In the sentence 'This is the key to success, the plan was laid out yesterday,' the word 'This' refers to something mentioned later. Which type of reference is this?

• A. Cataphoric reference
• B. Anaphoric reference
• C. Exophoric reference
• D. Deictic reference

Answer: (A)

The situation tests forward-referencing, specifically a cataphoric reference. A cataphoric reference happens when a word points ahead to something that will be named later in the sentence or discourse. In this example, This is pointing to the noun phrase that comes later—the plan mentioned in the second clause. Since the referent is introduced after the pronoun, not before, it’s cataphoric. If the pronoun had referred back to something earlier in the text, that would be anaphoric; if it pointed outside the text to real-world context, it would be exophoric; and if it relied on the immediate situational context like here or there, it would be deictic. The forward linking to a later noun makes this a cataphoric reference.