| The nonrestrictive relative clause with a previous clause or sentence as the antecedent of which is sometimes made into a separate sentence. This kind of which, used after a full stop and introducing a new sentence, is referred to as anaphoric Which in this paper. The data for this study are provided by British and American authorsf recent plays and articles in Time and Newsweek. My aim is to investigate the occurrences of anaphoric Which in the data and interpret its use not only at the beginning of a sentence, but also at the beginning of a paragraph.
It is frequently used because the antecedent of anaphoric Which is not restricted to a previous clause or sentence, but it can be a word, a phrase, a paragraph or paragraphs. Anaphoric Which functions as a convenient means to avoid the repetition of anything that is previously mentioned. Anaphoric Which in the expressions such as Which means... and Which is why... works as a starting point to introduce additional new information. These expressions are very popular in conversational sequences, advertisements and magazine articles.
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