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linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Ling ...
, cataphora (; from
Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, '' καταφορά'', ''kataphora'', "a downward motion" from '' κατά'', ''kata'', "downwards" and '' φέρω'', ''pherō'', "I carry") is the use of an expression or word that co-refers with a later, more specific, expression in the discourse. The preceding expression, whose meaning is determined or specified by the later expression, may be called a cataphor. Cataphora is a type of anaphora, although the terms ''anaphora'' and ''anaphor'' are sometimes used in a stricter sense, denoting only cases where the order of the expressions is the reverse of that found in cataphora. An example of cataphora in English is the following sentence: * When he arrived home, John went to sleep. In this sentence, the pronoun ''he'' (the cataphor) appears earlier than the noun ''John'' (the postcedent) that it refers to. This is the reverse of the more normal pattern, "strict" anaphora, where a
referring expression In linguistics, a referring expression (RE) is any noun phrase, or surrogate for a noun phrase, whose function in discourse is to identify some individual object. The technical terminology for ''identify'' differs a great deal from one school of ...
such as ''John'' or ''the soldier'' appears before any pronouns that reference it. Both cataphora and anaphora are types of endophora.


Examples

Other examples of the same type of cataphora are: * If you want some, here's some parmesan cheese. * After he had received his orders, the soldier left the barracks. * If you want them, there are cookies in the kitchen. Cataphora across sentences is often used for rhetorical effect. It can build suspense and provide a description. For example: * He's the biggest slob I know. He's really stupid. He's so cruel. He's my boyfriend Nick. The examples of cataphora described so far are strict cataphora, because the anaphor is an actual
pronoun In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase. Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would not ...
. Strict within-sentence cataphora is highly restricted in the sorts of structures it can appear within, generally restricted to a preceding subordinate clause. More generally, however, any fairly general
noun phrase In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently oc ...
can be considered an anaphor when it co-refers with a more specific noun phrase (i.e. both refer to the same entity), and if the more general noun phrase comes first, it can be considered an example of cataphora. Non-strict cataphora of this sort can occur in many contexts, for example: * A little girl, Jessica, was playing on the swings. (The anaphor ''a little girl'' co-refers with ''Jessica''.) * Finding the right gadget was a real hassle. I finally settled with a digital camera. (The anaphor ''the right gadget'' co-refers with ''a digital camera''.) Strict cross-sentence cataphora where the antecedent is an entire sentence is fairly common cross-linguistically: * I should have known it: The task is simply too difficult. * ''Ich hätte es wissen müssen: Die Aufgabe ist einfach zu schwer.'' (Same as previous sentence, in German.) Cataphora of this sort is particularly common in formal contexts, using an anaphoric expression such as ''this'' or ''the following'': * This is what I believe: that all men were created equal. * After squaring both sides, we arrive at the following: x = y^3 + 2z - 1.


See also

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References

{{Formal semantics Figures of speech Pragmatics Semantics Formal semantics (natural language)