What is anaphora

The use of a linguistic unit, such as a pronoun, to refer

back to another unit, as the use of her to refer to Anne
in the sentence Anne asked Edward to pass her the
salt.
Anaphora represents the relation between a proform
(called an anaphor) and another term (called an
"antecedent"), when the interpretation of the anaphor is
in a certain way determined by the interpretation of the
antecedent.

Barbara Lust, Introduction to Studies in the Acquisition of Anaphora,

From Dan Cristea D. Reidel, 1986
Al.I.Cuza University of Iai
Faculty of Computer Science
An example

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking
thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in
an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the
glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough
to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.
Orwell, 1984

antecedent anaphor antecedent anaphor

From Dan Cristea

Al.I.Cuza University of Iai
Faculty of Computer Science
What is cataphora
The use of a linguistic unit, such as a
pronoun, to refer ahead to another unit, for
example, the use of him to refer to John in
the sentence Near him, John saw a snake.
Cataphora is the coreference of one expression
with another expression which follows it.
The following expression provides the
information necessary for interpretation of the
preceding one.
An example

In the following sentence, the relationship of one

to a towel is an example of cataphora:

If you need one, theres a towel in the top drawer.