What is "cataphora"

n. (context linguistics rhetoric English) The use of a pronoun, or other linguistic unit, before the noun phrase to which it refers, sometimes used for rhetorical effect.

In linguistics, cataphora (; 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. The preceding expression, whose meaning is determined or specified by the later expression, may be called a cataphor. Cataphora is a type of anaphora (and cataphors are a type of anaphors), 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.

An example of cataphora in English is the following sentence:

:* When he arrived home, John went to sleep. In this sentence, the pronoun he (the cataphor) appears earlier than the noun John (the postcedent) that it refers to. This is the reverse of the more normal pattern, "strict" anaphora, where a referring expression such as John or the soldier appears before any pronouns that reference it. Both cataphora and anaphora are types of endophora.