antecedent

«antecedent» in Mova's school dictionary: something that came before something else and led to it — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (an antecedent, antecedents); adjective (antecedent — formal)

meaning for a pupil

1) An antecedent is something that came before something else and led to it. tree →

2) (grammar) An antecedent is the noun or phrase that a pronoun refers back to: in «Sam lost his hat», «Sam» is the antecedent of «his». tree →

3) (plural, formal) Your antecedents are your ancestors or family background. tree →

4) (formal adjective) Antecedent means coming before. tree →

sense in the lessons

Used in English grammar lessons (pronouns and their antecedents), history (antecedents of a war) and formal writing.

examples

• In «The dog wagged its tail», «dog» is the antecedent of «its». tree →
• Make sure every pronoun has a clear antecedent. tree →
• The bicycle's antecedent was a wooden walking machine. tree →
• The causes antecedent to the war were complicated. tree →
• His antecedents came from Ireland. tree →
• The penny-farthing was an antecedent of the modern bike. tree →

note

Formal word. Pronounced an-tih-SEE-dent. Opposite idea: «consequence» or «successor». In grammar, an unclear antecedent confuses readers: «Tom told Ben he was late» — who was late?

In the corpora

• The antecedent is the noun a pronoun points back to; a pronoun is ambiguous when it could point to more than one person.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «antecedent» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.