Information Structuring in Discourse

Abstract

Two questions lie at the core of current research into discourse structuring: what is the appropriate level of analysis for discourse segmentation and what are the criteria for the identification of basic units in discourse. Linguistic structure - and more precisely, the extraction and integration of syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic information - has shown to be at the center of discourse comprehension. However, its role in the establishment of basic building blocks for a coherent discourse is still a subject to debate. This collection presents current work on theoretical, diachronic, cross-linguistic, as well as experimental research into the identification and marking of discourse units, and into how discourse coherence can be brought about by the basic building blocks of discourse.