Markedness and topic continuity in discourse processing

Charles R. Fletcher

doi:10.1016/S0022-5371(84)90309-8

Markedness and topic continuity in discourse processing

Charles R. Fletcher

Psychology (Twin Cities)

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

63 Scopus citations

Abstract

Two experiments are presented in support of the hypothesis that various syntactic constructions hierarchize along a continuum which codes the degree of topic continuity in a discourse. In the first experiment subjects were asked to rewrite two short sentences as a single long sentence. They were allowed to rephrase the second sentence to make their new, combined sentence sound natural. The form of the referent in the second sentence was found to depend on its continuity with the topic of the other sentence. Subjects tended to use unmarked linguistic forms in cases of high topic continuity and marked forms when there was a topic shift. In the second experiment subjects were asked to interpret discourse fragments which contained ambiguous referents. The less marked the form of the referent was, the more likely subjects were to interpret it as coreferential with the preceding topic.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	487-493
Number of pages	7
Journal	Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior
Volume	23
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5371(84)90309-8
State	Published - Aug 1984

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant 15872 to Walter Kintsch. I thank Lisa Van der Veer, Walter Kintsch, Talmy Giv6n, Herbert Clark, Elizabeth Bates, and an anonymous reviewer for their many helpful comments. Reprint requests should be addressed to Charles R. Fletcher, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, 75 East River Rd., Minneapolis, Minn. 55455.

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title = "Markedness and topic continuity in discourse processing",

abstract = "Two experiments are presented in support of the hypothesis that various syntactic constructions hierarchize along a continuum which codes the degree of topic continuity in a discourse. In the first experiment subjects were asked to rewrite two short sentences as a single long sentence. They were allowed to rephrase the second sentence to make their new, combined sentence sound natural. The form of the referent in the second sentence was found to depend on its continuity with the topic of the other sentence. Subjects tended to use unmarked linguistic forms in cases of high topic continuity and marked forms when there was a topic shift. In the second experiment subjects were asked to interpret discourse fragments which contained ambiguous referents. The less marked the form of the referent was, the more likely subjects were to interpret it as coreferential with the preceding topic.",

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AB - Two experiments are presented in support of the hypothesis that various syntactic constructions hierarchize along a continuum which codes the degree of topic continuity in a discourse. In the first experiment subjects were asked to rewrite two short sentences as a single long sentence. They were allowed to rephrase the second sentence to make their new, combined sentence sound natural. The form of the referent in the second sentence was found to depend on its continuity with the topic of the other sentence. Subjects tended to use unmarked linguistic forms in cases of high topic continuity and marked forms when there was a topic shift. In the second experiment subjects were asked to interpret discourse fragments which contained ambiguous referents. The less marked the form of the referent was, the more likely subjects were to interpret it as coreferential with the preceding topic.

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Markedness and topic continuity in discourse processing

Abstract

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