pronoun antecedents

You could look up anaphoric and cataphoric reference. They're cohesive devices, or words that refer to other words in order to make meaning. For example I used anaphoric reference a moment ago:

You could look up anaphoric and catatphoric reference. They....

Anaphoric reference sees 'they' referring backwards to anaphoric and cataphoric reference. Cataphoric refers forward. (When he was ready, John went home.)

TellMeAStory said:

Is there a rule about pronoun antecedents referring to the closest preceding name/noun? A friend says no, and cites Perdue Owl as her source. Near as I can tell, my friend is right; the Owl is silent on that subject.


Here's an example:

George dropped everything he was doing and took Bob to the hardware store where he bought a nail.


Friend would say that the sentence is clearly about George, so the pronoun obviously refers to him.

I say Bob is the closest preceding name, so the sentence is potentially confusing and it's time for a rewrite. But I can't cite a rule. Can you help?

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Forget looking for rules. The sentence is confusing as to who bought the nail, and that's all you need to know in order to decide if you should rewrite it. And sentences like this are so easy to fix. All you have to do is replace the second "he" with the name of the person who bought the nail.

George dropped everything he was doing and took Bob to the hardware store where Bob bought a nail.
George dropped everything he was doing and took Bob to the hardware store where George bought a nail.

The squid is right; the way the sentence is written, either could have bought the nail.

TellMeAStory said:

Oh, and Fallen, your answer would have been perfect, but my question was about US English. I forgot to mention that.

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Fallen's rule also works in U.S. English, but it didn't really answer the question.

TellMeAStory said:

I understand that the sentence needs rewriting, but the question here is about the existence of a rule. Friend wants me to cite a formal rule.

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TellMeAStory said:

George dropped everything he was doing and took Bob to the hardware store where he bought a nail.

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Here you go.

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/595/01/

On the "Using pronouns clearly" page:

3. Refer clearly to a specific noun.
Don't be vague or ambiguous.
INCORRECT: Although the motorcycle hit the tree, it was not damaged.

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The example you cite is ambiguous.

All the best,
Riv

TellMeAStory said:

Right, Riv, and thanks for that, but nothing there specifically states that a pronoun should refer to the noun/name immediately preceding it.

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There's not a rule because that isn't a rule. It's quite possible for a pronoun to refer to an object that doesn't immediately precede it.

George dropped everything he was doing and took Sally to the store where she bought a nail.

Dad dropped everything he was doing and took my sister to the store where she bought a nail.

There's no ambiguity even though the pronoun doesn't refer the noun/name immediately preceding it.

The "rule" is for clarity when ambiguous. Your initial example is clearly ambiguous.

All the best,
Riv

If you want another source, Bryan Garner's Modern American Usage says the following (see "Miscues"):

C. Clear Referents. When a word such as a pronoun points back to an antecedent or some other referent, the true referent should generally* be the closest appropriate word ...

Proximity isn't the only signal of what referent a word is pointing to, though. Number and gender are often clear signals <my briefcase and my friends were right at the door when I left, but I still forgot to bring it with me>. Case may also matter, but it can't sort out a hopeless sentence: in "the boys were rude to the girls because they didn't like them," the fact that boys and they are nominative while girls and them are objective does not make the meaning of the sentence clear.

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*emphasis added

In other words, a pronoun is assumed to refer to the nearest preceding noun unless the context clearly indicates otherwise.

TellMeAStory said:

Oh, and Fallen, your answer would have been perfect, but my question was about US English. I forgot to mention that.

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As beck's example hints at, you should look up, in US terms, Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement. That should give you the list of 'rules' that go with it.

TellMeAStory said:

Right, Riv, and thanks for that, but nothing there specifically states that a pronoun should refer to the noun/name immediately preceding it.

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Well, if that were the rule, such sentences wouldn't be ambiguous, because the rule would establish which person in the sentence the pronoun was referring to. It's more a matter of psychology - readers come across a pronoun, and rewind the sentence looking for a noun. Our brains consider the closest noun likely to be the applicable one. If the writer wants the pronoun to refer to a noun that came earlier in the sentence, this will lead to ambiguity.

TellMeAStory said:

Thank you everybody, you've been extremely helpful.

I've never had an issue with OWL, but I think I do now. Saying "avoid ambiguity" is just too subjective to be useful, especially to someone who's riding on "writer's high" (a term I just learned today here at AW).

To people suffering writer's high, NOTHING is ambiguous because it's all perfectly, beautifully, unassailably clear in their heads.

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A writer must step back from that writer's high, remove her precious writer's hat and read the work while wearing her editor's hat and then her reader's hat--preferably after time has passed so the dreaded unassailable clarity has faded. As for editing or critting the work of a writer still in a "writer's high" state, it is unlikely that suggestions will be well-received in any case.

TellMeAStory said:

TSo without Bryan Garner--thank you for that beckethm--saner writers/editors/critiquers would have no grounds on which to request clarity.

"Avoid ambiguity" indeed. Humph.

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I'm baffled by this particular rules issue. In all the editing/being edited I've experienced, I've not run into the problem of needing "grounds" for pointing out a clarity/ambiguity issue. I've done my job as an editor/critiquer in identifying the ambiguity. If a writer chooses to keep an ambiguous pronoun, that's his or her business.

In any case, "Avoid ambiguity" is clear. For the type of example you gave, it's easy to objectively test for ambiguity by using the subject/pronoun gender and number agreement "rules".

With your example sentence:

George dropped everything he was doing and took Bob to the store where he bought a nail.

1. The pronoun in question is "he".
2. The antecedents are "George" and "Bob".
3. Number agrees (singular pronoun). No help for clarification.
4. Pronoun gender makes it unclear whether "he" refers to George or refers to Bob.
5. Unclear=Ambiguous
6. Revise for clarity.

There's no mystery or subjective judgments there.

More examples:


Dad dropped everything he was doing and took my sister to the store where she bought a nail.

1. The pronoun in question is "she".
2. The antecedents are "Dad" and "my sister".
3. Number agrees (singular pronoun). No help for clarification.
4. Pronoun gender makes it clear which antecedent the pronoun references.
5. No revision needed.

Although the motorcycle hit the tree, it was not damaged.

1. The pronoun in question is "it".
2. The antecedents are "motorcycle" and "tree".
3. Number agrees (singular pronoun). No help for clarification.
4. Neutral gender makes it unclear whether "it" refers to motorcycle or refers to tree.
5. Unclear=Ambiguous
6. Revise for clarity.

Frank told his dad he ruined everything.

(For "his", there is only one antecedent, so there is no ambiguity.)

1. The pronoun in question is "he".
2. The antecedents are "Frank" and "his dad".
3. Number agrees (singular pronoun). No help for clarification.
4. Pronoun gender makes it unclear whether "he" refers to Frank or refers to his dad.
5. Unclear=Ambiguous
6. Revise for clarity.

It's simple and objective to determine whether or not a pronoun is ambiguous.

All the best,
Riv

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blacbird said:

Exactly the point I made earlier. BUT, you, Dear Writer, at some point, have to be able to step back and become Dear Reader, and learn to recognize what's actually on the page. because chances are strong that, if you don't, Dear Editor will, and won't like it.

caw

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Yes, this.

Great, now we have something new to worry about. Writer's high. I think whoever came up with this phrase was high, and hasn't yet dropped back to earth. It's BS.

Just read the sentence. If you understand grammar and composition, you'll know whether it's right or wrong. If you don't understand these things, you can come down from the high, drop into a bottomless pit, and still not know.

If the hat you're wearing while writing is not also an editor's hat, and a general reader's hat, you're going to play hob writing anything worth reading, or that you can fix later.

Jamesaritchie said:

Great, now we have something new to worry about. Writer's high. I think whoever came up with this phrase was high, and hasn't yet dropped back to earth. It's BS.

Just read the sentence. If you understand grammar and composition, you'll know whether it's right or wrong. If you don't understand these things, you can come down from the high, drop into a bottomless pit, and still not know.

If the hat you're wearing while writing is not also an editor's hat, and a general reader's hat, you're going to play hob writing anything worth reading, or that you can fix later.

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I call BS on this universal statement. Every writer and creative process is different. If I wore my editing hat while writing, it would hamper my flow. Fortunately, my command of grammar and composition is competent enough that I produce solid first drafts. However, when I read through the paragraph or page or chapter or draft with an editor's eye, there are inevitably sentences that can be streamlined, concepts clarified, and punctuation corrected.

"Writer's high" is a term from a different current thread and has a specific meaning in this context and for the original post of this thread. It was coined not as "something to worry about" but to name a state that some writers experience. Just because you haven't witnessed a writer go through a "writer's high" moment and come through just fine with a grammatically intact page--as opposed to landing in a bottomless pit of dreck--doesn't mean perfectly competent writers all over the world are immune.

The point for this thread is that a sentence composed in a draft may be ambiguous but unrecognized as such by the writer in the moment. And yes, ambiguous pronouns are slippery because even with re-reading, the writer knows what is meant, and the pronoun issue can slide by. The problem (for the writer) arises when the writer refuses to acknowledge an ambiguity when it is identified.

All the best,
Riv

I still don't know who bought the nail. If that's important to the story, that's a problem.

guttersquid said:

Forget looking for rules. The sentence is confusing as to who bought the nail, and that's all you need to know in order to decide if you should rewrite it. And sentences like this are so easy to fix. All you have to do is replace the second "he" with the name of the person who bought the nail.

George dropped everything he was doing and took Bob to the hardware store where Bob bought a nail.
George dropped everything he was doing and took Bob to the hardware store where George bought a nail.

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This is a place where I'd probably try to find a recast to avoid the repetition of either proper name in the same sentence.

Bob needed nails, so George dropped everything and drove him to the hardware store.

Bland example, here, but I absolutely loathe it when writers use a character's proper name too often. Makes it read like a kid's book, imo.