The nearest referent is a grammatical term sometimes used when two or more possible referents of a pronoun, or other part of speech, cause ambiguity in a text. However "nearness", proximity, may not be the most meaningful criterion for a decision, particularly where word order, inflection and other aspects of syntax are more relevant.
The concept of nearest referent is found in analysis of various languages including classical languages Greek,[1] Latin[2] and Arabic,[3][4] and may create, or resolve, variant views in interpretation of a text.
There are other models than nearest referent for deciding what a pronoun, or other part of speech, refers to, and reference order distinguishes pronoun-referent structures where:
the pronoun follows its antecedent (Forward Reference, FW)
the pronoun precedes its referent (Backward Reference, BW)[5]
This is also described as anaphoric reference (anaphor, previous referent) and cataphoric reference (cataphor, following referent).[6]
^e.g. Hebrews p628 David L. Allen - 2010 "Some see it as a reference to “Jesus Christ” since this is the nearest referent, but it is best to take it as referring to “God” since God is the subject of the entire sentence in Greek."
^e.g. Marius Victorinus' Commentary on Galatians p355 ed Stephen Andrew Cooper, 2005 "... despite the fact that it is the nearest referent of this pronoun, and not to the Christian disciplina,"
^e.g. Mohamed Mohamed Yunis Ali Medieval Islamic pragmatics: Sunni legal theorists' models of ... 2000 p57 "The general principle that can be formulated in this context is that the addresser refers to the nearest referent."
^e.g. Women, Bangladesh and international security: methods, discourses, ... Imtiaz Ahmed, Forum on Women in Security and International Affairs (Bangladesh), Bangladesh Freedom Foundation - 2004 p145 "the nearest referent of the pronoun 'them' in the verse is actually women and not men [so] if the interpreters of the Quran adhered to this rule of Arabic grammar they should have concluded that God has made some of them ie women excel,"
^Studies in the linguistic sciences: 22 1992
^Current issues in comparative grammar p367 Robert Freidin - 1996 "It turns out that replacing the longdistance anaphor with the short-distance anaphor in (52) makes the sentences acceptable: (55) a. Zhang zhidao tazijii xihuan tade nu pengyou. Zhang know himself like his girl friend"
The nearestreferent is a grammatical term sometimes used when two or more possible referents of a pronoun, or other part of speech, cause ambiguity in...
more expressions refer to the same person or thing; they have the same referent. For example, in Bill said Alice would arrive soon, and she did, the words...
things" of which God spoke (so Conzelmann 1987: 29; Barrett 1994: 206, nearestreferent). Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles, The Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries...
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maps which name was intended to go with which star (or stars), and the referents changed over time. A third name that has been used is Bungula (/ˈbʌŋɡjuːlə/)...
settlement as a kraal, ethnographers[who?] have long recognised that its proper referent is the animal pen area within a homestead.[citation needed] Modern ethnographers...
Political unity in Etruscan society was the city-state, which was probably the referent of methlum, "district". Etruscan texts name quite a number of magistrates...
Mid-centralized vowels are closer to the midpoint of the vowel space than their referent vowels. That is, they are closer to the mid-central vowel schwa [ə] not...
policy, adult education, and cognition point of view: Towards a joint referent framework". Zeitschrift für Neuropsychologie. 30 (2): 111. doi:10.1024/1016-264X/a000255...
Koppers included areas such as Vancouver Island, it is "not clear what the referents of 'Pacific Region', 'Oceania' or 'Pacific Islands' are." Bullen added...
Ancient Tibetan Buddhist authors and pilgrims used the ethnogeographic referents Gyagar or Gyagar to the south and Madhyadesa (central land or holy centre)...
noun referents which are especially important for characterising the morphosyntactic behaviour of Mbula nouns: human referent animate referent potent...
concept and the reality of God, the concept would be vastly different if its referent is an unreal Being.[citation needed] Another response to Kant is attributed...
morphologically different set of anaphoric forms, in the context where the referent is an entity whose speech, thoughts, or feelings are being reported. This...
possible forms in many paradigms, depending on the animacy of the referent. For animate referents (sentient species, some animals, professions and occupations)...
modern system. Tide heights and times at Fort Denison are the primary base referent for published tide information for other places in the state of New South...
and "woman" respectively, can be used in compound words to refer to the referent's sex. For example, from puq ("child") this process derives puqloD ("son")...
they entrap us (Thomas, 1989). Such labels provide handy geographical referents, yet they mislead us greatly if we take them to be meaningful segments...
their sons. They also have Albanus. Scholars are divided on the intended referent of the Albani, the descendants of Albanus. A connection with the "Scythian"...
2011. Retrieved 12 November 2015. Dr. Alois Döring ist wissenschaftlicher Referent für Volkskunde beim LVR-Institut für Landeskunde und Regionalgeschichte...
linguistically and lexically opaque that we do not have any plausible referents for them." The Ravenna Cosmography, which was compiled by an anonymous...
are given in the table below. "He" and "she" are used only for human referents; other nouns take the neuter pronoun. That is quite distinct from the...
value of their terminological innovation is that, ever since then, its referent, within a particular context, could be unequivocally named, identified...
Unknown glossing abbreviation(s) (help); Object clitics may be the only referent to the object in the clause (5) or they may occur with a coreferential...
offer a specific or precise degree of evidentiality (with regard to the referent). Examples of this degree of precision can be seen below. ŋac man tonec...
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