REF: Lausberg 924

Oxford English Dictionary:

1. 1706 Phillips, Anacolython, a Rhetorical Figure, when a Word that is to answer another is not express'd.

1753 Chambers Cycl. Supp., Anacoluthon among antient grammarians denotes an incoherence, or a construction which does not hang together.

Compare the English anacoluthia which was first introduced into English by a grammar by the famous Danish philologist Madvig. In OED the word is defined as follows:

"A want of grammatical sequence; the passing from one construction to another before the former is completed". The first example is:

1856 G. Woods Madvig's Lat. Gr. 434 This want of strict grammatical coherence is called "Anacoluthia".

Greek/Latin: Scholium to Homer mentions the term in passing. But it is not a current notion in traditional rhetoric. The deliberate use of anacolouthic constructions in writers like Cicero, on the other hand, is notorious and common: he is deliberately reproducing inadvertent infelicities in quick daily speech in order to create an atmosphere of spontaneity.

Ancient Chinese: Those cases where one finds anacolouthic constructions tend to lead one to suspect that they are corrupt. It would be very important if one could identify a clear case of a deliberately anacolouthic construction as it was used with expert deliberate confusion by Cicero.