Talk:Antecedent (grammar)

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I followed the simple example about John, but the following 2 examples are completely unclear to me. The antecedent is shown in bold, but I don't see at all the pronoun as in the John example. Please clarify on the article page!

• The family that eats together, stays together.
• As I was going up the stairs, I met a man who wasn't there...

Rugops 09:30, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

The first example marks a zero anaphor, that is an anaphor which has no surface representation but is inferred by syntax or semantics, in this example a zero anaphor appears as the subject of the verb stays. The second example the pronoun is the relative pronoun who. I will add a clarification for the first, the second I feel is well enough explained on the page.

--Johnmccrae 15:08, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

As I parse it, the subject of "eats" is "that", whose antecedent is "the family", and the subject of "stays" is the whole phrase "The family that eats together". -phma 00:02, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this is not a good example of zero anaphora. I have replaced the sentence in the article. CapnPrep 15:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

When discussing the second example - (I met John at Mike's party. He told me about his new friend),
the line: Did John tell the speaker about Mike's new girlfriend? should instead read - Did John tell the speaker about Mike's new friend? - as there is no mention of a girlfriend in the example. 129.21.129.143 (talk) 23:18, 26 November 2007 (UTC)PN

I still don't know what an antecedent is talk in simpler words —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.184.179.230 (talk) 22:26, 5 February 2008 (UTC)