Cataphora in English Grammar: Glossary of Grammatical and Rhetorical Terms
Cataphora in English Grammar: Glossary of Grammatical and Rhetorical Terms
Cataphora in English Grammar: Glossary of Grammatical and Rhetorical Terms
Cataphora and anaphora are the two main types of endophora--that is, reference to
an item within the text itself.
The word that gets its meaning from a subsequent word or phrase is called
acataphor.
Some linguists use anaphora as a generic term for both forward and backward
reference. The term forward(s) anaphora is equivalent to cataphora.
In the following examples, cataphors are in italics and their referents are in bold.
Too scared to buy before they sell, some homeowners aim for a trade.
"So I just want to say this to the Congress: An America that buys much
more than they sell year in and year out is an America that is facing
economic and military disaster.(Congressman James A.
Traficant, CongressionalRecord--House, September 25, 1998)
"After she declared herself 'broken, betrayed, at bay, really low' in another
organ yesterday, I'm not sure the Diary should even mention poor Bel
Mooney's name."(The Guardian, August 9, 1994)
Students (not unlike yourselves) compelled to buy paperback copies of his novels--
notably the first, Travel Light, though there has lately been some academic interest
inhis more surreal and 'existential' and perhaps even 'anarchist' second
novel, Brother Pig--or encountering some essay from When the Saints in a shiny
heavy anthology of mid-century literature costing $12.50, imagine that Henry Bech,
like thousands less famous than he, is rich. He is not.
[John Updike, "Rich in Russia." Bech: A Book, 1970]
Here we meet 'copies of his novels' before we know who 'he' is.
It is only several lines later that the possessive adjective 'his' links forward to
theproper nouns Henry Bech in the text that comes after. As you can see, whereas
anaphora refers back, cataphora refers forward. Here, it is a stylistic choice, to keep
the reader in suspense as to who is being talked about. More usually, the noun that
the pronoun links forward to follows soon after."(Joan Cutting, Pragmatics and
Discourse: A Resource Book for Students. Routledge, 2002)
Strategic Use of Cataphora
Etymology
From the Greek, "backward" + "carry"
Pronunciation: ke-TAF-eh-ra