Putting fairness at the heart of the economy
"By putting fairness at the heart of the economy, we can make it perform better, improving the lives of millions of people."
(The Guardian.)
Is there any semantic or/and grammatical rule governing the pronoun - antecedent relationship in the sentence above?
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What I mean is the relation between the pronoun "it" and its antecedent "economy" in that sentence.
Is there a rule, except sheer logic, which tells us that "it" substitute for "economy" but not for "fairness" or "heart of the economy"?
Top answer
Technically speaking, the writer erred a bit. You really can't bury an antecedent two levels deep in a prepositional phrase like that. He is saved by his good ear—we tend to take the last noun we saw as the antecedent.
- Technically speaking, the writer erred a bit.
- You really can't bury an antecedent two levels deep in a prepositional phrase like that.
- He is saved by his good ear—we tend to take the last noun we saw as the antecedent.
- Still, the more literal-minded reader is tempted to go to "fairness" for a brief moment.
- " That puts the antecedent before its pronoun, but that is not necessarily bad, and in this case it sets up a pleasant suspense.
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Technically speaking, the writer erred a bit. You really can't bury an antecedent two levels deep in a prepositional phrase like that. He is saved by his good ear—we tend to take the last noun we saw as the antecedent. Still, the more literal-minded reader is tempted to go to "fairness" for a brief moment. The writer might have written "By putting fairness at its heart, we can make the economy
0tkacka15Is there a rule, except sheer logic, which tells us that "it" substitute for "economy" but not for "fairness" or "heart of the economy"?
No. We only know it refers to "economy" through an understanding of what makes sense.
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