Causal Coherence Relations and Levels of Discourse Representation

Bibliographic Data

ID11273697
AuthorsGerben Mulder (0000-0002-1569-520X, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, corresponding author), Ted J M Sanders, Ted Sanders (0000-0001-8212-7336, Utrecht University)
Year2012
Volume49
Issue6
Pages501-522
Publication date2012-08-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueDiscourse Processes (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0163-853X • E-ISSN: 1532-6950
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0163853x.2012.692655
OpenAlexW2120947462
LanguageEN
Citations received14
References cited40

This study focused on the cognitive representation of causal coherence relations linguistically marked with the connective because. This article investigated whether these local causal relations are represented both at the level of the textbase and the situation model. Following earlier studies investigating the psychological validity of levels of discourse representation, this study used a sentence recognition paradigm in which the connective used to indicate the relation between sentences was manipulated. The recognition results obtained in two experiments show that participants only detect changes made at the level of the situation model (because vs. and), but they do not detect differences at the level in surface code (two variants of the Dutch because) and textbase (because vs. after). As no evidence of a separate textbase representation was found, the results suggest that local causal relations are represented at the level of the situation model only

Causal model · Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Coherence (philosophical gambling strategy · Linguistics · Natural language processing · Relation (database · Representation (politics · Sentence · Statistics · Computer Science · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Mathematics · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism · Psychology · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation