Temporal structure and coherence in discourse

A representation model for the interpretation of discourse should contain both temporal relations and coherence relations. The research proposed here focuses on the interaction between temporal relations and coherence relations in the interpretation of discourse and attempts to describe this interaction formally. The interpretation of (temporal) coherence relations and of their linguistic expressions, connectives, depends on factors traditionally envisaged as being of a pragmatic nature (real world knowledge, the beliefs of writer and reader, reasoning based on these beliefs, and the discourse situation). An account of (temporal) coherence should employ a broad concept of meaning, including ideational, rhetorical and attentional forms of meaning. These types of meaning are involved in the representation model proposed here. The formalized (interaction of) factors determining the interpretation of temporal meaning and factors determining the interpretation of causal and contrastive meaning, enable us to formulate conditions (on context) on the generation of temporal, causal and contrastive connectives.