Glossary
antecedent
An antecedent is the noun a pronoun stands for — the thing it, which or this points back at in the sentence or the one before it.
Antecedent is the noun a pronoun stands for: what it, which, this or they points back at. The link usually runs backwards, sometimes into the previous sentence, and occasionally forwards — in Before it opened, the bridge had needed a year of testing, it stands for a noun the reader has not met yet. Reading the antecedent back into the pronoun is a mechanical habit that settles a surprising number of items. A question about what a quoted line does is often really asking what which points at, and a question about what a claim assumes is sometimes asking what they or everyone was standing for. The trap is the nearby noun: when two candidates sit close together, the item is testing whether you followed the grammar or the topic. Put the noun back in place of the pronoun and read the sentence aloud — the right antecedent leaves a sentence that says what the passage was saying.
Taught in
Related terms
- pronoun — A pronoun stands in for a noun the passage has already named — it, they, this, which — and what it points at is often the whole question.
- structural clue — A structural clue is a word in the text that shows how the passage is built — a transition word, a pronoun and its antecedent, or a repeated key phrase.
Source: The reading skills ATI names in its own Content Outline (R.2.1-R.2.4, under the Craft and structure sub-content area), plus the tone and passage-structure skills that sub-content area's published description names; each definition below is written for the Craft and Structure guide in this exam, in our own words, and explains the skill the way the guide teaches it. (ATI Content Outline read 2026-10-09; definitions written 2026-10-09)