[German version]

(πρόληψις/prólēpsis, 'anticipation'; Latin anticipatio or praeceptio). Originally a technical term of forensic oratory (Quint. Inst. 4,1,49) denoting an addressing and rebuttal of opposing arguments before they have actually been formulated, the prolepsis as a rhetorical figure of syntactic inversion designates the anticipation of a nominal sentence constituent. A distinction is drawn between adjectival and substantival prolepsis: In adjectival prolepsis, the adjective attaches to a su…