What term is the noun that a pronoun replaces?

• A. Antecedent
• B. Utterances
• C. Cloze procedure
• D. Listening guides

Answer: (A)

In grammar, a pronoun stands in for a noun, and the noun that the pronoun refers to is called the antecedent. The antecedent is the person, place, or thing mentioned earlier in the sentence (or nearby) that the pronoun points back to, so the sentence isn’t repeating the noun every time. For example, in a sentence like “Maria forgot her book, and she searched everywhere for it,” Maria and the book are the antecedents, while her and it are pronouns referring back to them. The pronoun should match the antecedent in number and gender, and the antecedent usually comes before the pronoun to keep the meaning clear. If the sentence could refer to more than one noun, it’s often rewritten to make the antecedent explicit and avoid ambiguity. Utterances, the act of speaking, and terms like cloze procedure or listening guides refer to other concepts, not to the noun-that-a-pronoun-replaces.