Directionality in discourse: prominence differences in subordination relations

Abstract

This paper proposes a new approach to discourse directionality, a phenomenon which, as is well known, is neither well defined nor adequately accounted for. Directionality is the property of (a part of) a discourse to be directed towards a 'goal', usually implying asymmetric functional relations between the discourse units involved. The direction of such an asymmetric discourse relation depends on whether the unit that provides the goal-satisfying value precedes or follows the unit which is subservient to it. Fundamental to our proposal is an analysis of directionality in terms of the topic-comment distinction. Within this framework directionality is defined as a recursive property assigned to higher-order and lower-order discourse relations central to which is the assumption that they are realized by explicit or implicit topic-forming questions. It will be shown that the distinction that can be made between three types of directionality is precisely a function of three different ways of quantitative/qualitative subordination realized by subquestioning. Apart from the resulting theory providing a solution to the definition problem, it also provides an answer to the determination problem which implies that we attribute a criterion to distinguish dominant discourse units from subservient ones. In addition, the theory contributes to the much discussed issue of an adequate formalization of those discourse elaboration processes that do not involve a new partial value but merely support an already introduced 'subject matter'