word
Anaphora
an-AF-or-ah
/æˈnæfərɑː/Listen
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Syllable breakdown
anaphora
Dictionary meaning
A grammatical or rhetorical device in which a pronoun or other expression refers back to a previously mentioned noun or phrase (the antecedent) to avoid repetition and establish cohesion in discourse
History and origin
From Greek anaphora (carrying back); in rhetoric, anaphora also refers to the repetition of words at the beginning of clauses
Examples
- In 'John said he was tired', 'he' is an anaphoric reference to 'John'.
- Anaphora resolution is a key challenge in natural language processing and machine translation.
Synonyms: back-reference, coreferential expression, proform
Pronunciation tips
In poetry and rhetoric, 'anaphora' means word repetition at line-starts — a separate (though same-root) use
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