The document discusses coherence and cohesion relations in discourse. It argues that there are two main types of cohesion: referential relations involving anaphora, and semantic/pragmatic relations involving connectives. It also suggests that there is a third type of cohesive marker, indexing or framing relations, signaled by initial adverbials that frame or label the propositions in a series of sentences.

1. Muhammad Sajid us Salam Mphil Linguistics Islamia University Bahawalpur [email_address]

2. COHERENCE AND COHESION RELATIONS Connexion and Framing Muhammad Sajid us Salam Mphil Linguistics The Islamia University Bahawalpur [email_address]

3. Coherence : a very general principle of interpretation of language in context Linguists tend to focus on cohesion markers

4. At the level of discourse «cohesion is no more structural, it is external, marked by « lexico-grammatical items»» (Halliday & Hasan 1976)

5. COHESION Word Phrase/Clause/Sentence Discourse Fusion Integration Relational markers

6. Halliday & Hasan's (1976) taxonomy of cohesive devices : “ reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion”, further refined by Martin (1992).

7. Taxonomies of coherence relations in formal semantics and computational linguistics studies: - Hobbs (1990) - Mann & Thompson (1987, 1988) : Rhetorical Structure Theory ( RST) - Asher (1993), Asher & Lascarides (1994, 2004) : Segmented Discourse Representation Theory ( SDRT )

8. Intensive debate : T.Sanders, L.Degand, …. But a broad consensus on distinguishing between two types of relations : Referential relations : anaphora Semantic/pragmatic relations: connectives

9. "The various devices for linking adjacent sentences in a discourse can be reduced to two types of link : the one is referential links (…) The other type of cohesive link is a semantic link between the proposition expressed by the two sentences (…) Any of these two types of link is sufficient to produce a cohesive discourse, and it is necessary that at least one of them will hold (…) " (Reinhart 1981)

10. T.Sanders et W.Spooren (2001), W.Spooren (2002) : “ Generally speaking, there are two respects in which texts can cohere: Referential coherence : units are connected by repeated reference to the same object; Relational coherence : text segments are connected by establishing coherence relations like Cause-consequence between them.” Sanders & Spooren (2001: 7)

11. Paul a triché. Il a extorqué 30 € à Robert. Paul cheated. He robbed 30 € to Bob Two eventualities : activity + achievement Sem-Prag relation (« rhetorical ») Volitional result 1-2 [ Paul i a triché ] t1 [ Il i a extorqué 30 € à Robert ] t2 Referential relations

12. Paul a triché de sorte qu’il a escroqué Robert de 30 €. Paul cheated so that he robbed 30 € to Bob Syntactic integration + relational marker Sem-Prag Rel ation Volitional result 1-2 [ [ Paul i a triché ] t1 de sorte qu’[ il i a extorqué 30 € à Robert ] t2 ] Referential relations

13. COHESION Word Phrase/Clause/Sentence Discourse Fusion Integration Semantic/pragmatic Relations Anaphora Connectives

14. SUGGESTION 1 : Anaphora and connectives : two forms of a unique general type of cohesion relation - Connexion Relation Prototypically : Backward-looking ties (Halliday & Hasan 1976, Berrendonner 1983)

15. Referential relations In French, «backwards» anaphora (cataphora) are less frequent than normal anaphora and limited to specific forms (possesive NPs, demonstrative pronouns «ceci », certain adverbs) or constructions (pronominals in preposed subordinate sentences, left dislocations in spoken language)

16. [ Paul i a triché ] t1 [ Il i a extorqué 30 € à Robert ] t2 Referential relations Semantic and Pragmatic Relations : In RST, even when the arrow goes from left to right as in

17. The interpretation process requires to take into account the preceding adjacent unit : U 1 U2 (de sorte que) If « volitional result » U2 = N, U1= S : Forward R (car) If « evidence » U1 = N, U2 = S : Backward R (mais) If « antithesis » U2 = N, U1 = S : Forward R (pourtant) If « contrast « U1 = N, U2 = N : Back+Forward R See also : Veltman’s update semantic theory – cf. C.Rossari

18. SUGGESTION 2 : There also exists another type of cohesion markers which function in the opposite direction. These markers signal “forward-labelling” : Indexing or Framing Relations

19. Framing relations are supported - by Adverbials (PP, Adv, SN, Subordinate Sentences) i.e. : adjuncts, parentheticals - when they are in initial position or in the preverbal aerea Framing relations are a sort of scope relations

20. Hier, Paul a triché. Il a extorqué 30 € à Robert. Yesterday , Paul cheated. He robbed 30 € to Bob Two eventualities : activity + achievement Yesterday, Framing Relation Semantic/Pragmatic Relation Volitional result 1-2 [ Paul i a triché ] t1 [ Il i a extorqué 30 € à Robert ] t2 Referential relations

21. Connexion and Framing Relations ..... [ [--] [----] ] [----]

23. « En France , [on dénombre, chaque année, une cinquantaine de cas mortels] (S1) mais [on n’a pas de recensement officiel de la maladie (S2) , [ parce que les médecins ne sont pas tenus de la déclarer aux services de santé]] (S3) . » (La Recherche) In France - S1 - S2 - S3 S1 but S2 because S3

26. COHESION Word Phrase/Clause/Sentence Discourse Fusion Integration Indexing Connexion Anaphora Connectives

29. On purpose clauses and a discussion of Thompson’s paper, cf. Charolles & Lamiroy (2002) For a general discussion on adverbials as topics, cf. Charolles & Prévost eds. (2003)

36. Mais Seulement Simplement Malheureusement Heureusement Personnellement Selon X But Only Simply Unfortunatly Fortunatly Personnaly According to x +Connective - Connective - framing + framing

40. We need psycholinguistic experiments to test these final points