Pronouns without antecedent
Abstract
Because of their definiteness and lack of descriptive content, third person pronouns - explicit or tacit - cannot be used as referentially autonomous expressions, and require a discursive antecedent to be interpreted. However, it is not impossible to find examples of pronouns without an antecedent (such as the tacit subject in In this village, pro live as they like); a good number of them are in some sense marginal (take the tacit subject in Near the house there was a churrería. And, by the way, pro was delicious).
The case of pronouns without antecedents raises, on the one hand, the theoretical problem of how to formulate a restrictive hypothesis about their conditions of use, and, on the other hand, the practical problem of what recommendations should be made for the writing of written texts. The two problems are linked. Among the factors to be taken into account in the analysis are the distinction between oral and written - the conditions of use of pronouns without antecedents are not the same -, the explicit / tacit distinction - tacit pronouns are legitimised under more permissive conditions -, and the singular / plural distinction - most of the possible interpretations without antecedents are possible only with plurals. The use of pronouns without antecedents as a grammatical device in writing involves conscious control of these factors.
Keywords
pronoun, pronoun without antecedent, anaphora, grammar teaching, writing, hierarchy of "lo dado"References
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