Cataphora

<h2 id="examples">Examples</h2>
Other examples of the same type of cataphora are:

<ul><li>If you want some, here's some parmesan cheese.</li>
<li>After he had received his orders, the soldier left the barracks.</li>
<li>If you want them, there are cookies in the kitchen.</li></ul>
Cataphora across sentences is often used for rhetorical effect. It can build suspense and provide a description. For example:

<ul><li>He's the biggest slob I know. He's really stupid. He's so cruel. He's my boyfriend Nick.</li></ul>
The examples of cataphora described so far are strict cataphora, because the anaphor is an actual <a href="/facts/Pronoun/UsbSNRSl">pronoun</a>. 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 <a href="/facts/Noun_phrase/mmz3tJt9">noun phrase</a> can be considered an anaphor when it <a href="/facts/Coreference/UH4fUcND">co-refers</a> 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:

<ul><li>A little girl, Jessica, was playing on the swings.</li></ul>
(The anaphor a little girl co-refers with Jessica.)

<ul><li>Finding the right gadget was a real hassle. I finally settled with a digital camera.</li></ul>
(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:

<ul><li>I should have known it: The task is simply too difficult.</li>
<li>Ich hätte es wissen müssen: Die Aufgabe ist einfach zu schwer. (Same as previous sentence, in German.)</li></ul>
Cataphora of this sort is particularly common in formal contexts, using an anaphoric expression such as this or the following. Such expressions are often used in conjunction with a <a href="/facts/Colon_(punctuation)/se9fjJa4"> colon</a>.

<ul><li>This is what I believe: that all men were created equal.</li>
<li>After squaring both sides, we arrive at the following: 
 
 
 
 x
 =
 
 y
 
 3
 
 
 +
 2
 z
 −
 1
 
 
 {\displaystyle x=y^{3}+2z-1}
 
.</li></ul>
<h2 id="see-also">See also</h2>
<ul><li><a href="/facts/Exophora/zuJLwSbM">Exophora</a> – Reference to something not in the immediate text</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Apposition/9EkUqXHS">Apposition</a> – Gramatical construction wherein two adjacent elements identify each other</li></ul>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1">Joan Cutting (2002). Pragmatics and Discourse: A Resource Book for Students : A, B, C, D. Routledge. pp. 10–. ISBN 978-0-415-25357-4. Retrieved 19 May 2013. <a href="978-0-415-25357-4" target="_blank">978-0-415-25357-4</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></li>
</ol>

Cataphora open-in-new

Cataphora