1 Discourse Modes: A Study of Local Structure*Carlota S. Smith CSSmith 2001*Forthcoming, Cambridge University PressCSSmith 2001Discourse Modes: A Study of Local StructureCarlota S. SmithTable of ContentsPart IChapter 1 The study of discourse §1.1. Introducing the the discourse modes§1.2 Discourse and pragmatics§1.3 Genre §1.4 Linguistic approaches to discourse structure. Chapter 2.Introduction to the Discourse Modes§2.The entities introduced in texts; §2.2 Principles of text progression; §2.3 Account of each mode, with examples; § 2.4 Rhetorical backgroundChapter 3. Text structure and text representation§3.1 Inference and language understanding; §3.2 Text structures; §3.3 Discourse Representation Theory Part IIChapter 4. Aspectual information: the entities introduced in discourse§4.1 Aspectual systems: situation type, coercion, viewpoint; eventuality situation types; §4.2 General statives §4.3 Facts, propositions, projective propositionsCSSmith 2001§4.4 Linguistic correlates for the three major classes of situation type; §4.5 Construction rules for the different types of entity in DR Theory.Chapter 5. Temporal and Spatial Progression§5.1 The system of temporal location §5.2 Patterns of tense interpretation in the temporal discourse modes;§5.3 Implementation of tense interpretation in DRSs;§5.4 Space and its linguistic expression§5.5 Details of the temporal location sub-system.Chapter 6. Reference:§6.1 Primary referents. §6. 2 Familiarity status and linguistic form. §6.3 Pronouns §6.4 Patterns of referring expressions in discoursePart IIIChapter 7. The Presentation of Information§ 7.1 Comments on presentation;§7.2-4 Topic-Comment and Focus-Background§7.5 Complementary, dual partitioning; §7.6 Determining the topic of a sentence in context. Chapter 8. Presentation,Word Order, and Syntax§8.1 Non-canonical constructions: Subjects (existential there, extraposition, right dislocation, cleft and pseudo-cleft; Inversion; Preposing§8.2 Contrast and emphasis, focus.CSSmith 2001Chapter 9. Complex sentences: condensed clauses, complements, relative clausesChapter 10. Subjectivity: Point of view, perspective, evidentiality. Composite rules.Part IV: Not completed CSSmith 20016 Chapter 1: The study of discourse § 1.1 This book is a linguistic study of passages in written discourse. Discourse is made up of sentences, and linguistics has had success with sentences: we understand a great deal about sentence structure though many interesting questions remain. However, discourse isn't just a sequence of sentences, or one big sentence, but an entirely different sort of thing: a conversation, a story, an argument. Information develops, inferences are made, context is taken into account. People have come to understand discourse primarily in terms of communication, action and interaction. The expectations that people have of conversations and arguments are not at the level of the sentence: they are closer to the world than to words. Still, much of the information that is communicated in a discourse comes from the words and sentences used. The book attempts to understand some of the mysteries of discourse by staying relatively close to the linguistic forms. I will be interested in the information conveyed by linguistic forms about text structure - especiallyforms that are functional and grammatical rather than lexical. Part I of this book lays out the context for the inquiry, and discusses the five discourse modes; Part 2 presents the linguistic analysis that supports the distinctions CSSmith 2001between passages that realize each mode; Part III analyzes text passages further, focusing on presentational structure and point of view. There is a consensus that text understanding is based primarily on pragmatic knowledge about texts and their functions. Text structure is a construct which receivers develop on the basis of pragmatic knowledge and information in the text itself. We know that the structure of a text does not directly correspond to its linguistic features: the structure is not 'in' the text. But text contains information which contributes to structuring. I will show that there is a level, the discourse mode, that can be characterized linguistically. Encountering a text, one recognizes passages that are intuitively of different kinds, for instance Narrative, Description, or Commentary. The passages tend tohave a particular force and a characteristic cluster of linguistic features. I shall say that a passage of text with a cluster of features realizes a particular 'discourse mode'. This book is devoted to the linguistic study of discourse modes, types of passages which appear in texts of varied functions, settings, and audiences. Discourse modes are, I suggest, the level of discourse most suitable for linguistic analysis, because it is at this level that linguistic forms make a difference. I will investigate the linguistic features that distinguish passages of different modes, and then consider two aspects of text passages that are common to all modes: the development of presentational structure and point of view. I use the term 'discourse' for materials that are CSSmith 2001written and/or spoken, 'text' for the written modality. The study focuses on written texts, although the notion of discourse mode holds for spoken language as well. Spoken language is more complex because of the contribution of intonational factors and its interactional nature. I begin by introducing the discourse modes, in Section §1.1. Section §1.2 discusses discourse and pragmatics, Section §1.3 genre, and Section §1.4 linguistic approaches to discourse structure. The discussion is intended to provide the pragmatic background forthe linguistic study of text structure. I will assume such a background in this book, which concentrates on the linguistic structure and interpretation of written texts. Section §1.4 briefly introduces the linguistic analysis and the framework in which it will be presented, Discourse Representation Theory.§1.1 Discourse modesI recognize five modes: Narrative, Descriptive, Report, Informational, and Argument-commentary. This list is not exhaustive, but I think it covers the major modes that appear in texts of many different kinds: it ignores conversation and procedural discourse , and perhaps others.1 The list of major modes should be relatively short, and should allow