Cataphora

In linguistics, cataphora (/kəˈtæfərə/; from Greek, καταφορά, kataphora, "a downward motion" from κατά, kata, "downwards" and φέρω, pherō, "I carry") is the use of an expression or word that co-refers with a later, more specific expression in the discourse.

Cataphora is a type of anaphora, although the terms anaphora and anaphor are sometimes used in a stricter sense, denoting only cases where the order of the expressions is the reverse of that found in cataphora.

This is the reverse of the more normal pattern, "strict" anaphora, where a referring expression such as John (in the example above) or the soldier (in the example below) appears before any pronouns that reference it.

Non-strict cataphora of this sort can occur in many contexts, for example: (The anaphor a little girl co-refers with Jessica.)

Strict cross-sentence cataphora where the antecedent is an entire sentence is fairly common cross-linguistically: Cataphora of this sort is particularly common in formal contexts, using an anaphoric expression such as this or the following.