the sentence Near him, John saw a snake. • Cataphora is the coreference of one expression with another expression which follows it. • The following expression provides the information necessary for interpretation of the preceding one.  

4. An example In the following sentence, the relationship of one to a towelis an example of cataphora: If you need one, there’s a towel in the top drawer.