1932

Abstract

The primary goal of coherence theory is to provide an explanation for the coherence properties of discourse: what properties distinguish a discourse from a mere collection of utterances, and what drives comprehenders to draw inferences in service of establishing coherence. However, the importance of coherence theory goes well beyond that; it also plays a crucial role in theories of a variety of discourse-dependent linguistic phenomena. This article surveys some ways in which coherence theory has been leveraged in this way, appealing to both Relational analyses and Question-Under-Discussion models. Theories of coherence establishment should therefore have a place in the linguist's toolbox as a source of explanation in linguistic theory.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011619-030357
2022-01-14
2025-04-24
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/linguistics/8/1/annurev-linguistics-011619-030357.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011619-030357&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Allen JF, Perrault CR. 1980.. Analyzing intention in utterances. . Artif. Intell. 15:(3):14378
    [Google Scholar]
  2. AnderBois S. 2010.. Sluicing as anaphora to issues. . Proc. Semant. Linguist. Theory 20::45170
    [Google Scholar]
  3. AnderBois S. 2014.. The semantics of sluicing: beyond truth-conditions. . Language 90:(4):887926
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Arregui A, Clifton C, Frazier L, Moulton K. 2006.. Processing elided verb phrases with flawed antecedents: the recycling hypothesis. . J. Mem. Lang. 55:(2):23246
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Asher N, Lascarides A. 2003.. Logics of Conversation. Cambridge, UK:: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Barros M. 2014.. Sluicing and identity in ellipsis. PhD Thesis , Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, NJ:
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Büring D. 2003.. On D-trees, beans, and B-accents. . Linguist. Philos. 26::51145
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Carlson L. 1983.. Dialogue Games: An Approach to Discourse Analysis. Dordrecht, Neth:.: Reidel
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Cohen PR, Morgan J, Pollack ME. 1990.. Introduction. . In Intentions in Communication, ed. PR Cohen, J Morgan, ME Pollack , pp. 113. Cambridge, MA:: Bradford/MIT Press
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Cohen PR, Perrault CR. 1979.. Elements of a plan-based theory of speech acts. . Cogn. Sci. 3::177213
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Comrie B. 1985.. Tense. Cambridge, UK:: Cambridge Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Dahl Ö. 1974.. How to open a sentence: abstraction in natural language. Log. Gramm. Rep. 12 , Univ. Göteborg, Göteborg, Swed:
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Dalrymple M. 2005.. Against reconstruction in ellipsis. . In Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, Vol. 81: Ellipsis and Nonsentential Speech, ed. R Elugardo, RJ Stainton , pp. 3155. Dordrecht:: Springer Netherlands Published version of technical report circulated in 1991.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Elliott PD, Nicolae A, Sudo Y. 2014.. The sticky reading: VP ellipsis without parallel binding. . In Proceedings of the 24th Conference on Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT 24), pp. 64055. Washington, DC:: Linguist. Soc. Am.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Frazier L, Clifton C. 2006.. Ellipsis and discourse coherence. . Linguist. Philos. 29:(3):31546
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Fukumura K, van Gompel RPG. 2010.. Choosing anaphoric expressions: Do people take into account likelihood of reference?. J. Mem. Lang. 62::5266
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Ginzburg J. 1996.. Dynamics and the semantics of dialog. . In Language, Logic and Computation, Vol. 1, ed. J Seligman , pp. 22137. Stanford, CA:: CSLI Publ.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Ginzburg J. 2012.. The Interactive Stance. Oxford, UK:: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Ginzburg J, Sag IA. 2000.. Interrogative Investigations: The Form, Meaning, and Use of English Interrogatives. Stanford, CA:: CSLI Publ.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Goldsmith J. 1985.. A principled exception to the coordinate structure constraint. . In Papers from the Twenty-First Annual Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, pp. 13343. Chicago:: Chicago Linguist. Soc.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Grant M, Clifton C, Frazier L. 2012.. The role of non-actuality implicatures in processing elided constituents. . J. Mem. Lang. 66:(1):32643
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Grosz BJ, Sidner CL. 1986.. Attention, intentions, and the structure of discourse. . Comput. Linguist. 12:(3):175204
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Halliday M, Hasan R. 1976.. Cohesion in English. London:: Longman
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Hardt D. 1992.. Verb phrase ellipsis and semantic identity. . In Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT 2), pp. 14561. Washington, DC:: Linguist. Soc. Am.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Hardt D. 1999.. Dynamic interpretation of verb phrase ellipsis. . Linguist. Philos. 22:(2):187221
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Hinrichs E. 1986.. Temporal anaphora in discourses of English. . Linguist. Philos. 9::6382
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Hobbs JR. 1979.. Coherence and coreference. . Cogn. Sci. 3::6790
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Hobbs JR. 1990.. Literature and Cognition. Stanford, CA:: CSLI Publ.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Hobbs JR. 1997.. On the relation between the informational and intentional perspectives on discourse. . In Computational and Conversational Discourse, ed. EH Hovy, DR Scott , pp. 13957. Berlin:: Springer-Verlag
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Hobbs JR, Stickel ME, Appelt DE, Martin P. 1993.. Interpretation as abduction. . Artif. Intell. 63::69142
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Hume D. 1955 (1748.). An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding. New York:: Lib. Arts Press
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Jacobson P. 2016.. The short answer: implications for direct compositionality (and vice versa). . Language 92:(2):33175
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Kaiser E. 2011.. On the relation between coherence relations and anaphoric demonstratives in German. . In Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 15, pp. 33751. Saarbrücken, Ger:.: Saarland Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Kaiser E, Cherqaoui B. 2016.. Effects of coherence on anaphor resolution, and vice versa: evidence from French personal pronouns and anaphoric demonstratives. . In Empirical Perspectives on Anaphora Resolution, ed. A Holler, K Suckow , pp. 5178. Berlin/Boston:: De Gruyter Mouton
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Kehler A. 1993.. The effect of establishing coherence in ellipsis and anaphora resolution. . In Proceedings of the 31st Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, pp. 6269. Stroudsburg, PA:: Assoc. Comput. Linguist.
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Kehler A. 2000.. Coherence and the resolution of ellipsis. . Linguist. Philos. 23:(6):53375
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Kehler A. 2002.. Coherence, Reference, and the Theory of Grammar. Stanford, CA:: CSLI Publ.
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Kehler A. 2005.. Coherence-driven constraints on the placement of accent. . In Proceedings of the 15th Conference on Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT 15), pp. 98115. Washington, DC:: Linguist. Soc. Am.
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Kehler A. 2015.. On QUD-based licensing of strict and sloppy ambiguities. . In Proceedings of the 25th Conference on Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT 25), pp. 51232. Washington, DC:: Linguist. Soc. Am.
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Kehler A. 2019.. Ellipsis and discourse. . In The Oxford Handbook of Ellipsis, ed. J van Craenenbroeck, T Temmerman , pp. 31441. Oxford, UK:: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  41. Kehler A, Büring D. 2008.. Be bound or be disjoint!. In Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistic Society (NELS 38), Vol. 1, ed. A Schardl, M Walkow, M Abdurrahman , pp. 487501. Amherst, MA:: Grad. Linguist. Stud. Assoc.
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Kehler A, Kertz L, Rohde H, Elman JL. 2008.. Coherence and coreference revisited. . J. Semant. 25:(1):144
    [Google Scholar]
  43. Kehler A, Rohde H. 2013.. A probabilistic reconciliation of coherence-driven and centering-driven theories of pronoun interpretation. . Theor. Linguist. 39:(1–2):137
    [Google Scholar]
  44. Kehler A, Rohde H. 2016.. Evaluating an expectation-driven QUD model of discourse interpretation. . Discourse Process. 54::21938
    [Google Scholar]
  45. Kehler A, Rohde H. 2019.. Prominence and coherence in a Bayesian theory of pronoun interpretation. . J. Pragmat. 154::6378
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Kertz L. 2008.. Focus structure and acceptability in verb phrase ellipsis. . In Proceedings of the 27th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, pp. 28391. Los Angeles: Univ. Calif., Los Angeles:
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Kertz L. 2013.. Verb phrase ellipsis: the view from information structure. . Language 89:(3):390428
    [Google Scholar]
  48. Kertz L, Kehler A, Elman JL. 2006.. Grammatical and coherence-based factors in pronoun interpretation. . In Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, pp. 163641. Austin, Tex:.: Cogn. Sci. Soc.
    [Google Scholar]
  49. Keshet E. 2013.. Sloppy identity unbound. . In Proceedings of the 23rd Conference on Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT 23), ed. T Snider , pp. 41231. Washington, DC:: Linguist. Soc. Am.
    [Google Scholar]
  50. Kim C, Runner J. 2009.. Strict identity, coherence, and parallelism in VP ellipsis. . In Proceedings of the 19th Conference on Semantics and Linguistic Theory (SALT 19), pp. 27587. Washington, DC:: Linguist. Soc. Am.
    [Google Scholar]
  51. Kim C, Runner J. 2011.. Discourse structure and syntactic parallelism in VP ellipsis. . In UMass Occasional Papers in Linguistics: Processing Linguistic Structure, ed. J Harris, M Grant , pp. 75102. Amherst, MA:: Grad. Linguist. Stud. Assoc.
    [Google Scholar]
  52. Kuno S. 1976.. Subject, theme, and the speaker's empathy—a reexamination of the relativization phenomena. . In Subject and Topic, ed. CN Li , pp. 41944. New York:: Academic
    [Google Scholar]
  53. Kuno S. 1987.. Functional Syntax—Anaphora, Discourse and Empathy. Chicago/London:: Univ. Chicago Press
    [Google Scholar]
  54. Lakoff G. 1986.. Frame semantic control of the coordinate structure constraint. . In CLS-22, Part 2: Papers from the Parasession on Pragmatics and Grammatical Theory at the Twenty-Second Annual Regional Meeting, pp. 15267. Chicago:: Chicago Linguist. Soc.
    [Google Scholar]
  55. Lascarides A, Asher N. 1993.. Temporal interpretation, discourse relations, and common sense entailment. . Linguist. Philos. 16:(5):43793
    [Google Scholar]
  56. Levin N, Prince EF. 1986.. Gapping and causal implicature. . Papers Linguist. 19::35164
    [Google Scholar]
  57. Longacre RE. 1983.. The Grammar of Discourse. New York:: Plenum
    [Google Scholar]
  58. Mann WC, Thompson SA. 1987.. Rhetorical Structure Theory: a theory of text organization. Tech. Rep. RS-87-190, Inf. Sci. Inst., Univ. South. Calif. , Marina del Rey
    [Google Scholar]
  59. Miller P, Hemforth B. 2014.. VP ellipsis beyond syntactic identity: the case of nominal antecedents. Work. Pap. Diderot Univ., Paris, Fr:
    [Google Scholar]
  60. Miller P, Pullum GK. 2014.. Exophoric VP ellipsis. . In The Core and the Periphery: Data-Driven Perspectives on Syntax Inspired by Ivan A. Sag, ed. P Hofmeister, E Norcliffe , pp. 532. Stanford, CA:: CSLI Publ.
    [Google Scholar]
  61. Nerbonne J. 1986.. Reference time and time in narration. . Linguist. Philos. 9::8395
    [Google Scholar]
  62. Partee B. 1984.. Nominal and temporal anaphora. . Linguist. Philos. 7::24386
    [Google Scholar]
  63. Polanyi L. 1988.. A formal model of the structure of discourse. . J. Pragmat. 12::60138
    [Google Scholar]
  64. Poppels T, Kehler A. 2019.. Ellipsis and the QUD: evidence from sluicing with nominal antecedents. Paper presented at the 8th Experimental Pragmatics Conference (XPRAG 2019 ), Edinburgh, UK:, June 19–21
    [Google Scholar]
  65. Prasad R, Dinesh N, Lee A, Miltsakaki E, Robaldo L, et al. 2008.. The Penn Discourse Treebank 2.0. . In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 296168. Paris:: Eur. Lang. Res. Assoc.
    [Google Scholar]
  66. Reichenbach H. 1947.. Elements of Symbolic Logic. New York:: Macmillan
    [Google Scholar]
  67. Roberts C. 2012.. Information structure in discourse: towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics. . Semant. Pragmat. 5:(6):169 Published version of draft circulated in 1996 and amended in 1998.
    [Google Scholar]
  68. Rohde H. 2008.. Coherence-driven effects in sentence and discourse processing. PhD Thesis , Univ. Calif., San Diego, La Jolla:
    [Google Scholar]
  69. Rohde H, Kehler A. 2014.. Grammatical and information-structural influences on pronoun production. . Lang. Cogn. Neurosci. 29:(8):91227
    [Google Scholar]
  70. Rohde H, Kehler A, Elman JL. 2007.. Pronoun interpretation as a side effect of discourse coherence. . In Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2007), pp. 61722. Austin, TX:: Cogn. Sci. Soc.
    [Google Scholar]
  71. Rosa EC, Arnold JE. 2017.. Predictability affects production: thematic roles can affect reference form selection. . J. Mem. Lang. 94::4360
    [Google Scholar]
  72. Ross JR. 1967.. Constraints on variables in syntax. PhD Thesis, MIT, Cambridge, MA:
    [Google Scholar]
  73. Sanders TJM, Spooren WPM, Noordman LGM. 1992.. Toward a taxonomy of coherence relations. . Discourse Process. 15::135
    [Google Scholar]
  74. SanPietro SA, Xiang M, Merchant J. 2012.. Accounting for voice mismatch in ellipsis. . In Proceedings of the 30th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, pp. 3242. Somerville, MA:: Cascadilla Proc. Proj.
    [Google Scholar]
  75. Schwarzschild R. 1999.. Givenness, AvoidF, and other constraints on the placement of accent. . Nat. Lang. Semant. 7::14177
    [Google Scholar]
  76. Stalnaker R. 1979.. Assertion. . In Syntax and Semantics 9: Pragmatics, ed. P Cole , pp. 31532. New York:: Academic
    [Google Scholar]
  77. van Kuppevelt J. 1995.. Discourse structure, topicality, and questioning. . J. Linguist. 31::10947
    [Google Scholar]
  78. Webber BL. 1988.. Tense as discourse anaphor. . Comput. Linguist. 14:(2):6173
    [Google Scholar]
  79. Webber BL, Prasad R, Lee A, Joshi A. 2019.. The Penn Discourse Treebank 3.0 Annotation Manual. https://catalog.ldc.upenn.edu/docs/LDC2019T05/PDTB3-Annotation-Manual.pdf
    [Google Scholar]
  80. Webber BL, Stone M, Joshi A, Knott A. 2003.. Anaphora and discourse structure. . Comput. Linguist. 29:(4):54587
    [Google Scholar]
  81. Weir A. 2014.. Fragment answers and the question under discussion. . In Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the North East Linguistics Society (NELS 38), ed. J Iyer, L Kusmer , pp. 25566. Amherst, MA:: Grad. Linguist. Stud. Assoc.
    [Google Scholar]
  82. Winograd T. 1972.. Understanding Natural Language. New York:: Academic
    [Google Scholar]
  83. Wolf F, Gibson E. 2006.. Coherence in Natural Language: Data Structures and Applications. Cambridge, MA:: MIT Press
    [Google Scholar]
  84. Zhan M, Levy R, Kehler A. 2020.. Pronoun interpretation in Mandarin Chinese follows principles of Bayesian inference. . PLOS ONE 15:(8):e0237012
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011619-030357
Loading
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011619-030357
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Review Article
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error