Discourse Coherence and Clause Combination
The previous chapters of this book have focussed mainly on the grammar of clause combination and how this system patterns in synchronic and diachronic corpora. This chapter returns to the notion of coherence and cohesion, and explores in more depth how th
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Discourse Coherence and Clause Combination
6.1
Introduction
The previous chapters of this book have focussed mainly on the grammar of clause combination and how this system patterns in synchronic and diachronic corpora. This chapter returns to the notion of coherence and cohesion, and explores in more depth how these discourse phenomena pattern with English clause combination. The importance of coherence in relation to clause grammar was sketched out in the introductory chapter on the Adaptive Approach to Grammar (Givón 2015), and has played a role in the interpretation of data throughout the book. For example, the theory proposes that the function of clause grammar from the standpoint of cognition is to act as a coherence coding mechanism for propositional relations in discourse (Givón 2002). Therefore, much of the explanatory work in accounting for the grammatical patterns and development of the English clause system resides in the broader notion of discourse coherence, rather than a more narrow conception of syntax. This chapter describes several related models of cohesion and coherence in English, and integrates this research with the Adaptive Approach to Grammar and the English clause system as described in this book. The chapter explores how the clause hierarchy of English, given its role in managing discourse coherence, interacts with other ways of managing discourse coherence in English such as through explicit cohesive ties and other, less explicit, rhetorical relations. Evidence is presented that suggests the functional role of grammar claimed by the Adaptive Approach can be seen in how it interacts with, and in some cases displaces, the coherence functions of more discourse level phenomenon, such as explicit cohesive ties. Moreover, the chapter demonstrates that extended relations, such as those that hold between sentences and larger stretches of discourse, can be systematically found in clause combination, thus supporting the argument for a continuum of coherence management from discourse to grammar, with the latter deriving from the former.
© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017 C. Green, Patterns and Development in the English Clause System, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-2881-6_6
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6 Discourse Coherence and Clause Combination
Cohesion and Coherence
It has long been noted, particularly in experimental psycholinguistics (Haviland and Clark 1974), that a bias exists in favour of studying how syntactic relations contribute to the processing of isolated propositions. Part of what is interesting and unique about the Adaptive Approach to Grammar is that Givón (2015) proposes discourse and grammar are not independent properties in cognition but exist along a continuum, and local syntactic relations play a role in discourse processing beyond the propositions within which they occur. This functional role is essentially one of coherence management. The clause hierarchy for example, as described in Chaps. 1–3, spans a continuum of multi-propositional integration that at one end relies more on loc
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