Reference of "its"
Does the highlighted "its" mean "Cindy Sherman’s work of the 1990s" or "the abject" or "this definition of the abject"?
Context:
In line with the usual dictionary definition of the abject, which describes the state of abjection as to be ‘cast down, degraded, cast off, treated as refuse’, Kristeva defined the abject as that which is cast aside, neither subject nor object, an indeterminate state, a category which attempts to categorise the uncategorisable. As Foster has shown, Cindy Sherman’s work of the 1990s, particularly the Disgust series, both exemplifies this definition of the abject and demonstrates its relationship to another recently fashioned category: that of the informe or the formless, in which the body is not only made strange but is primarily represented by signifiers of disgust – ‘menstrual blood and sexual discharge, vomit and ***, decay and death’.
Top answer
It is a common error in writing to use as an antecedent a word that does not actually appear on the page, or a word used in a non-noun form, or even an idea hinted at previously. This writer made the third error. The antecedent of "its" is supposed to be "the abject as defined by Kristeva", but what appears on the page is "this definition of the abject".
- It is a common error in writing to use as an antecedent a word that does not actually appear on the page, or a word used in a non-noun form, or even an idea hinted at previously.
- This writer made the third error.
- The antecedent of "its" is supposed to be "the abject as defined by Kristeva", but what appears on the page is "this definition of the abject".
- We know this because she is comparing it to the parallel concept "category".
- Even many native English speakers can't see this problem even after you show it to them, so you are ahead of the game.
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It is a common error in writing to use as an antecedent a word that does not actually appear on the page, or a word used in a non-noun form, or even an idea hinted at previously. This writer made the third error. The antecedent of "its" is supposed to be "the abject as defined by Kristeva", but what appears on the page is "this definition of the abject". We know this because she is comparing i
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