Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

REFERENCE

125

Speakers and writers can make reference to people, places, things and ideas in a

variety of different ways, as in these examples:

1 A: Abigail didn’t go?

B: No, she was at her mum and dad’s.

2 [these sentences are the opening sentences of a chapter in a novel]

They pressed round him in ragged fashion to take their money. Andy, Dave,

Phil, Stephen, Bob.

3 [speakers are looking at photographs]

A: That’s a lovely one of you, that is.

B: Yes. I like that one.

In 1, she and her refer to a person already identified in the text (Abigail).

In 2, they refers to people who are identified later in the text (the names in the

second sentence).

In 3, that and that one refer out from the text to things in the situation itself

(the photos that the speakers are holding).

The references in 1 and 2 are endophoric (they operate within the text). The

references in 3 are exophoric (they operate between the text and the external

world).

Endophoric references are of two types: anaphoric (those which refer back to

something earlier in the text) and cataphoric (those which refer forward to

something later in the text).