TREATMENTS OF GRAMMAR IN DISCOURSE

Grammar

 

◈TREATMENTS OF GRAMMAR IN DISCOURSE 

 

1. Ties of Reference (pronouns, possessive forms, demonstratives, and the like) Paul bought a pear. He ate it. Here “Paul” and “he” and also "pear" and "it" are coreferential (i.e., both forms in each set refer to the same entity) and form cohesive ties in the text. 

 

2. Ties of Substitution (e.g., nominal one(s), verbal do, clausal so)

A: Did Sally buy the blue jacket? 
B: No, she bought the red one. 

Here "one" replaces “jacket," and they form a structural and lexical/semantic tie and are coclassificational (i.e., refer to the same class of entities) but not coreferential. 

 

3. Ties of Ellipsis (or substitution by zero) 

A: Who wrote this article? 
B: Bill.

In this context "Bill” - standing alone without a predicate – functions elliptically to express the entire proposition, “Bill wrote the article." 

 

4. Ties of Conjunction 
Christmas is coming; however, the weather seems very un-Christmaslike. Here the conjunctive adverb “however” signals a tie between the clause that follows and the clause that precedes it. In this case it means that the two events/states are somehow in conflict or signal a counter expectation – at least in the mind of the person who produced this short piece of text. 

Patrick: Why would I want to beat up Eddie? He's one of the best roommatesI've ever had. 
John: Oh, compared to what – to Darryl? Yeah, I'm sure he is.
Patrick: No, compare to all the other ones too. He's one of the best.
.John: What about Carey?
Patrick: Carey was the best, but I only had him for six weeks in summer.
John: You didn't have him long enough for him to turn bad on you.Patrick: That's true, I guess. 
(UCLA oral corpus, see endnote 11) 

" In this dialog, there is a cohesive referential tie in Patrick's first turn between “Eddie” and “He." In John's first turn, the referential and cohesive use of “he” referring to “Eddie” continues; encoded in turn-final “s” there is also ellipsis of “one of the best roommates you've ever had.” In Patrick's second turn, not only does the referential and cohesive use of "he” persist, but the phrase “all the other ones too” contains two referential ties: “the” and “other.” Patrick's use of “the” suggests that knowledge of Patrick's past roommates is information shared by John and Patrick; Patrick's use of “other” is a special type of comparative reference that forms a cohesive tie with respect to “Darryl” (other than Darryl). The same phrase contains the nominal substitute “ones,” which forms a cohesive tie with “roommates” and which makes it possible for Patrick to avoid repeating “roommates” here. The use of “too” at the end of the first clause would be considered an additive cohesive connective by many analysts (paraphrasable with “also”). In the same turn by Patrick, we also see ellipsis in the phrase “one of the best,” with omission of the noun "roommates” after “best,” thus using another device to avoid repetition. There are no cohesive ties in John's second turn, but Patrick's third turn starts with “Carey was the best,” which again is elliptical with cohesive omission of “roommate” after “best.” The connective “but” – coming between the two clauses in this turn by Patrick – expresses a cohesive tie of contrast between the clauses. In the second clause of this turn "him” refers cohesively to “Carey.” In his third and final turn John also uses “him” twice to refer cohesively to “Carey.” Patrick, in his final turn, uses the referential demonstrative "that” to refer back cohesively to the entire preceding sentence uttered by John, a practice sometimes referred to as "text reference.”

 

 

■ All languages make use of cohesive ties: The way in which and the extent to which a particular type of tie is preferred or used, however, is language specific.