We propose a mapping between prosodic phenomena and semantico-pragmatic effects based upon the hypothesis tha t intonation conveys information about the intent ional as well as the attentional s t ructure of discourse. In part icular, we discuss how variations in pitch range and choice of accent and tune can help to convey such information as: discourse segmentat ion and topic structure, approp...

One of the central issues in the study of discourse anaphora is concerned with the problem of anaphoric distribution in discourse, namely how to account for the choice of a particular referential/anaphoric form at a particular point in discourse. Needless to say, anaphoric distribution in discourse is a very complex phenomenon, involving, among other things, structural, cognitive and pragmatic ...

A question and its answer are closely related at the discourse level: a (non-rhetorical) question requires an answer and an answer is appropriate only with respect to a question. Still, a question and its answer are associated with two independent objects at the syntactic and semantic level. A question is often realized as a matrix interrogative clause and is commonly assumed to denote a set of...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present descriptive characteristics of the historical development of concept networks. The linguistic principles, mechanisms and motivations behind the evolution of concept networks are discussed. Implications emanating from the idea of the historical development of concept networks are discussed in relation to knowledge representation and organization ...

Discourse markers, a group of pragmatic elements, are used widely in our daily communication. Among these markers, well is found to be the most frequently used one in conversation. Although much research has been carried out on its theoretical bases such as its definition, functions and categorizations, few studies have taken a multimodal approach in analyzing this marker. The aim of the presen...

This study examined how motivation for learning English, the amount of contact with English, and  length  of  residence  in  the  target language area affects Korean graduate students’ English pragmatic skills. The study attempted to account for differential pragmatic development among 50  graduate-level  Korean  students  in  relation  to  individual  factors  mentioned  above.  The  data were...

onveying a strong message within a language stems from not only a linguistically appropriate utterance but also a pragmatically appropriate discourse. Broadly considering various facets of pragmatics, pragmatic assessment has not been potentially brought into perspective. To address this discourse gap, this study, guided by the principles of mixed-method design, pursued three purposes: ...

In order to enrich dynamic semantic theories with a ‘pragmatic’ capacity, we combine dynamic and nonmonotonic (preferential) logics in a modal logic setting. We extend a fragment of Van Benthem and De Rijke’s dynamic modal logic with additional preferential operators in the underlying static logic, which enables us to define defeasible (pragmatic) entailments over a given piece of discourse. We...