The Grammar of Discourse

by Robert E. Longacre

1 Monologue Discourse.- 1.1 Discourse Typology in Notional and Surface Structures.- 1.1.1 Notional Types.- 1.1.2 Surface Structure Types.- 1.1.3 Skewing of Notional and Surface Structure.- 1.1.4 Embedding Relations of the Five Surface Structure Types.- 1.2 Main Line vs Supportive Material.- 1.3 The Composer.- 1.4 Plot And Similar Structures.- 1.4.1 Plot as Notional Structure.- 1.4.2 Correlation of Notional and Surface Features.- 1.4.3 Marking of the Surface Structure Peak.- 1.4.4 Similar Structures.- 2 Repartee.- 2.1 Simple Repartee.- 2.2 Complex Repartee.- 2.3 Abeyance Repartee.- 2.4 Compound Repartee.- 2.5 Non-Verbal Resolution and Further Paragraph Types.- 2.6 The Number of Speakers in a Dialogue.- 2.7 Out of Phase Relations Between Notional And Surface Structures.- 2.8 Repartee as A Game.- 2.9 Summary.- 3 Combination Of Predications.- 3.1 Conjoining.- 3.1.1 Coupling.- 3.1.2 Contrast.- 3.1.3 Comparison.- 3.2 Alternation.- 3.2.1 Alternation with Only Two Possible Alternatives.- 3.2.2 Alternation with More than Two Alternatives.- 3.3 Temporal.- 3.3.1 Overlap.- 3.3.2 Succession.- 3.4 Implication.- 3.4.1 Conditionality.- 3.4.2 Causation.- 3.4.3 Contrafactuality.- 3.4.4 Warning.- 3.5 Paraphrase.- 3.5.1 Equivalence Paraphrase.- 3.5.2 Negated Antonym Paraphrase and Similar Structures.- 3.5.3 Generic-specific Paraphrase.- 3.5.4 Amplification Paraphrase.- 3.5.5 Specific-generic Paraphrase.- 3.5.6 Contraction Paraphrase.- 3.5.7 Summary Paraphrase.- 3.6 Illustration.- 3.6.1 Simile.- 3.6.2 Exemplification.- 3.7 Deixis.- 3.7.1 Introduction.- 3.7.2 Identification.- 3.7.3 Some Further Varieties of Deixis.- 3.8 Attribution.- 3.8.1 Speech Attribution.- 3.8.2 Awareness Attribution.- 3.9 Frustration.- 3.9.1 Frustrated Coupling.- 3.9.2 Frustrated Succession.- 3.9.3 Frustrated Overlap.- 3.9.4 Frustrated Hypothesis.- 3.9.5 Frustrated Contingency.- 3.9.6 Frustrated Efficient Cause.- 3.9.7 Frustrated Final Cause.- 3.9.8 Frustrated Attribution.- 3.9.9 Frustrated Modality.- 3.9.10 Some Restrictions.- 3.10 Definition of Symbols.- 4 Cases or Roles.- 4.1 Experiencer.- 4.2 Patient.- 4.3 Agent.- 4.4 Range.- 4.5 Measure.- 4.6 Instrument.- 4.7 Locative.- 4.8 Source.- 4.9 Goal.- 4.10 Path.- 4.11 Peripheral Cases.- 4.12 Cases Posited by Hale and the Pikes.- 5 Case Frames.- 5.1 A Scheme of Case Frames.- 5.1.1 Ambient Case Frames.- 5.1.2 Ambient-Experiential Case Frames.- 5.1.3 Experiential Case Frames.- 5.1.4 Factual Knowledge Case Frames.- 5.1.5 Case Frames of Desire/Cognition.- 5.1.6 Case Frames of Sensation, etc.- 5.1.7 Physical Case Frames.- 5.1.8 Case Frames of Measure.- 5.1.9 Locative Case Frames.- 5.1.10 Case Frames of Motion, Propulsion, Locomotion.- 5.1.11 Case Frames Referring to Property.- 5.2 Further Systematic Concerns.- 5.2.1 Reflexives.- 5.2.2 Causatives.- 5.2.3 Surface Structure Passives.- 5.2.4 Existentials and Equatives.- 5.3 Relevance of Case Frames to Discourse.- 5.3.1 Generatively.- 5.3.2 Analytically.- 6 Some Further Levels of Notional Structure.- 6.1 Derivation.- 6.2 Inflection.- 6.2.1 Verb Inflection.- 6.2.2 Noun Inflection.- 6.3 Concretion.- 6.3.1 Nominal Concretions.- 6.3.2 Verb Concretions.- 6.4 Performatives.- 6.4.1 Repartee Performatives.- 6.4.2 Type-Specific Performatives.- 7 A Framework for Discourse Analysis.- 7.1 Hierarchy.- 7.2 Tagmeme and Syntagmeme.- 7.3 The Law of Primary Exponence.- 7.4 General Theory of Exponence.- 7.5 Characteristics of the Various Levels.- 7.6 Variety in Nature.- 7.7 Similarities Between Levels.- 7.8 Some Deviant Schematizations.- 7.9 Notional and Surface Structure in a Hierarchical Framework.- 7.10 Surface Structure Meaning.- 7.11 Notional Structure Form.- 7.12 Mapping of Notional Levels Onto Surface Levels.- 7.13 Tagmeme and Syntagmeme in This Setting.- 7.14 Multiple Perspective.- 7.15 A Trimodal Model.- 8 A Concluding Toward Maximum Context.- The Notional and Surface Structure of English Clauses.

Genres: Linguistics

379 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 31, 1995

Reviews

[Fred Kohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert E. Longacre seems to be one of the pioneers in applying discourse analysis to scripture, and this seemed to be a primary text on this type of analysis. I was disappointed that the book was not primarily about scriptural analysis. That’s ok, though, since I found that much of the book is quite applicable to analyzing scripture. For example, there is a bizarre cult-like movement called Israel Only (IO) that thinks the salvation discourse applies only to ancient Israelites. A favorite scripture of theirs is Matthew 15.24: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” which they rip out of context to make their point. But Longacre aptly notes, "A discourse of any size and complexity is never a simple linear sequence of sentences. Sentences cluster and clump into units of various size." Since Matthew 15.24 is part of a dialogue, the chapter on dialogue came in very handy in analyzing this pericope.

A disadvantage I had in reading this book is that it assumes more than a passing knowledge of linguistics. So when I hit the chapter on dialogue I found that I needed to look up some of the technical language, such as surface structure and notional structure, and to reread some earlier chapters. A couple of the later chapters I just skimmed through because the material was technical and for the most part irrelevant to my purposes. I’m not sure this book is worth the effort for someone like me that simply wants to dive a little deeper into discourse analysis as it applies to biblical exegesis, but I sure did appreciate the chapter on dialogue.

[Lu Tsun · Rating 3 out of 5]

If Longacre's method succeeds, we can teach computers to speak in human languages. Too technical.