noun
- Plural of cataphora; instances of a word or phrase referring forward to another word or phrase that appears later in the text.
Usage: linguistics; formal
Examples
- In the sentence 'When he arrived, John was tired,' the pronoun 'he' is a cataphora referring forward to 'John.'
- Cataphoras are less common in English than anaphoras, which refer backward to previously mentioned nouns.
- The linguist identified several cataphoras in the poem where pronouns preceded their antecedents.
- Understanding cataphoras helps readers follow complex sentence structures and forward references.