3 ms·
Although it happens often in natural communication, I find there is more chance for confusion, especially by a non-native reader, when a pronoun (or any proform
by gugagore 6y ago
Although it happens often in natural communication, I find there is more chance for confusion, especially by a non-native reader, when a pronoun (or any proform) appears before its antecedent.
So resolving the pronoun with square brackets can be less confusing, to say nothing of the benefits of brevity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataphora https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataphora
- ASalazarMX 6y ago> I find there is more chance for confusion, especially by a non-native reader, when a pronoun (or any proform) appears before its antecedent. It depends on the native language. Spanish is flexible to a fault, so "a huge orange cat", "an orange huge cat", and even "a cat orange huge" are easy to understand... but correctly translating "un enorme gato naranja" to English is the hard part.
- gugagore 6y agoYou're talking about ordering among adjectives, which is unrelated to pronouns. > The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase by Mark Forsyth. "Adjectives absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac."
- ASalazarMX 6y agoYou're right, my confusion even makes your point stronger.