The nearest referent is a grammatical term sometimes used when two or more possible referents of a pronoun, or other part of speech, cause ambiguity in a text. However "nearness", proximity, may not be the most meaningful criterion for a decision, particularly where word order, inflection and other aspects of syntax are more relevant.
The concept of nearest referent is found in analysis of various languages including classical languages Greek, [1] Latin [2] and Arabic, [3] [4] and may create, or resolve, variant views in interpretation of a text.
There are other models than nearest referent for deciding what a pronoun, or other part of speech, refers to, and reference order distinguishes pronoun-referent structures where:
This is also described as anaphoric reference (anaphor, previous referent) and cataphoric reference ( cataphor, following referent). [6]
The nearest referent is a grammatical term sometimes used when two or more possible referents of a pronoun, or other part of speech, cause ambiguity in a text. However "nearness", proximity, may not be the most meaningful criterion for a decision, particularly where word order, inflection and other aspects of syntax are more relevant.
The concept of nearest referent is found in analysis of various languages including classical languages Greek, [1] Latin [2] and Arabic, [3] [4] and may create, or resolve, variant views in interpretation of a text.
There are other models than nearest referent for deciding what a pronoun, or other part of speech, refers to, and reference order distinguishes pronoun-referent structures where:
This is also described as anaphoric reference (anaphor, previous referent) and cataphoric reference ( cataphor, following referent). [6]