Which term describes the phenomenon where words point to other words or phrases, such as a pronoun referring to its antecedent?

• A. Reference
• B. Anaphoric reference
• C. Deixis
• D. Antecedent

Answer: (A)

Anaphoric reference describes the linking of a word to another word or phrase that came before it in the text. When a pronoun refers back to an earlier noun (its antecedent), it creates this kind of link. This is exactly what the example illustrates: the pronoun relies on a prior noun to establish its meaning, so the phenomenon is best captured by the term anaphoric reference.

Reference is a broader idea that covers any pointing to something in discourse, but the question points to the specific mechanism where a pronoun connects back to a previous expression. Deixis involves context-dependent pointing like this/that based on speaker location or situation, not just linking to a prior noun. The antecedent is the noun or noun phrase that the pronoun refers to, not the relational name for the phenomenon itself.