Generic antecedents

Generic antecedents are words or phrases in a sentence that have been left unspecified, but we still can understand what is being spoken about.

For example, if a person says "I like this sweater", the generic antecedent of the phrase "this" is the sweater that the person is talking about. Even though "this" isn't telling us which sweater the person is referring to, it is still clear what the person is talking about.