anaphora

Anaphora (Linguistics)

Anaphora is the use of an expression whose interpretation depends upon its antecedent.

Specifically, anaphora is the use of an expression that depends specifically upon an antecedent expression in contrast to cataphora, where the expression depends upon a postcedent expression.

The anaphoric (referring) term is called an anaphor.

For example, in “Sally arrived, but nobody saw her”, the pronoun “her” is an anaphor, referring back to the antecedent “Sally”.

Cataphor: In the sentence “Before her arrival, nobody saw Sally”, the pronoun “her” refers forward to the postcedent “Sally”, so “her” is a cataphor

Both anaphora and cataphora are species of endophora, referring to something mentioned elsewhere in a dialog or text.