In the sentence 'Maria baked a cake. It was delicious.', the pronoun 'It' is an example of which type of reference?

In the sentence 'Maria baked a cake. It was delicious.', the pronoun 'It' is an example of which type of reference?

• A. Cataphoric reference
• B. Exophoric reference
• C. Endophoric reference
• D. Intrusion

Answer: (C)

In this kind of sentence, the category being tested is how a pronoun connects to something mentioned in the discourse. An endophoric reference is one that points to something inside the text itself. When a pronoun refers back to something already introduced, that’s a classic anaphoric use. Here, “It” refers to “a cake,” which was mentioned in the previous sentence. Since the referent is inside the text and resolved to a prior noun, this is an endophoric reference (anaphoric). Exophoric would link to something outside the text, and cataphoric would point forward to something not yet introduced, which isn’t the case here.

In this kind of sentence, the category being tested is how a pronoun connects to something mentioned in the discourse. An endophoric reference is one that points to something inside the text itself. When a pronoun refers back to something already introduced, that’s a classic anaphoric use.

Here, “It” refers to “a cake,” which was mentioned in the previous sentence. Since the referent is inside the text and resolved to a prior noun, this is an endophoric reference (anaphoric). Exophoric would link to something outside the text, and cataphoric would point forward to something not yet introduced, which isn’t the case here.