During the period I have been working on this project I have received institutional support of several kinds, for which I am most grateful. I thank the Institute for Advanced Study at Stanford University, and the Spencer Foundation, for a stimulating environment in which the basic idea of this book was developed. The Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics at Nijmegen enabled me to spend several months working on the the manuscript. ANational Science Foundation grant to develop Discourse Representation theory, and a grant from The University Research Institute of the University of Texas,...

While working on this project I have received institutional support of several kinds, for which I am most grateful. I thank the Institute for Advanced Study at Stanford University, and the Spencer Foundation. for a stimulating environment in which the basic idea of this book was developed. The Max Planck Institute for Psycho linguistics at Nijmegen enabled me to spend several months working on the the manuscript. A National Science Foundation grant to develop Discourse Representation Theory, and a grant from The University Research Institute of the University of Texas, also gave me time to...

In studying discourse, the problem for the linguist is to find a fruitful level of analysis. Carlota Smith offers a new approach with this study of discourse passages, units of several sentences or more. She introduces the key idea of the "Discourse Mode," identifying five modes: Narrative, Description, Report, Information, Argument. Smith analyzes the properties that distinguish each mode, focusing on grammatical rather than lexical information. The book also examines presentational matters: topic and focus; variation in syntactic structure; and subjectivity, or point of view.