Analyzing and Interpreting Literature / Unit 1 AIL 0011 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Why Referents Go Missing
Captions available
The idea
Older writing suspends its sentences. A pronoun can sit twenty words from the noun it replaces, with two other nouns between them. Reading backward from the pronoun to the first noun that makes sense of the verb recovers the referent reliably.
In practice
Read backward from the pronoun.
Where people slip
Distance, not difficulty, hides referents.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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