Questions: Discourse Coherence and Rhetorical Relations

Question 1

Consider two texts: (A) 'John fell. Mary pushed him.' and (B) 'John fell. Mary caught him.' In A we understand Mary as the cause of the fall; in B she is helping him. Neither text explicitly states a causal relationship. What produces these different interpretations?

• A. The different verbs ('pushed' vs. 'caught') directly encode causation in their semantic entries
• B. Coherence relations inferred between the clauses — causal in A, result/sequence in B — determine the causal structure the reader constructs
• C. Anaphoric binding of 'him' differs between the two texts, producing different event interpretations
• D. Past tense encodes temporal ordering differently in the two sentences

Answer: (B)

Neither text explicitly states that Mary caused John's fall or helped him. The reader infers the causal structure by identifying the most plausible coherence relation linking the clauses. In (A), the most plausible relation is causal (Mary's action explains the fall); in (B), it is narrative sequence with result (she responded to the fall). These relations are inferred — not encoded — but they have concrete semantic consequences for the event structure the reader constructs.

Question 2

In a pure narration sequence — 'Max walked in. He sat down. He ordered coffee' — pronoun 'he' consistently refers to Max. In a contrast sequence — 'Max ordered coffee. Bill had tea. He paid and left' — the final 'he' is ambiguous. What explains the difference?

• A. Narration uses first-person pronouns while contrast uses third-person, creating structural ambiguity
• B. The narration relation keeps the main event participant (Max) salient across clauses, while the contrast relation introduces a new contrastive topic (Bill), dividing focus and making the subsequent pronoun ambiguous
• C. Verb tense in narration sequences uniquely resolves pronoun reference in ways contrast sequences cannot
• D. Pronouns in contrast sequences always refer to the most recently mentioned noun

Answer: (B)

Coherence relations directly influence focus structure, and focus structure determines which entities are accessible for pronominal reference. Narration keeps the main event participant as the center of attention across clauses, making pronouns unambiguous. Contrast introduces a new contrastive topic, splitting attention between two entities and making subsequent pronouns ambiguous. The coherence relation acts as a constraint on anaphora resolution — get the relation wrong and pronoun reference becomes misassigned.

Question 3

Coherence relations such as narration, explanation, and contrast are inferred by listeners through world knowledge and plausibility reasoning, rather than being directly encoded in the sentences themselves.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: True

This is a central claim of discourse coherence theory. Unlike grammatical relations that are syntactically encoded, coherence relations are pragmatically inferred. Readers use world knowledge, genre conventions, and plausibility to identify which relation connects two propositions. This is why 'John fell. Mary pushed him' and 'John fell. Mary caught him' receive such different causal interpretations — the sentences themselves don't encode the causal structure; it is inferred by finding the most plausible connecting relation.

Question 4

In a narration sequence, pronoun reference is more ambiguous than in a contrast sequence, because multiple narrative events compete for salience.

• T. True
• F. False

Answer: False

The opposite is true. Narration sequences keep the main event participant salient across clauses, making pronoun reference relatively unambiguous — 'he' consistently refers to the narrative subject. In contrast sequences, a new entity is introduced as a contrastive topic, splitting focus and making subsequent pronoun reference ambiguous. Coherence relations concentrate or distribute salience: narration concentrates it on one participant, contrast distributes it across two.

Question 5

Explain how coherence relations constrain the interpretation of temporal expressions like the past perfect ('had spilled'), using an example.

Model answer: Coherence relations set the temporal frame within which tense and aspect are interpreted. In 'John entered the room. He had spilled something on his tie,' the past perfect signals that the spilling is prior to the entering — but more specifically, the reader infers an elaboration relation: the second clause provides background about John's state as he entered, rather than advancing the narrative sequence. Without this inferred relation, you might misparse the timeline. The coherence relation determines the function each clause plays in discourse structure, which shapes how tense and aspect are understood.

Temporal expressions and coherence relations are mutually constraining: each provides clues for interpreting the other. The past perfect 'had spilled' signals backgrounding, which is consistent with the elaboration relation; conversely, recognizing an elaboration relation supports the past-perfect reading as background state rather than narrative advance. This interplay shows that discourse interpretation is not simply the sum of individual sentence meanings.