What part of speech has an antecedent? A) conjunction B) adverb C) pronoun D) proper noun

pronoun is the answer

Explanation:

An Explanation in Simple Terms. In English grammar, an antecedent is a subject that will be renamed by another word later in a sentence. Most often the word replacing the antecedent is a pronoun, though it can also be a noun or noun phrase

the sentence does not violate the phrase structure second rule (introduced by noam chomsky) because noun phrases consist of a determiner such as a, the or every, and a noun. in the sentence, the noun phrase the cake includes a determiner (the) and a noun (cake).

on the other hand, the first rule indicates that a sentence encloses a noun phrase, followed by a verb phrase. the example sentence can be analysed as follows:

john (n) + ate (v) + the (det) + cake (n).