Ever since the formulation of Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) by Mann and Thompson, researchers have debated about what is the ‘right’ number of relations. One proposal is based on the discourse markers (connectives) signalling the presence of a particular relationship. In this paper, I discuss the adequacy of such a proposal, in the light of two different corpus studies: a study of conversat...

Most storytelling model approaches consider stories formed by sequences of a particular type of event. These sequences are mostly constructed using the inherent temporal characteristic of each linked event and this limitation makes it difficult to adapt the models to other kinds of events. In order to develop a more generic model to create storytelling applications, we need to organize events u...

Scott and Souza have posed the problem of how a rhetorical structure in which proposi tions are linked by rhetorical relations but not yet arranged in a linear order can be realized by a text structure in which propositions are ordered and linked up by appropriate discourse connectives Almost all work on this problem assumes implicitly or explicitly that this map ping is governed by a constrain...

SThis paper will analyse an introduction to a research article using three approaches to discourseanalysis: Swales’ (1990) Genre Analysis, Hoey’s (1991) bonding theory and Mann and Thompson’s(1986) rhetorical structure theory. Swales looks for writer strategies; Hoey focuses on collocation,while Mann and Thompson look for relations among propositions. However, all three produce<...

To understand a discourse the reader needs to recover the relations between the discourse elements as intended by the writer Writers can and very often do help the reader along by providing explicit lexical signals of the intended discourse relations through the use of lexicalised discourse markers In this paper we present a novel approach for generating texts containing multiple embedded rheto...

To understand a discourse, the reader needs to recover the relations between the discourse elements as intended by the writer. Writers can, and very often do, help the reader along by providing explicit lexical signals of the intended discourse relations through the use of lexicalised discourse markers. In this paper we present a novel approach for generating texts containing multiple, embedded...

Deliberation is an increasingly used concept in Argumentation Theory and Linguistic Analysis. But only recently research combined empirical and conceptual tool-boxes from these disciplines for the study of deliberative discourse. The aim of this article is to present a discursive analysis of deliberation as a genre using the relational discourse structure of texts. In particular, we want to see...

Scott and Souza (1990) have posed the problem of how a rhetorical structure (in which propositions are linked by rhetorical relations, but not yet arranged in a linear order) can be realized by a text structure (in which propositions are ordered and linked up by appropriate discourse connectives). Almost all work on this problem assumes, implicitly or explicitly, that this mapping is governed b...