Antecedents
The element of the main clause which the relative pronoun stands for within the relative clause (such as man in the above example) is called the antecedent of that pronoun. In most cases the antecedent is a noun or noun phrase, although it is also possible for the pronoun to refer to a whole proposition, as in "The train was late, which annoyed me greatly", where the antecedent of the relative pronoun which is the clause "The train was late" (the thing that annoyed me was the fact of the train's being late).
In a free relative clause, a relative pronoun has no antecedent; the relative clause itself plays the role of the co-referring element in the main clause. For example, in "I like what you did", what is a relative pronoun, but without an antecedent – the clause what you did itself plays the role of a noun (the object of like) in the main clause. A relative pronoun used in this way is sometimes called a fused relative pronoun, since the antecedent appears to be fused into the pronoun (what in this example can be regarded as a fusion of that which).
Read more about this topic: Relative Pronoun
Famous quotes containing the word antecedents:
“The conclusion suggested by these arguments might be called the paradox of theorizing. It asserts that if the terms and the general principles of a scientific theory serve their purpose, i. e., if they establish the definite connections among observable phenomena, then they can be dispensed with since any chain of laws and interpretive statements establishing such a connection should then be replaceable by a law which directly links observational antecedents to observational consequents.”
—C.G. (Carl Gustav)