The antrcedent in the following sentence is (patients, doctors). Doctors should schedule more time for the patients so they do not spend much in the waiting room.
Who spends much time in the waiting room?
patients
To find the antecedent in a sentence, you need to look for the noun or noun phrase that a pronoun is referring back to. In the given sentence, the pronoun "they" is referring to a noun or noun phrase. Let's break down the sentence to identify the antecedent:
"Doctors should schedule more time for the patients so they do not spend much in the waiting room."
Here, the pronoun "they" is referring back to the noun "patients." The antecedent in this sentence is "patients." The pronoun "they" is used to avoid repeating the noun "patients" and to make the sentence less repetitive.
So, in this sentence, the antecedent is "patients."