Explanation
Apocrisis means an answer in its Greek etymology and appears in rhetorical handbooks as a rare designation close to or synonymous with hypophora: a question is raised and answered within the shaped discourse itself. The figure therefore is not any response to another person's utterance but the rhetorical organisation of question and answer inside an argument or exposition. The answer may anticipate an objection, stage an imagined countervoice, or explicitly develop the next movement of thought from the question. Historical instances require scrutiny as to whether a source uses apocrisis merely in the general sense of response or as a technical figure. Its movement reveals responsiveness as compositional practice: discourse produces an interlocutor and answers it even when only one voice is actually speaking.
Movement of thought
1. A discourse first formulates a question, possible doubt, or position belonging to an imagined interlocutor. 2. An open answer-position emerges, gathering attention and making an alternative voice audible within the discourse. 3. The speaker supplies a deliberately shaped answer and derives the next argumentative movement from it. 4. A counter-test examines technical source usage and self-answering and separates apocrisis from real dialogue, response generally, and question alone. 5. The initial question returns as an answered structure; monologic discourse now appears as movement among several possible voices.
Scientific use case
Historical rhetoric and argumentation analysis examine terminology, question-answer sequence, speaker roles, and function. Editions must distinguish source-specific apocrisis, hypophora, and ordinary response.
Example
“Why should this map disclose its sources? Because only a traceable path can turn assertions into verifiable knowledge,” the speaker says, developing her own objection.
Counterexample
An interviewee spontaneously answers the moderator's actual question without organising question and answer as a figure inside her own discourse. This is responsiveness but not necessarily apocrisis technically.
Distinction
Distinguish it from hypophora as closest neighbour or historical synonym, ratiocinatio, dialogism, rhetorical question, subiectio, actual answer, turn-taking, and responsiveness generally.
Effect on thought and perception
Apocrisis gives argument a dialogic structure, anticipates objections, and clarifies inference, but controlled self-answering may also produce only the appearance of open inquiry.
Resonance
A voice opens a question and meets itself again in the answer; an imagined interlocutor becomes audible in the interval although no one else speaks.
Cite this entry
Reich, Michael (Hrsg./ed.): „Apocrisis“. Atlas der Sprache, AT-172-0014. ATLAS 260, data model 1.6.0. https://atlasoflanguage.com/concept/AT-172-0014The address remains stable; editorial content may evolve. Editorial reading state: 2026-10-15. Include your access date for precise references.
Historical background
In Quintilian’s discussion of answers, a reply can shift the issue while seeming to respond to it. An accused person may justify an act instead of denying it, or a witness may add a circumstance that intensifies the accusation. He also separates these exchanges from questions that a speaker answers without waiting for anyone else. This offers a conceptual witness for the shaped response covered by apocrisis, although the inspected translation does not establish that lemma’s borrowing history. For the Atlas, the historical distinction directs attention to what a reply accepts, evades or reframes. Answering why an act was necessary is not the same as answering whether it occurred. Nor does a strategically shaped response automatically constitute deception: clarification can also require challenging the question’s assumptions.
How conceptual history changes the analysis
Ask what the reply accepts, leaves open or reframes. Explaining necessity is not the same as confirming occurrence, though a question may legitimately need correction.
References for the historical section
- Quintilian, Institutio oratoria IX.2; H. E. Butler, English translation, Loeb Classical Library III (1920) · IX.2.12–15
Selected historical passage, not a complete genealogy or an English first attestation. Atlas examples and present-day countertests are editorial applications. Ancient argument inspected in English translation; Greek/Latin wording and manuscript transmission not independently collated. The online transcription contains apparent errors.
- Quintilian, Institutio oratoria IX.2; H. E. Butler, English translation, Loeb Classical Library III (1920) · IX.2.12–15
Selected historical passage, not a complete genealogy or an English first attestation. Atlas examples and present-day countertests are editorial applications. Ancient argument inspected in English translation; Greek/Latin wording and manuscript transmission not independently collated. The online transcription contains apparent errors.