1
Abstract
The aim of this thesis is to discover the factors controlling the selection, placement and 
order of more than one discourse marker in a single text span. By discourse marker we 
mean linking words or phrases, examples of which are .and., .nevertheless. and .in other 
words.. The majority of studies to date implicitly assume that only one discourse relation 
or marker will occur in a sentence. However, in reality, many relations may occur in a 
sentence and so may many markers (as is the case in this sentence). When many markers 
occur in a sentence, we call this multiple discourse marker occurrence.  
The motivation for this work is two-fold: first, we aim to develop a theory of the ordering 
of multiple markers in written text. Second, we intend to use this theory to enable natural 
language generation systems to produce more complex texts than are possible at present. 
The methodology employed in this work is as follows. From the available literature, we 
established a list of all discourse markers in English. Then, using this list, the British 
National Corpus (BNC) and Mann and Thompson.s (1988) Rhetorical Relations, we 
created a database of the number and type of relation each marker can cue. Preliminary 
tests on the BNC suggested markers that could cue many relations (we refer to these as 
weak) often preceded those that could cue few relations (we refer to these as strong). This 
led us to hypothesise that when multiple markers occur in written text, weaker markers 
will precede stronger ones.  
In order to test this hypothesis, the results from the database were used to create 
hierarchies of weak and strong discourse markers. For the testing phase, we concentrated 
on contrastive markers only. The contrastive hierarchy was divided into six sections 
ranging from very weak to very strong markers.  
Two types of multiple marker occurrence were identified: simple and complex. Tests 
were conducted using grammatical category and marker strength to establish whether 
these factors could account for the order of occurrence of simple multiple markers. Both 
performed well, though neither could account for the ordering of correlative discourse 
markers (i.e., pairs such as if..then or firstly.secondly). Next, the strength factor was 
tested on complex marker occurrence. This factor did not account well for this type of 
occurrence, the results being only slightly better than random.  
In sum, we show that our hierarchies based on marker strength are useful tools in 
governing the order of occurrence of simple multiple markers. Although grammatical 
category appears to be slightly more accurate than marker strength, the hierarchies 
provide additional contextual and relational information which is not available when 
using grammatical category alone.  
This is one of the first studies to analyse the occurrence of multiple discourse markers 
and the very first to employ large natural language corpora in order to do this. One of the 
major contributions of this study is an empirically-based listing of more than 300 
discourse markers and their associated rhetorical relations.   
  2
  
Table of Contents
1.  Discourse markers and relations ........................................................................... 11 
1.1. Defining discourse markers .................................................................................. 11 
1.1.1. Differences in classification..........................................................................12 
1.1.2.  Similarities in definition ............................................................................... 14 
1.2.  A sociolinguistic-based approach to discourse coherence.................................... 15 
1.2.1.  The five planes of talk: Schiffrin.s model of discourse coherence............... 16 
1.2.2.  Problems with an integrated model of coherence ......................................... 18 
1.3.  A segmentation-based approach to discourse coherence: Grosz and Sidner........ 20 
1.4.  Relation-based approaches to discourse coherence .............................................. 22 
1.4.1.  Rhetorical structure theory: Mann & Thompson.......................................... 22 
1.4.2.  The need for a 2 level account of discourse relations: Moore & Pollack ..... 23 
1.4.3.  The need for a 3 level account of discourse relations: Maier & Hovy ......... 27 
1.4.4.  The need for a 4 level inferential account of discourse relations: Hobbs..... 30 
1.5.  Using discourse markers to establish a set of relations: Knott ............................. 34 
1.6.  Psychological-based approaches to discourse coherence ..................................... 37 
1.6.1.  Sanders, Spooren & Noordman .................................................................... 37 
1.6.2.  Scott & Souza ............................................................................................... 39 
2.  The role of discourse markers in computational linguistics ............................... 43 
2.1.  Generation of single discourse markers................................................................ 44 
2.1.1.  Distinguishing between similar discourse markers without using relations: 
Elhadad & McKeown ................................................................................................... 44 
2.1.2.  Using syntax and discourse markers to generate relations: Grote, Lenke & 
Stede 48 
2.2.  Discourse markers in languages other than English ............................................. 54 
2.2.1.  French discourse markers: Hansen ............................................................... 54 
2.2.2.  Discourse markers in English, French and Portuguese: Delin, Scott & 
Hartley  57 
2.3.  Multiple markers and relations in computational linguistics................................ 59 
2.3.1.  Webber, Knott & Joshi ................................................................................. 60 
2.3.2.  Power, Scott & Doran................................................................................... 64 
2.4.  Possibilities for research ....................................................................................... 69 
2.5.  The focus of this thesis ......................................................................................... 71 
3.  Discourse markers and multiple occurrences ...................................................... 73 
3.1.  Multiple discourse markers................................................................................... 75 
3.2.  Factors affecting multiple marker occurrence ...................................................... 79 
  3
3.3.  Factor 1: Grammatical category............................................................................ 82 
3.3.1.  Coordinators, subordinators and conjunctive adverbs .................................. 82 
3.4. Factor 2: Hypernyms............................................................................................. 86 
4.  A database of discourse markers........................................................................... 89 
4.1.  Results from the BNC........................................................................................... 90 
4.2.  Discourse marker strength .................................................................................... 93 
4.3.  A hierarchy of discourse markers ......................................................................... 95 
5.  Testing the strength hypothesis ........................................................................... 100 
5.1.  The test corpus .................................................................................................... 100 
5.2.  The influence of strength on simple multiple marker occurrence ...................... 102 
5.2.1. Methodology............................................................................................... 106 
5.2.2.  Results......................................................................................................... 110 
5.3.  The influence of grammatical category on simple multiple markers ................. 125 
5.3.1. Methodology............................................................................................... 125 
5.3.2.  Results......................................................................................................... 127 
5.3.3.  Correlative markers, multiple markers and grammatical category............. 134 
5.4.  The interaction between grammatical category and marker strength ................. 137 
5.5.  Strength and complex occurrences ..................................................................... 143 
5.6.  Summary of results for simple and complex multiple marker occurrences........ 144 
6.  Conclusions............................................................................................................ 146 
6.1.  A summary of this thesis..................................................................................... 146 
6.2.  The contributions of this thesis ........................................................................... 149 
6.3.  Evaluation of this thesis ...................................................................................... 152 
6.4. Further research .................................................................................................. 155 
7.  Appendix................................................................................................................ 157 
7.1. Further hierarchies .............................................................................................. 157 
7.2.  Results from the ICE corpus for grammatical category: Patterns 1-8 ................ 159 
7.3.  The influence of strength on complex multiple marker occurrences.................. 162 
7.3.1. Methodology............................................................................................... 163 
7.3.2.  Results: complex occurrences..................................................................... 164 
8.  Bibliography.......................................................................................................... 169 
 
  4
Table of Figures
Figure 1: An Annotated Model of Discourse Coherence (Schiffrin, 1987:25)................. 19 
Figure 2: An RST Representation of Intentional and Informational Relations (Moore & 
Pollack, 1992:543) .................................................................................................... 26 
Figure 3:  The CAUSE relations in RST and Hobbs. Theory of Discourse Processing... 33 
Figure 4: Choosing a Discourse Marker to Represent a Hypotactic Concessive Relation 
(Grote et al, 1995:29)................................................................................................ 53 
Figure 5: Comparing L-TAG Elementary Trees & RST Schemas................................... 62 
Figure 6: L-TAG Tree for Example 29 (Webber et al., 1999a)........................................ 63 
Figure 7: RST-tree for Embedded Discourse Relations (Power et al., 1999)................... 68 
Figure 8: L-TAG Representation of Embedded Relations ............................................... 69 
Figure 9: An example of simple multiple markers ........................................................... 77 
Figure 10: An example of complex multiple marker occurrence ..................................... 78 
Figure 11: A typical discourse structure. The nodes are discourse relations; the leaves are 
propositions............................................................................................................... 79 
Figure 12: A portion of Knott.s (1995) Taxonomy .......................................................... 87 
Figure 13: Complete results from the database showing markers and all possible relations 
they may cue ............................................................................................................. 92 
Figure 14: The contrastive family hierarchy..................................................................... 98 
Figure 15: The causal family hierarchy ............................................................................ 99 
Figure 16: The division of strength in the hierarchy....................................................... 110 
Figure 17: Differences in strength and grammatical category........................................ 138 
Figure 18: The grammatical categories of markers in the contrastive family hierarchy 139 
 
  5
Acknowledgements
Having taken so much from family, friends and colleagues over the past years, this is my 
chance to give a bit back. I.m sure, however, that they.ll be even more pleased by the fact 
that they will never again have to explain exactly what it is that I.ve been doing for the 
last few years. We.re all capable of using words like .however. and .but., we do so every 
day without even giving it a thought. Not surprising then that people have problems 
understanding why someone with my education has so much trouble with them. You.ll 
have to read the rest of this thesis to find out why.  
I have been supported in many ways throughout my studies. Brighton University took me 
on as a street juggler and helped me to become an educated, interested, linguist. Thanks 
to all those, too many to mention who have helped me on my way. Of these people it was 
Prof. Tony Hartley who first encouraged me to consider research and gave me the 
courage to think that I could do so. My supervisors, Prof. Donia Scott and Dr. Richard 
Power, gave me their direction, knowledge and advice without which I would never have 
got through the initial stages. They also provided me with helpful comments on this 
thesis and the papers I have published. Thanks also to Dr Raf Salkie who gave me my 
first chance at academic writing and to Vivienne Wicks whose support and kindness has 
not gone unnoticed. The EPSRC provided me with funds to undertake this research. 
Thankyou Alex, Lou, Jon H, Neil, Chris, Lyndsey, Jon P and my brother Ben for their 
interest and disinterest, encouragement and realism, drunken nights in cheesy clubs and 
heart to hearts in smoky bars, shopping expeditions, feeding me (especially the blue 
cheese risottos and the early morning breakfasts), putting a roof over my head, taking my 
mind off things, helping me to concentrate, giving me a shoulder to cry on or to sleep on, 
for our adventures and for just being excellent friends. Thanks to John for all of the above 
and much more. 
Finally, the greatest thanks has to be given to my wonderful Mum and Dad without whom 
everything really wouldn.t have been possible. They always have and will forever be an 
inspiration to me.   
  6
Declaration
I hereby declare that I composed this thesis entirely by myself and that it describes my 
own research. 

 
Sarah Louise Oates. Brighton. July, 2001
  7
Introduction 
The majority of studies on discourse markers implicitly assume that only one marker or 
discourse relation will occur in a sentence. However, in reality, more than one relation 
may hold between text spans and each relation may be explicitly signalled by a discourse 
marker. Additionally, many discourse markers can be combined to cue a single discourse 
relation. Since the occurrence of multiple markers has been overlooked in much of the 
research to date, there are no available constraints for natural language generation on the 
number and type of discourse markers that may co-occur. This is the aim of this thesis: to 
provide a set of constraints which may be used by a generation system to determine the 
choice, placement and order of multiple discourse markers in written text. We find that 
the choice and placement of discourse markers is greatly affected by the presence of other 
markers, the style of the text and, most importantly, the strength of other markers in the 
text span. This thesis describes the methodology behind the construction and evaluation 
of discourse marker hierarchies which account for these factors in order to guide the 
generation process. Each chapter of this thesis is summarised below. 
Chapter 1: Discourse markers and relations
Despite the paucity of work on multiple discourse markers, there is a plethora of work in 
both computational linguistics and discourse analysis on the role of single discourse 
markers. Exactly what it is that constitutes a .discourse marker. has been the subject of 
many papers. Chapter 1 examines the competing definitions, comparing the similarities 
and differences in order that we may provide our own definition of the term (given in 
chapter 3). In this chapter, we concentrate on discourse markers and relations in theories 
of discourse analysis. These range from sociolinguistic studies to psychological and 
relation-based theories of discourse coherence. 
  8
Chapter 2: The role of discourse markers in computational linguistics
Chapter 2 examines the role of discourse markers in computational linguistics. We assess 
why discourse markers are so important to text coherence beginning with the generation 
of similar discourse markers, for example those that are used for the same relations and 
with the same constraints on occurrence. This is followed by a discussion on how the 
rules for similar markers can be used to account for languages other than English. To 
conclude our examination of existing theories of discourse marker usage, we examine 
possible areas for further research. These include, amongst other factors, further 
crosslinguistic study of discourse markers, a comparison of markers in spoken and 
written language and further research into the role of semantic and pragmatic relations in 
text generation. Finally, we discuss the recently emergent research topic, and the focus of 
this thesis . the generation of multiple discourse markers.  In conclusion we outline the 
aims and objectives of this thesis. 
Chapter 3: Discourse markers and multiple occurrences?
In this chapter, we define exactly what we mean by the terms .discourse marker. and 
.multiple discourse markers.. We distinguish two main types of multiple marker 
occurrence (simple and complex) and give examples from the British National Corpus 
(BNC) of the two types. Next, we detail exactly what is expected of a generation system 
when generating more than one marker. Four potential problem areas are highlighted; (1) 
whether to mark the relation, (2) which marker(s) to use, (3) where to place the marker(s) 
and (4) how to order multiple markers. Problems 2-4 are discussed in detail, since it is 
these problems that are the focus of the work in this thesis.  
Before detailing the solution proposed in this thesis, we examine two possible factors 
from the literature that may affect the placement of multiple markers. The first is the role 
of grammatical category. Previous work on this factor and embedded multiple markers 
has been undertaken by Power, Scott & Doran (1999). The second is Knott.s (1995) 
taxonomy of discourse markers. The merits and problems of each of these solutions is 
considered. Chapter 5 tests the first of these solutions against the solution we propose in 
chapter 4. 
  9
Chapter 4: A database of discourse markers
We present here the hypothesis that the number of relations a marker can cue (we refer to 
this as the marker.s strength) will determine, not only the other markers with which it 
may co-occur, but also the order in which they may occur together. This hypothesis was 
formed after the preliminary tests conducted on the BNC showed that more general 
markers (e.g. and) tended to occur before those that were more specific (e.g. 
nevertheless). To test this hypothesis, we built a database of discourse markers and 
relations containing information on the number and type of relations each marker may 
cue. From the database, hierarchies were built containing information on the strength of 
each marker.  
In this chapter, we describe exactly what is meant by the term .strength. and present the 
methodology behind the corpus studies used to build the database and hierarchies. A 
portion of the database is also provided, as are the contrastive and causal discourse 
marker hierarchies.  
Chapter 5: Testing the strength hypothesis
Chapter 5 tests our hypothesis against a set of rules we establish using grammatical 
category. The scope of this study is described in terms of the size of the corpus and the 
test set of discourse markers. Tests on simple multiple markers are described and the 
results are presented. The results from the corpus show that both discourse marker 
strength and grammatical category can be used to determine the order of occurrence of 
simple markers.  While grammatical category was most accurate overall, marker strength 
has the added advantage of providing additional information on the selection of discourse 
markers since every marker is assigned a number of relations it may cue. Neither factor 
accounted well for correlative discourse markers.  
Next we discuss the interaction between strength and grammatical category suggesting 
that the strength of a marker is determined by its grammatical category. We argue that 
since there are relatively few coordinators in English, it is necessary that they be weak, in 
other words, that they may be employed for a number of relations. On the other hand, 
  10
since there are many conjunctive adverbs, language affords them greater specificity. Thus 
conjunctive adverbs are, generally, strong discourse markers. From this we deduce that 
the reason multiple markers occur is to ensure that the reader uncovers the intended 
discourse relation. As coordinators are available for so many relations, a second, more 
specific (or strong) marker is necessary to make the intended relation explicit. This 
argument is supported by our corpus study which showed that the majority of 
occurrences of multiple markers contain a coordinator followed by a conjunctive adverb. 
Finally, results from testing strength against complex multiple marker occurrence are also 
given. Strength was not successful in accounting for this type of marker occurrence. 
Chapter 6: Conclusions
The aim of this thesis is to determine which factors affect the selection, placement and 
order of multiple discourse markers in text. In this final chapter we summarise the steps 
taken in order to complete this objective. Next, the main contributions of this thesis to 
natural language generation and discourse analysis are discussed alongside contributions 
to the wider research community. The methodology and results of this thesis are 
evaluated, in particular, concerns about inter-judge reliability and the efficiency of our 
hypothesis are raised. Following this evaluation, we suggest possible areas for further 
research.  
 
  11
1. Discourse markers and relations
In this chapter we investigate the current breadth of research on discourse markers and 
relations. The research covers a broad spectrum of disciplines ranging from 
sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics to discourse analysis and computational linguistics. 
Before examining these areas, however, we discuss the similarities and differences in 
existing definitions of the term .discourse marker.. 
1.1. Defining discourse markers
The term discourse markers (Schiffrin, 1987) covers a heterogeneous set of words and 
phrases ranging from those widely accepted as discourse markers like the coordinate 
conjunctions and, or and but to the less accepted interjections, well, oh, verbs, look, see, 
and literally used phrases like to repeat, what I mean to say, overall (Fraser, 1990).  
In addition to the term discourse marker, numerous other expressions are widely used 
within the literature, for example, cue phrases (Grosz & Sidner, 1986), cue words (Hovy, 
1993b), clue words (Reichman, 1981), clue phrases (Cohen, 1987), discourse cues (Di 
Eugenio et al., 1997), discourse connectives (Webber et al., 1999a), connectives (Elhadad 
& McKeown, 1990) clausal connectives (Knott & Mellish, 1996) and rhetorical markers 
(Scott & Souza, 1990). Marcu (1997a) uses the terms .discourse marker. and .cue phrase. 
with different meanings: a .cue phrase. is a potential discourse marker having both a 
sentential and discourse usage. Whilst a .discourse marker. is only used to signal 
rhetorical relations. It does not have a sentential usage. 
Thus, subsumed under each of these terms is a range of definitions and within each 
definition a different set of discourse markers is suggested. At first glance, therefore, it 
would seem that there is very little consensus among studies. 
However, further comparison reveals that some agreement does exist over a basic set of 
markers. It is generally accepted, for example, that coordinate and subordinate 
conjunctions should be classed as discourse markers as should adverbials (Jayez & 
  12
Rossari, 1998; Millis et al., 1995; Rey, 1997). A degree of consensus has also been 
reached over the exclusion of verbs and terms like anyway and okay, most studies opting 
to exclude these expressions from their classification (Sanders, 1997; Lenk, 1998). 
Nevertheless, the decision to include or exclude other grammatical categories outside of 
this basic set is a contentious one.  
1.1.1. Differences in classification
Many studies (Knott, 1995; Rey, 1997; Millis et al., 1995) do not refer to interjections 
and comment clauses, like oh, well, and y.know, mind you. Whether this is an argument 
for them being excluded from the classification is unclear. However, amongst the studies 
that do refer to these expressions, the following arguments are forwarded both for and 
against their inclusion. 
Fraser  (1990:392) argues that interjections should not be classed as discourse markers as 
they encode an entire basic message, for example, the interjection oh is encoded as I 
acknowledge receipt of an unanticipated previous message. However, a detailed study of 
spoken discourse by Schiffrin (1987) showed how oh is used to mark clarifications, 
display speaker.s and hearer.s productive and receptive capacities and to signal to the 
hearer that the speaker is referring back to given information which has now become 
relevant. Schiffrin refers to this as a change in information state1. In the example below 
the speaker is indicating that the second utterance is a digression from the main topic 
(seeing Mrs Smith). Oh signals that a new piece of information (Mrs Smith.s daughter 
having a baby), is related in some way to previously given information (for example, had 
the speaker been talking earlier about her daughter having a baby): 
1.  I saw Mrs Smith the other day, oh her daughter.s having a baby soon 
The use of oh in this example clearly does not encode an entire message, suggesting that, 
in contrast to Fraser.s argument, interjections and oh in particular should be included in a 
                                                 
1 Schiffrin’s model of discourse including the information state is discussed in section 1.2
  13
taxonomy of discourse markers. Moreover, we find further inconsistencies in Fraser.s 
argument. 
Firstly, the comment clauses okay and all right are not excluded from his classification of 
discourse markers even though it could be argued that these markers can also encode an 
entire message. For example, both markers may be interpreted as Let.s move on to the 
next topic now.  
Secondly, despite allowing the above comment clauses to be classified as discourse 
markers, Fraser then argues for the exclusion of y.know and I mean stating that discourse 
markers function to signal a sequential discourse relationship and that y.know and I mean 
only signal solidarity. However, not only does this statement contradict his exclusion of 
oh which has been shown to reflect a sequential relationship between clauses (i.e. that the 
clause containing oh refers back to earlier information in the discourse), but it has also 
been shown through empirical tests that comment clauses like y.know and I mean 
function to structure the surrounding discourse and make such relations between 
utterances explicit (Redeker, 1990).  
A further candidate for exclusion from a taxonomy of discourse markers is the set of 
apposition markers which includes, amongst others, for example, that is (to say), for 
short, for instance, and in other words. Once again, many studies do not refer to these 
markers and it is difficult, therefore, to judge whether they have been deliberately 
excluded or simply overlooked. However, Blakemore (1996) devotes a full paper to argue 
for their exclusion. According to Blakemore (1996:346), .the interpretation of all 
utterances is constrained by the search for relevance., thus discourse is coherent because 
of the inferences that the hearer makes in order to establish the context in which the 
utterance should be interpreted. The term discourse marker within this theory only 
applies to expressions which contribute to the implicit side of conversation, implicatures. 
However, it is argued that apposition markers should not be classed as discourse markers 
as they only contribute to the explicit side of conversation making the hearer much less 
reliant on the context to make inferences.  
  14
A further reason for not including apposition markers within a set of discourse markers is 
provided by comparison of Schiffrin (1987) and Blakemore.s studies. Schiffrin argues 
that discourse markers connect speech acts and Blakemore argues that certain apposition 
markers, that is and in other words, are speech acts themselves, distinct from the 
propositions they connect. If both accounts are accepted, then speech acts should not be 
used to connect other speech acts and, therefore, apposition markers should be excluded 
from a taxonomy of discourse markers.  
1.1.2. Similarities in definition
Whether all of the expressions above should be included within a taxonomy of discourse 
markers remains an open question. The problem seems to lie in the fact that some 
expressions appear to be more typical of a discourse marker than others. Power (personal 
communication) has suggested seven features that make a prototypical discourse marker: 
• Range of the discourse marker:  
Discourse markers tend to be wide-ranging when compared to other lexical 
connectives (like of for example). If a phrase or word can link sentences or 
paragraphs, we may be more inclined to call it a discourse marker.  
• Syntactic role of the discourse marker: 
A discourse marker usually has a loose syntactic connection to the phrase, 
therefore enabling it to be placed in one of several spaces in a sentence.  
• Meaning of the discourse marker: 
Although purely semantic relations do exist, discourse markers tend to convey 
pragmatic information.  
• Meaning of the spans: 
A discourse marker will connect spans which are propositions or contain 
eventualities. 
• Syntactic category of the discourse marker: 
The prototypical discourse marker is a conjunction, adverb or preposition. 
Discourse markers are rarely adjectives, nouns or verbs. 
• Syntactic categories of the spans: 
Discourse markers usually connect complete clauses. 
• Textual relation of the spans: 
A discourse marker will usually connect a span to its left to a span on its right.  
  15
A comparison of definitions from different studies shows that there is some agreement 
over what a discourse marker does and, therefore, how it may be defined.  For example, 
in all studies on discourse markers it is agreed that discourse markers signal how one 
utterance is to be interpreted given another utterance. In other words, a discourse marker 
is used to make the relation between propositions explicit (Millis et al., 1995; Knott, 
1995; Moore & Pollack, 1992). However, most also agree that the relation between 
clauses may exist without the presence of a discourse marker (Scott & Souza, 1990; 
Fraser & Malamud-Makowski, 1996; Millis et al., 1995; Knott, 1995) and that, in such 
cases, recovering the relation is done through inferencing (Redeker, 1990; Blakemore, 
1989; Schiffrin, 1987). Furthermore, a number of studies have also suggested that 
discourse markers can signal relations on a global level by connecting paragraphs  (Lenk, 
1998; Hovy, 1993b; Knott, 1995), although the majority of work on discourse markers 
has and continues to focus on their local use between clauses and sentences without 
reference to their global usage.  
In reference to Power.s features, one can conclude that the basic set of markers will have 
all or most of these features, whereas those described above which have either been 
excluded or ignored within theories of discourse coherence will possess far fewer 
features. Ultimately, as was illustrated by Blakemore.s exclusion of apposition markers, 
it will be the particular theory of discourse coherence that defines a discourse marker. 
The following sections will explore the role of discourse markers within sociolinguistic, 
segmentation, psychological and relation based theories of discourse coherence.   
1.2. A sociolinguistic-based approach to discourse coherence
Schiffrin.s (1987) study of discourse markers was based upon their use in spoken 
discourse. A small set of markers were examined (oh, well, and, but, or, so, because, 
now, then, I mean, y.know) and explained in terms of a model of discourse coherence. 
The model of discourse coherence comprises five planes of talk (see Figure 1): the 
exchange structure, the action structure, the ideational structure, the participation 
framework and the information state. Although discourse markers have a primary 
  16
function on only one of these planes, it is possible for them to function on more than one 
plane at a time, thus binding the different levels of discourse to make it coherent. 
1.2.1. The five planes of talk: Schiffrin’s model of discourse coherence
The first two structures to be described here (exchange and action) are the only planes of 
talk to consist solely of non-linguistic units. As will be shown, however, these non-
linguistic units are realised through discourse markers which enable the speaker and 
hearer to explicitly mark the structure of the discourse. 
Within the exchange structure, the units of talk are turns. The exchange structure 
accounts for the alternation of roles between the speaker and the hearer and the way in 
which this alternation can be signalled. Because of the emphasis on turns in this structure, 
it is only appropriate for describing dialogue, not monologue. The discourse markers 
well, and, but, so, or and y.know all signal a change in the exchange structure. For 
example, but signals that the hearer wishes to take a turn, and so marks either the 
completion of a turn or is used by the speaker to continue their turn. 
Next is the action structure. This structure refers to the speaker.s identity, the social 
setting and the preceding speech acts to account for those speech acts that are expected to 
occur in the discourse and those that actually do occur. Oh, well, and, but, so, because 
and then are all markers of the action structure. Both but and and are used by a speaker to 
continue their turn regardless of the other speaker.s activity.  
The units of the ideational structure are propositions, or .ideas.  (Schiffrin, 1987:26). 
Schiffrin argues that three types of relation can hold between ideas. Firstly, there are 
cohesive relations which are established when the interpretation of one clause 
presupposes information from another. Secondly, there are topic and subtopic relations 
that exist between ideas, although the combination of all subtopics will not necessarily 
produce the overriding topic of the discourse. Finally, there is the notion of functional 
relations which takes account of the effect of conjoining two or more ideas. For example, 
one idea may provide evidence or background information for another idea. All of the 
discourse markers examined in this study except oh could be used to mark relations 
  17
between idea units. For example, I mean signals that one utterance is a paraphrase of 
another.  
The participation framework explains how the speaker and hearer relate to one another 
through the discourse and also how they relate to the discourse themselves, for example 
by performing direct or indirect speech acts or by relinquishing or fighting for a turn in 
the ongoing discourse. Oh, well, so, now, I mean and y.know are all used to mark aspects 
of the participation framework. For example, well is used by a speaker to warn the hearer 
that their response should not be interpreted as a direct answer to a question and that there 
will be a digression before a relevant answer is given.  
Schiffrin has excluded but from this category. However, it could be argued that this 
discourse marker is also used within the participation framework in order to warn the 
speaker that the following utterance will be against their expectations. This use of but is 
referred to as the .denial of expectation. use (Blakemore, 1989). The difference between 
this and its contrastive use is illustrated in the example below: 
2.  (a) Tim is tall but Sean is short.  
(b) Carl is a conservative but Laura likes him. 
Example (a) contrasts tall and short, whereas example (b) does not signal contrast, but 
denies the contextual implication that because Carl is a conservative, Laura won.t like 
him. Thus, but should be included as a marker of the participation framework, since, like 
well, it marks a relation between the speaker and the hearer: in this case, the speaker 
expects the hearer to make an inference and marks that the inference is incorrect, thus 
saving the hearer processing time when working out the relation between the utterances.  
The fifth plane of talk is the information state. The information state is constantly 
evolving; it accounts for the speaker.s and hearer.s own knowledge and what they know, 
or think they know about each other.s knowledge. The primary function of oh occurs in 
the information state in which it marks the receipt of information. A similar description 
of oh is given by Fraser  (1990) (see page 12) in his argument for its exclusion as a 
discourse marker. However, Fraser does not take account of the other functions of oh. 
Schiffrin argues it is also used to signal certain actions which involve the management of 
  18
information, for example, clarifications and prompts to the hearer to recall given 
information.  
Oh, well, so, because, then, I mean and y.know are all markers of the information state. 
However, once again, it is argued that but could also be included within this set as but in 
example (2b) can only be understood if the speaker and hearer actually share the same 
knowledge and the speaker believes that the hearer shares this knowledge. In example 
2(b), both must know that conservatives are either disliked in general or by Laura. The 
importance of distinguishing between the different uses of but will be made clear later in 
this thesis. 
1.2.2. Problems with an integrated model of coherence
The arguments above for the inclusion of but in the information state and participation 
framework illustrate a much greater problem with Schiffrin.s model of discourse 
coherence. Within this model, the integration of the different planes is a necessary part of 
coherence, with markers on different planes contributing directly to a coherent discourse.  
However, in areas these planes are so fully integrated that it is hard to distinguish 
between them. This results in the definitions of relations between propositions being 
imprecise. For example, functional relations do not only occur on the ideational level as 
Schiffrin (1987) suggests. The way in which functional relations are interpreted must also 
depend on world knowledge (the information state) and the way in which they are 
expressed, for example, whether they are expressed neutrally or subjectively (the 
participation framework).  
Schiffrin.s model was constructed only to account for the use of discourse markers; it 
cannot be used to predict which marker will be used or when. Although it does seem to 
account for all uses of the markers in the discourse analysed, this may be an artefact 
arising from the imprecision of the model rather than proof of its clarity and accuracy in 
accounting for discourse marker use.  
In the following section, Grosz and Sidner.s (1986) segmentation-based approach to 
discourse coherence is described in which greater emphasis is placed on the intentions 
  19
linking utterances rather than the explicit lexical realisation of these links through 
discourse markers.  
IDEATIONAL
STRUCTURE
ACTION
STRUCTURE
PROPOSITION TURN ACT
ACT PROPOSITION TURN
EXCHANGE
STRUCTURE
SPEAKER
HEARER
Non linguistic units
realised through the
linguistic units (ideas).
The non linguistic
units are pragmatic
because of the central
role that speakers and
hearers play in
negotiating their
organisation.
Dialogue only
Linguistic units.
Propositions are
referred to as ’idea
units’ (i.e. ideas
with semantic
content
INFORMATION
STATE
The cognitive capacities of
the speaker and the hearer
The information state is
constantly evolving during
talk. The information state
is pragmatically relevant as
it will affect talk
indirectly.
Invoves cohesive, topic
and functional relations
between propositions.
interpersonal requirements
of talk: non inguistic
Ritual constraints = System constraints =
mechanical reauirements
of talk: non linguistic
PARTICIPATION
FRAMEWORK
The relationship between the
speaker and the hearer
and their relation to talk.
 
Figure 1: An Annotated Model of Discourse Coherence (Schiffrin, 1987:25) 
 
  20
1.3. A segmentation-based approach to discourse coherence: Grosz and
Sidner
Like Schiffrin (1987), Grosz and Sidner (1986) emphasise the importance of non-
linguistic notions in their theory of discourse processing. Of the three components 
posited, only one is linguistic: the linguistic structure. The linguistic structure accounts 
for the actual structure of the sequence of utterances, for example, whether utterances are 
part of the same segment or related to a separate discourse segment.  
The second component is the non-linguistic attentional state which distinguishes the 
more salient information from the less salient information in order to ease the 
interpretation of subsequent segments of discourse. The speaker.s main intention behind 
uttering a segment is referred to as the discourse segment purpose or .DSP.. This, along 
with the objects and relations in the current discourse segment, is considered to be most 
important to processing and is therefore stored within a focus space until the next 
discourse segment is processed.  The attentional state is composed of a set of focus 
spaces, each holding the most salient information in each discourse segment. Transition 
rules can add or delete focus spaces. When a focus space is popped from the focus stack, 
this can be signalled with a discourse marker. The discourse markers anyway, but anyway 
and in any case are all suggested to signal a change in attentional state. The speaker 
would use these markers to signal a step back to a previous focus space, for example to 
continue with a previous topic of conversation. Other discourse markers like now and 
next do not distinguish between the creation of a new focus space or a return to an old 
one, they create a new discourse segment purpose without effecting a change in focus. 
The other non-linguistic component of Grosz and Sidner.s processing theory is the 
intentional structure. This is arguably the most important component of the theory 
given that their theory is built upon the premise that discourse is intention driven. Within 
the intentional structure are discourse segment purposes (DSPs) and discourse purposes 
(DPs). The notion of DPs and DSPs is similar to Schiffrin.s notion of topics and 
subtopics, both DSPs and subtopics contribute to the overall content of the discourse. 
However, topics and subtopics are composed solely of semantic content, whereas Grosz 
  21
and Sidner.s DPs and DSPs explain not only what the content of the discourse will be, 
but also why this content has been chosen and why a linguistic act has been used over 
and above any other act. DPs and DSPs are the intentions underlying a discourse. The DP 
is the overriding intention of the whole discourse and the DSP contributes to this 
intention. There can, therefore, be several DSPs in a discourse but only one DP. There is 
no finite list of DSPs. However, only two relations exist that can hold between them. 
These are referred to as the satisfaction-precedence relation and the dominance relation 
and are defined as follows: 
SATISFACTION-PRECEDENCE RELATION - DSP1 satisfaction-precedes DSP2 if DSP1 
must be satisfied before DSP2. 
DOMINANCE RELATION - an action that satisfies one intention (DSP1), may be 
intended part of the satisfaction of another (DSP2). In such cases DSP2 dominates 
DSP1   (Grosz & Sidner, 1986:179).   
Within this account of discourse processing, coherence is achieved through the 
recognition of DSPs and the relationships holding between them. According to Grosz and 
Sidner (1986:188), .cue phrases are the most distinguished linguistic means that speakers 
have for indicating discourse segment boundaries and conveying information about the 
DSP.. This argument is supported by earlier findings (Fillenbaum, 1971 cited in Scott & 
Souza, 1990)  that even when a text containing a discourse marker makes no sense at all, 
readers will still try to make sense of it in terms of the given marker. Nevertheless, as will 
be discussed in the next section, coherence in discourse may be achieved even without 
the use of discourse markers. Mann and Thompson (1988), for example, argue for a 
relation-based account of coherence within which the recognition of a text.s hierarchical 
structure and the relations within it will have a greater influence on coherence than the 
presence of explicit lexical cues.  
  22
1.4. Relation-based approaches to discourse coherence
1.4.1. Rhetorical structure theory: Mann & Thompson
In contrast to the two relations suggested by Grosz and Sidner (1986), Mann and 
Thompson (1988) argue that approximately twenty-three relations2 are necessary to 
account for discourse coherence. These .rhetorical relations. link different sections, or 
.spans., of text ranging from clauses to paragraphs. A single relation then holds over the 
text as a whole linking important and less important text spans (the nuclei and the 
satellites) and, in this way, a hierarchical structure is formed. This notion of text as a 
hierarchical structure linking nuclei and satellites is referred to as the .Rhetorical 
Structure Theory. (RST).  
A further difference between RST and Grosz and Sidner.s theory is the extent to which 
relations can account for discourse coherence. Grosz and Sidner take account of both 
relations and focus, whereas the principal component of coherence in RST are the 
underlying relations. 
Most rhetorical relations hold between a nucleus (N) and a satellite (S). The N and S are 
attributed to separate text spans. There are also a few multinuclear relations, for example 
SEQUENCE and CONTRAST, which have more than one nucleus. SEQUENCE, for example, 
has multiple nuclei which can be assigned to more than two text spans. However, in 
contrast to Grosz and Sidner.s relations, rhetorical relations cannot hold between 
overlapping text spans. This, and the exclusion of focus from their theory, partially 
explains why RST contains more than ten times the number of relations than does Grosz 
and Sidner.s theory.  
The satellite is the least important unit in a rhetorical relation as, according to Mann and 
Thompson, all satellites can be removed from a text without affecting its coherence. The 
                                                 
2 The number of relations proposed varies depending on the type of text being analysed, those
relations proposed in Mann and Thompson’s 1988 paper are unable to account for contracts and
poems, for example.
  23
nucleus, however, is more central to the writer.s purpose and cannot be removed without 
changing the effect of the text.  
The notion of the text.s effect is central to Mann and Thompson.s theory. All relation 
definitions contain an .effect. field which describes the intended effect of the text on the 
reader. Using the effect field, it is possible to split the relations into two groups; subject 
matter relations and presentational relations. Subject matter relations are defined as 
.those whose intended effect is that the reader [only] recognise the relation in question.  
(Mann & Thompson, 1988:18). In contrast, presentational relations, in addition to the 
intention that they are recognised by the reader, are also .those whose intended effect is 
to increase some inclination in the reader, such as the desire to act or degree of positive 
regard for, belief in, or acceptance of the nucleus. (Mann & Thompson, 1988:18). Mann 
and Thompson do not pursue this distinction any further.  
1.4.2. The need for a 2 level account of discourse relations: Moore &
Pollack
A study which does put emphasis on this distinction is Moore and Pollack (1992). They 
argue, firstly, that RST does not take proper account of this distinction between relations 
and, secondly, that Mann and Thompson are incorrect in their assumption that only a 
single relation can hold between consecutive text spans. This second claim by Moore and 
Pollack is not entirely accurate. Mann and Thompson do describe the occurrence of two 
relations simultaneously, they even create a term to refer to this phenomenon - .we call 
this overlap. (Mann & Thompson, 1988:28).  Overlap is distinguished from the 
phenomenon of ambiguity which occurs when several incompatible analyses are possible 
but only one may be plausible, by the fact that overlap only occurs when both analyses 
are plausible simultaneously. However, although Moore and Pollack.s second claim is 
due to a misinterpretation of the theory, rather than a fault with RST, they are justified in 
  24
stating that RST does not fully account for the distinction between subject matter and 
presentational relations or, in their terms, informational and intentional relations3 .  
Although RST, in principle, allows two interpretations of a relation to occur 
simultaneously, no means of representing this is provided by their rhetorical structure 
trees. The following example shows how either the intentional representation is given in 
which utterance (a) spans over (b) and the relation expressed is MOTIVATION, or the 
informational representation is given in which utterance (b) spans over (a) and the 
relation expressed is CONDITION.  
3.  (a)  S:  Come home by 5:00.   
(b)     Then we can go to the hardware store before it closes.  
 
(c)   H:  We don.t need to go to the hardware store.  
(d)     I borrowed a saw from Jane. (Moore & Pollack, 1992:541) 
The lack of distinction between these levels has implications for applications of RST. 
Moore and Pollack argue, for example, that a generation system must have access to 
these different levels of analysis simultaneously if it is expected to respond to statements 
or queries. Examples (3) and (4) show how both intentions and semantic information 
interact in the formulation of a response: (a) is a condition for (b); if H doesn.t get home 
by five, then the store will be closed. However, the response to (c-d) will depend entirely 
upon S.s intention. If S just wants to go to borrow a saw, then (e) below could be used. 
However, if S wants H to come home by 5:00 for some unmentioned reason, like a 
surprise visit from his mother, then S may try another means of MOTIVATION, for 
                                                 
3 Other studies have also argued for a distinction between informational and intentional relations.
For example, Rey (1997) argues that the only way to distinguish between parce que and
car/puisque in French is if a distinction is made between semantic (informational) and pragmatic
(intentional) levels of discourse and Redeker (1990) in her study of English discourse markers
shows that on the semantic level, there are ideational relations, and on the pragmatic level there
are both rhetorical relations and sequential relations. However, unlike Moore and Pollack,
Redeker (1990:367) argues that only one relation will hold at a time and that speakers will make a
“trade-off “ between pragmatic and semantic structure depending upon whether they are
conversing with a person that they know or a stranger. With strangers, more semantic relations
are used and marked, whereas with friends more pragmatic relations are used.
  25
example, using (f-g) to motivate H to come home because of the storm (Moore & 
Pollack, 1992:541).    
4.  (e)   S:   OK, I.ll see you at the usual time then. 
  
(f)  S:    Come home by 5:00 anyway.  
(g)     Or else you.ll get caught in the storm that.s moving in.  
 
Because of the way in which RST trees are constructed, it is not possible for more than 
one type of relation to be reflected. This problem is even greater when two relations 
occur simultaneously and have different text spans as their nucleus (see Figure 2). 
Therefore, as there is no one-to-one mapping between intentional and informational 
relations, RST is unable to handle examples like (3) and (4) in which both levels must be 
referred to in order to generate a response. However, we should note that such examples, 
of the type illustrated in Figure 2 and examples 3-4, also raise important questions for 
discourse marker occurrence. In the case where two relations occur simultaneously, we 
need to consider whether both relations should be marked explicitly and the number of 
markers that should be used to do so. Questions raised on the occurrence of multiple 
markers are answered later in this thesis.  
The following sections examine other studies that suggest further distinctions between 
discourse relations are necessary. The reasons for these distinctions and the way in which 
they should be organised are presented.   

  26
motivation
motivation
condition
condition
a b
c
a
b c
INTENTIONAL LEVEL
INFORMATIONAL LEVEL
(A) Come home by 5pm
(B) Then we can go to the hardware store before it closes
(C) That way we can finish the bookshelves tonight
In the above example, (a) coming home by five is the main proposition and (b) going to the hardware
store and (c) finishing the bookshelves are the motivation for getting home on time.
In this example, (c) finishing the bookshelves is the most important proposition for which conditions
(b) going to the hardware store and (a) coming home by 5pm must be fulfilled  
Figure 2: An RST Representation of Intentional and Informational Relations (Moore & 
Pollack, 1992:543)  

  27
1.4.3. The need for a 3 level account of discourse relations: Maier & Hovy
Maier and Hovy (1991) construct a taxonomy of discourse relations which has three 
overriding classes: ideational, interpersonal and textual relations4. They argue that the 
.indiscriminate intermixture. of these three types of relation is unsatisfactory and that 
although all ideational and interpersonal relations may play some presentational role 
within a text, this is by no means their primary function. For this reason, they claim that 
the presentational use of relations should be analysed as separate from their semantic 
(ideational) or intentional (interpersonal) use. To illustrate this point they show that 
SEQUENCE in RST can be used at the ideational level to cover temporal, spatial and 
ordinal sequence and at the text structuring level to cover presentational sequence and 
argue, therefore, that such differences in usage should be reflected in an account of 
discourse coherence.    
Ideational relations are used to inform the reader that a semantic link exists between the 
text spans. Maier and Hovy.s ideational relations are similar to Mann and Thompson.s 
(1988) subject-matter relations as their intended effect is solely that the reader recognise 
them. ELABORATION, CONTRAST, CAUSE and SEQUENCE are all suggested to be ideational 
relations. However, in contrast to Mann and Thompson, Maier and Hovy do take into 
account the role of discourse markers in discourse coherence5. In the following example, 
an ELABORATION relation exists between (a) and (b) in which the reader recognises that 
the information in (b) provides additional information on (a). This relation is signalled by 
the discourse marker for example: 
5.  (a) A higher-level language can be used on more complex symbol structures, such as lists, trees and 
character strings.  
(b) In LISP, for example, the contents of a number of storage cells in the underlying abstract 
machine can be interpreted together as representing a list of items. (Maier & Hovy, 1991) 
                                                 
4 This distinction is based upon Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) three metafunctions of language
which are used within their systemic-functional linguistics framework to describe a wider range of
phenomena in addition to discourse relations.
5 The fact that Mann and Thompson do not account for discourse markers in their theory is
discussed further in section 2.
  28
The next class of relations are referred to as interpersonal relations. Each relation in this 
class has its own specific effect on the reader. For example, to convince or motivate the 
reader to do something. They are, therefore, similar to Mann and Thompson.s (1988) 
presentational relations. However, Maier and Hovy further divide these relations into two 
subclasses: reader-related and writer-related relations. Reader-related relations affect the 
belief, attitude, desire and acceptance of the reader as well as their ability to carry out an 
action (for example, to understand a certain fact), whereas writer-related relations express 
the positive attitude of the writer towards the content of the text span. For example, by 
evaluating something the writer expresses their attitude towards the contents of a 
proposition.  
Although Schiffrin (1987) does not refer to relations in her study of discourse markers, 
there does seem to be some correspondence between the participation framework 
proposed in her study and Maier and Hovy.s interpersonal relations. Both make reference 
to the writers and readers and the relationships between them and the text. However, the 
units of talk in the participation framework account for the way in which speakers and 
hearers are related to all levels of talk; turns, acts and propositions, whereas Maier and 
Hovy.s study only takes account of acts and propositions. This can be explained by the 
fact that Schiffrin.s study is based on spoken discourse, whereas Maier and Hovy.s is 
based upon written discourse. Whether this difference in mode has an effect on the 
relations needed in a taxonomy is a question which has received little attention in the 
literature and would be an interesting path to follow6. Maier and Hovy accept that their 
taxonomy is not complete, in fact they argue that a single list may not even be possible. 
For example, interpersonal relations are impossible to define without reference to the 
writer and reader as they take account of their knowledge, beliefs and attitudes towards 
the propositions. Therefore, depending upon the communicative context, it may be 
                                                 
6 A brief comment on the possible differences in relation for spoken and written text is made in a
paper by Grote et al (1995). They state (page 15) that “the denial of false implicature has the
character of an afterthought, which is added after the main act has been stated and the possibility
of the unintended implicature comes to mind. Therefore, this kind of concession will mostly be
found in spoken discourse”. An example of this relation is ‘Although I’m a vegetarian, I do eat fish’
  29
necessary to have more or less interpersonal relations. In support of this, a study by 
Redeker (1990) showed that speakers will use more interpersonal relations when 
speaking with a friend than with a stranger (see footnote 3). 
The third and final class of relations are textual relations. According to Maier and Hovy, 
these relations have no semantic or intentional meaning but allow the writer to structure 
the text. They are used for presentational purposes like linking pieces of text logically 
(CONJUNCTION, DISJUNCTION), signalling a sequence of arguments (SEQUENCE) or 
connecting nuclei which have no other relation holding between them (JOINT).  
Given this three level distinction between ideational, interpersonal and textual relations, 
Maier and Hovy found several patterns of co-occurrence existing between these relations. 
For example, when a global ideational goal is being expressed, only ideational relations 
will occur. An exception to this rule being that in certain restricted text genres 
interpersonal relations may occur within a text which has an overriding ideational goal. In 
contrast, they also argue that when the overriding goal of the text is an interpersonal one, 
then both interpersonal and ideational relations will be used. The ideational relations, 
however, will only occur at the leaves of the tree in order to provide a basis for the 
intentions expressed by interpersonal relations. Because these differences in the co-
occurrence of relations are related to the overall goal of the text and this goal is closely 
related to the text genre, it is argued that the text genre will have some effect on the levels 
of relation chosen7.   
Although no patterns of co-occurrence between relations occurring simultaneously are 
discussed, Maier and Hovy, like Moore et Pollack (1992), do allow their classes of 
relation to overlap. However, Maier and Hovy, like Moore and Pollack, have no way of 
                                                                                                                                                 
in which the first utterance implies that the person eats no meat whatsoever and the second
utterance denies this implication by stating that they do eat some meat - fish.
7 Di Eugenio et al (1997) also studied the co-occurrence of relations. Their study was based
upon the effect of co-occurrence of relations on the explicit marking of discourse structure rather
than the effect of a relation occurring on the likelihood of another relation occurring. However,
their results also showed that text genre will have an effect on the type of relations used and,
  30
representing the simultaneous occurrence of more than one relation. Thus the proposal of 
an extra class of relations that can also function in an ideational or interpersonal way, for 
the moment, only multiplies the problem threefold.   
1.4.4. The need for a 4 level inferential account of discourse relations:
Hobbs
The number of classes of relation is not in itself problematic. Difficulties arise when the 
different classes overlap and a new means for representing discourse structure is not 
provided.  Hobbs (1985) proposes four classes of coherence relations and argues that 
these classes can be represented using coherence trees. However, Hobbs does state .there 
is nothing wrong with finding more than one relation between sentences. If two relations 
do not involve inconsistent assumptions about indeterminate material in the text, there is 
no harm in saying that both relations obtain. (Hobbs, 1985:10). However, as seems to be 
the pattern, although relations are allowed to occur simultaneously in Hobbs. theory, no 
means of representing their simultaneous occurrence is provided. Despite this, Hobbs. 
theory is an interesting one, and worth exploring as it differs in a major way from the 
above relation-based theories of discourse structure.  
Hobbs. theory is a knowledge-based one in which it is argued that .the process of 
interpreting discourse is a process of using our knowledge gained in the past to construct 
a theory of what is happening in the present. (1985:2). Like all of the theories above, 
Hobbs emphasises the importance of the reader recognising the relation in question. 
Thus, relations are suggested to make links between knowledge and render discourse 
coherent through their recognition. However, the major difference between this theory 
and the theories described above is the emphasis on the reader. Although the four classes 
are defined in terms of the writer.s relation with the text, the relations are defined solely 
in terms of the inferences that a reader may draw and not, as with all of the above 
theories, on the effect that the writer intends to achieve. 
                                                                                                                                                 
thus, an effect on the discourse markers which are chosen. For example, in their study of
explanations, they found that ideational relations occurred less often than interpersonal relations.
  31
The first class of relations is based upon the fact that messages are often coherent because 
they relate coherent events in the world. The OCCASION relation is created to account for 
this fact, informally the OCCASION relation exists between two propositions that show 
how one event sets the scene, or the occasion, for the next. Special cases of this class are 
CAUSE and ENABLEMENT in which the event in one text span does more than sets the 
scene, it causes or enables the other event. The OCCASSION relation is defined as follows8: 
(a) .A change of state can be inferred from the assertion of S0 whose final state can be 
inferred from S1..  
(b) .A change of state can be inferred from the assertion of S1, whose initial state can 
be inferred from S0.. (Hobbs, 1985:10)  
The second class of relations relates to the writer.s communicative goal. EVALUATION is 
the only relation in this class. Like the OCCASION relation, part (b) of its definition is a 
reversal of part (a): 
(a) .From S1 infer that S0 is a step in a plan for achieving some goal of the discourse.. 
(b) .From S0 infer that S1 is a step in a plan for achieving some goal of the discourse.. 
(Hobbs, 1985:11-12) 
The third class involves the listener making inferences based upon their prior knowledge. 
Examples of such types of relation are BACKGROUND and EXPLANATION. The final, 
largest, class consists of relations that expand upon the present discourse rather than 
filling in the background or moving the discourse forward. There are relations linking 
specific information to other specific information (PARALLEL and CONTRAST) and there 
are relations linking specific information to general information (GENERALISATION) and 
vice versa (EXEMPLIFICATION). The GENERALISATION relation and the EXEMPLIFICATION 
relation, thus, share similar definitions in which the S0 and S1 are reversed. 
Almost all of the relations proposed within this theory have two parts to their definition, 
the S0 and S1 in part (b) being the reverse of the S0 and S1 in part (a). The S0 and S1 are 
                                                 
8 Note that for Hobbs’ definitions, S = segment. A segment constitutes any unit of text, for
example, a clause, sentence or paragraph.
  32
distinguished by syntax and length, S0 is the preceding segment and S1 is the current or 
longer segment. The two part definitions proposed by Hobbs seem unnecessarily long. 
Hobbs would benefit from a more concise taxonomy of relations if he adopted Mann and 
Thompson.s approach, in which segments of text can be assigned either a nucleus or a 
satellite. However, the nucleus and the satellite in RST are defined in terms of which 
segment most expresses the writer.s intended effect, whereas Hobbs. relation definitions 
only take account of the reader.s inferences. It would be necessary, therefore, to redefine 
the nucleus and the satellite in this theory. This could be done by distinguishing between 
which segment makes a greater contribution to the reader.s inferencing, for example.  
Nevertheless, it would be possible to overlook the awkwardness of these long definitions, 
if the definitions themselves were correct. However, the distinction between S0 and S1 on 
the basis of their length and order of occurrence is not a satisfactory one. For example, 
the only difference between the EXPLANATION and CAUSE relation is suggested to be the 
order in which the S0 and S1 occur:  
EXPLANATION - Infer that the state or event asserted by S1 causes or could cause 
the state or event asserted by S0. 
CAUSE - Infer that the state or event asserted by S0 causes or could cause the state or 
event asserted by S1. (Hobbs, 1985)  
However, as is shown in Figure 3, given the two propositions .he was hungry. and .he 
hadn.t eaten., the constructs S0 and S1 are not sufficient to explain a causal relation 
between being hungry and not having eaten when the propositions are stated in a different 
order. Although Hobbs. theory is able to account for a causal relation when, as in (c), .He 
hadn.t eaten. (the satellite in RST) occurs first, all examples where the satellite occurs in 
second place, like (d), must be regarded as examples of the EXPLANATION relation.  
However, it is argued here that inferences are always dependent upon the context and, 
therefore, given the preceding text, a reader will be able to infer a causal relation from 
proposition (d) as well as (c). Although the order of the propositions may help the reader 
to make the correct inference, order is not the only factor. Some other factor must be 
taken account of in Hobbs. theory, if he is to explain how readers can infer a causal 
relation from examples like (d) in Figure 3, page 33.  
  33
Although not included within his definitions of relations, Hobbs emphasises the 
importance of discourse markers when trying to ascertain which relation exists between 
segments: .If we can insert .then. between S0 and S1, and the sense would be changed if 
we reversed the segments, then the occasion relation is an excellent candidate. If we can 
insert .because., the explanation relation becomes a strong possibility. (Hobbs, 
1985:32). Although such tests may not entirely determine the relation present, discourse 
markers do seem to be an important, fairly accurate cue to the underlying structures of 
discourse. The following section investigates the role of discourse markers within relation 
based accounts and examines the way in which they may be used to help define a set of 
coherence relations.  
(a) He hadn’t eaten He was hungry
(b) He was hungry He hadn’t eaten
S N
N S
(c) He hadn’t eaten
(d) He was hungry
He was hungry
He hadn’t eaten
1) Mann and Thompson’s definition of CAUSE: the reader recognises that the EVENT IN
THE SATELLITE (S) CAUSES THE EVENT IN THE NUCLEUS (N).
2) Hobbs’ definition of CAUSE: the reader infers that the EVENT IN S0 CAUSES THE
EVENT IN S1.
 
Figure 3:  The CAUSE relations in RST and Hobbs. Theory of Discourse Processing   
  34
1.5. Using discourse markers to establish a set of relations: Knott
The purpose of Knott.s (1995) thesis is to establish a set of coherence relations, each of 
which is defined in terms of a set of features which make it possible to distinguish 
between different discourse markers. Those relations that are not signalled by a discourse 
marker are accounted for by focus9. Knott.s theory is an amalgamation of Grosz and 
Sidner.s (1986) theory, which suggests that both relations and focus are necessary to 
account for coherence, Martin.s work (1992) which uses discourse markers to cue an 
underlying relation, Mann and Thompson.s (1988) RST in which all texts are structured 
hierarchically and Sanders (Sanders et al., 1992; Sanders, 1997) theory that discourse 
markers express conceptual relations that are cognitive in nature and underlie discourse.  
Knott.s central argument is that when a discourse marker occurs, it is probable that a 
relation also occurs in the text structure. This is because, according to Knott, relations 
model psychological constructs by representing the psychological processes that occur 
when people produce and interpret texts. Because people do process texts, it is argued 
that language must contain a resource for making these relations explicit. Discourse 
markers are the resource. 
The benefits of using these explicit lexical constructs are numerous. Firstly, they are a 
convenient source of evidence for a set of relations as they are both numerous and subtly 
different from each other. Secondly, they are a means of deciding when further relations 
are necessary, for example if a discourse marker cannot distinguish between relations, 
then maybe the distinction is not necessary. Finally, from a research point of view, they 
enable the theorist, through corpus analysis, to check all the possible uses of a relation, 
before having to provide a complete definition first. 
Discourse markers are defined according to a linguistic test. In this test, a discourse 
marker and its host clause are isolated from the rest of the text. Next, any ellipsis or 
anaphoric/cataphoric terms are substituted for the full expression  (for example, Ben or 
                                                 
9 However, although Knott argues that these relations should be accounted for by focus, no
explanation of how this could be done is given in his thesis.
  35
Dad replaces .he.). Then, if the expression thought to be a discourse marker is, in fact, a 
discourse marker, the resulting text should seem incomplete. Finally, when the possible 
discourse marker is removed, the resulting text should seem complete again.  
Knott argues that this is a theory neutral test of discourse markers. However, he also 
states that .we are more interested in stock words and phrases that have evolved to meet 
specific needs. (Knott, 1995:86). These needs are referred to earlier in his thesis as 
evolving needs to represent psychological constructs. Proof of these needs evolving is the 
fact that new discourse markers are still being invented, for example, iff and just in 
case10. Such new discourse markers are suggested to .provide some support for the idea 
that the set of cue phrases will affect the set of relational constructs that we use. (Knott, 
1995:79). This test is clearly not theoretically neutral as the emphasis from the start is on 
psychological and relational constructs. The problem here is that if terms are excluded, 
whether they pass the linguistic test or not, on the basis that only terms that model 
psychological constructs will be studied, then the relations based upon a taxonomy of 
these terms can only represent psychological constructs. The theory that discourse 
markers are signals of underlying psychological constructs thus perpetuates itself and is 
rendered unfalsifiable.  
Within the taxonomy of discourse markers, four types of marker are recognised: those 
which are synonymous (they can occur in the same contexts with the same meaning), 
those which are exclusive (they can never occur in the same contexts), and those which 
are hyponyms or hypernyms of other discourse markers, for example, x can occur in all 
of the contexts in which y can occur, but y can.t occur in all of the same contexts as x can 
occur (x is a hyponym of y, y is a hypernym of x). From this, relations are defined which 
                                                 
10 Some may argue, firstly that iff is not new, but has been used by logicians for many years and
secondly, that it is not a discourse marker but a logical connective. Although Knott does not
discuss why iff should be accepted as a new discourse marker, one could infer that, like the
logical connectives/discourse markers and and or, iff may also have a discourse marking function
that is starting to become part of common written language amongst those familiar with Boolean
logic. For example, as with other discourse markers like okay, it is possible that the range of
functions for iff is expanding. In the future iff may be as common in written language in its
discourse marking function as okay is today in spoken language.
  36
describe the necessary and sufficient conditions for the occurrence of a discourse marker. 
These are represented as features of the relations. All of the values of the features are 
productive - .the values of each feature should be defined for all combinations of all 
other feature values. (Knott, 1995:124). Knott (1995:169) argues that .for every relation 
there exists a cue phrase which uniquely identifies it.. The hypernymic phrases are 
suggested to signal relations at a higher level of abstraction than those which can be more 
generally applied, like and for example.  
One of the major arguments used to justify this new set of discourse relations is that other 
theories allow too many relations or put no limit on the number of relations allowed. For 
example, Knott criticises the work of Mann and Thompson because the number of 
relations is not constrained, therefore, RST will always be able to account for the 
structure of texts because when a relation doesn.t exist, the analyst is allowed to create a 
new one. As an illustration of this criticism, Knott (1995:46) forwards the following 
example of an incoherent text which, if any number of relations are allowed, could be 
explained by the relation INFORM-ACCIDENT-AND-MENTION-FRUIT: 
6.   John broke his leg. I like plums.  
However, Knott.s theory can be criticised on similar grounds.  Knott argues, for example, 
that when expressing global relations where the antecedent is much further away, it is 
necessary to use specific anaphoric discourse markers, for example because of this 
discovery.  This causes problems for the above arguments as if because of this discovery 
is accepted, it would also be necessary to include because of this decision, because of this 
disaster. If these expressions are to be classed as discourse markers, as Knott (1995:192) 
argues they should, then the taxonomy of discourse markers would need to be much 
bigger than the one that exists now and, therefore, as the discourse markers must 
represent a relation each, Knott would be contributing to the problem that his thesis was 
specifically designed to combat - the proliferation of coherence relations.  
A similar problem has been encountered by those working on the PILS (PILS corpus, 
1999) project which aims to generate patient information leaflets. The marked structure 
of these leaflets makes it difficult to analyse them using RST-trees. Sentences like the 
  37
following cause particular problems and, for the moment, it seems that the simplest way 
to treat them is to regard the entire first clause if any of these side effects bother you as a 
discourse marker: 
7.  Zovirax Cream may sting or burn slightly when you first put it on. Some people find that their skin 
goes dry or flaky, or slightly itchy or red. If any of these side-effects bother you, tell your doctor. .  
(PILS corpus. Wellcome UK, Zovirax Cream).   
This is an interesting problem and suggests that current work on discourse markers is 
overlooking an important method of expressing discourse relations. A means of 
combating such problems remains to be found. The following sections give a brief 
overview of some different psychological-based approaches and begins to explore the use 
of discourse relations and discourse markers in natural language generation systems.  
1.6. Psychological-based approaches to discourse coherence
1.6.1. Sanders, Spooren & Noordman
Sanders, Spooren and Noordman (1992) use relations to account for discourse coherence 
and, like Knott (1995) and Hobbs (1985), emphasise the importance of psychological 
aspects in theories of coherence. As mentioned above, much of Knott.s work was based 
upon their 1992 paper, thus many similarities can be found between the different studies. 
Both perceive relations as psychological constructs which enable the reader to construct a 
cognitive representation of the discourse, both present a taxonomy of these relations that 
is based upon cognitive primitives  (Knott refers to them as .features.) and both 
taxonomies contain some of the same primitives, although Knott has added more to his 
complete taxonomy. The primitives used in both accounts relate to the source of 
coherence and whether the polarity is positive or negative. All classes of primitives make 
a binary distinction, for example in the source of coherence, the relation is either 
pragmatic or semantic and the polarity class is divided into positive and negative. 
According to Sanders et al, a relation has positive polarity if S1 and S2 function as the 
antecedent and the consequent, whereas a relation has negative polarity if not-S1 or not-
S2 function as the antecedent and the consequent. Two further sets of primitives which 
only occur in Sanders et al.s theory are classed under the headings basic operation  
  38
(whether the relation is additive or causal) and order of the segments  (basic order is 
when S1 expresses P and S2 expresses Q, non-basic order is when S1 expresses Q and S2 
expresses P: Q and P being different propositions). The basic/non-basic order distinction 
is similar to a distinction made in Mann and Thompson (1988) between canonical and 
non-canonical ordering. Canonical ordering is the usual ordering of text spans. For 
example, the ANTITHESIS relation is usually expressed with the satellite occurring before 
the nucleus, whilst the PURPOSE relation is usually expressed in the opposite order (N 
before S). However, an important difference between the theories is that Mann and 
Thompson.s orderings of the propositions are only suggested to be strong patterns, 
whereas Sanders et al.s view them as concrete features which are used to define discourse 
relations. 
A major distinction between Sanders et al.s theory and Knott.s theory is the emphasis 
placed upon discourse markers. Although Sanders et al recognise that discourse markers 
are important they do not create distinct combinations of features for every discourse 
marker. This could not be possible in their account as by combining the eight different 
features, only twelve basic relations can be constructed. It is necessary, therefore, for 
some of these relations to share the same discourse markers  (see although in examples 
(8) and (9)) 
8.  CONTRASTIVE CAUSE-CONSEQUENCE - (In the context that a major problem for artificial 
intelligence is the incredible efficiency of the human memory) Although the number of similarities 
between faces is enormous, we do not have the slightest difficulty in distinguishing a very large 
number of people. (Sanders et al., 1992:12)  
9.  CONTRASTIVE ARGUMENT-CLAIM - (In the context that the newspapers. accident reports do 
not discuss the most common causes of death) Although the papers wrote about gas accidents 
several times last year, the risk run by the gas user is much smaller than that of the traffic 
participant. (Sanders et al., 1992:14) 
The relations are composed in a similar way to Knott.s, for example, if the basic 
operation is causal, the source of coherence is semantic, the order is basic and the polarity 
is negative, the relation can only be CONTRASTIVE CAUSE-CONSEQUENCE  (see example 8). 
Whereas, if all other features are the same, but the source of coherence is pragmatic, then 
the relation can only be CONTRASTIVE ARGUMENT-CLAIM (see example 9 above). In 
  39
comparison if the only difference from the features of CONTRASTIVE CAUSE-
CONSEQUENCE is the polarity being positive, then the relations will simply be CAUSE-
CONSEQUENCE  and a different marker will be employed:  
10.  CAUSE-CONSEQUENCE - Because there is a low-pressure area over Ireland, the bad whether is 
coming our way. (Sanders et al., 1992:12) 
Sanders, Spooren and Noordman do not provide a complete taxonomy of discourse 
relations. They argue that if these relations were to be used as an analytical tool, it would 
be necessary to expand upon their basic set of twelve. As was shown above, Knott 
attempted to provide a new, descriptively adequate set of relations based upon the 
occurrence of discourse markers. His study took account of a large set of these lexical 
cues and was, therefore, able to recognise and create new relations underlying discourse 
structure. However, a drawback of using lexical expressions to motivate a set of relations 
is that it becomes difficult to account for those relations that cannot be signalled by a 
discourse marker. Possible ways of explicitly representing these relations in text are 
discussed in the following section. 
Psychological-based approaches are distinctly different from the relation-based and 
segmentation-based approaches described above because they explain why discourse 
markers occur in more specific terms other than that they simply signal a relation -
discourse markers make relations explicit. From a psychological-based perspective, it is 
argued that without these explicit lexical items the reader would have difficulty in 
establishing a cognitive representation of the discourse. They represent, therefore, an 
important area of research. As will be shown in the next section, the reason why 
discourse markers are used provides a solid basis for describing when they should be 
used and whether they should be signalled.  
1.6.2. Scott & Souza
Scott and Souza (1990) approach discourse coherence from a text generation perspective. 
Strongly influenced by psycholinguistics research, they suggest that the style of a text has 
.more to do with cognition than aesthetics. (Scott & Souza, 1990:47). Stylistically 
  40
.good. texts are therefore those texts that are easier to process.  Texts are generally easier 
to process if they satisfy the following conditions:  
• Texts must be sensitive to the communicative context. 
• The way in which a message is expressed must be a valid and unambiguous rendition 
of its rhetorical structure. 
• Of the set of all valid and unambiguous expressions of  the message, the one that is 
most easy to process should always be used. (Scott & Souza, 1990:49).  
In the case of generation, the communicative context involves an artificial interlocutor 
which, when compared with a human, is less adept at making reliable judgements about 
its audience.s knowledge and ability to understand its messages. For this reason, Scott 
and Souza suggest that artificially generated texts should be as explicit as possible in 
representing the underlying rhetorical structure. This can be done by using discourse 
markers or, in some cases, syntactic cues to the text.s rhetorical structure. An example of 
a syntactic cue is the embedding of one proposition in another. The ELABORATION 
relation has no explicit lexical cue and can only be represented syntactically. In order to 
prevent ambiguity in text processing, it is suggested that this relation should only be cued 
by embedding the satellite in the nucleus (Scott & Souza, 1990). 
However, when using discourse markers to reflect the underlying structure of the text, it 
is common to find one marker that can be used to represent several relations. Scott and 
Souza argue that in some cases, where the marker is weak and can be used to represent 
several different types of relation, it is preferable to use the strongest marker possible. For 
example, and should not be used for any other relations except SEQUENCE and LIST. 
Furthermore, when the relation is a TEMPORAL SEQUENCE, it will be preferable to use a 
marker which signals this, like next or after, for example.  
However, in other cases, where the differences in the relations are only small, a weaker 
marker may be used without rendering the text ambiguous. An example of this is the 
marker because which can be used for a .superclass. (Scott & Souza, 1990:52) of causal 
relations: VOLITIONAL CAUSE, VOLITIONAL RESULT, NON-VOLITIONAL CAUSE, NON-
VOLITIONAL RESULT, PURPOSE and EVIDENCE. The issue as to whether a weak marker 
  41
should be used to represent all similar relations is a contentious one and will be discussed 
in greater detail in the following chapters. However, it should be noted that the distinction 
between strong and weak markers may be a useful one in wider contexts than those 
discussed here. For example, although little research has been done on the topic of this 
thesis . the occurrence of multiple discourse markers  (see section  2.3), it would seem 
that their strength, or lack of strength, may affect the order in which they may occur. In 
the following examples, it is possible to use a weaker marker (like and and or) before a 
stronger marker (like yet, furthermore and alternatively) of the same relation (11-14), but 
not vice versa (15-18). This cannot wholly be explained by syntax since example 11 
illustrates that markers of the same grammatical category (coordinators in this case) can 
only co-occur in a given order: 
11.  He wanted to start university this year, and yet he hasn.t done a thing about it.  
12.  The University of Briston has banned smoking throughout its buildings and, furthermore, is 
planning to close all the bars on campus within the following year. 
13.  Ships with bulwarks and trunk of breadth at least equal to 0,6B which is included in the calculation 
of the freeboard in application of the regulation 36 of the LL66 Convention are to be fitted with 
open rails on the weather parts of the freeboard deck in way of  the trunk for at least half the length 
of these exposed parts or, alternatively, be fitted with freeing ports complying with 14-073-51. 
(Chapter 14.072, section 15) (Bureau Veritas, 1997) 
14.  The attention of the Shipyard is drawn to the fact that the 1966 International Load Line Convention 
does not apply to fishing vessels and consequently National Authorities have developed their own 
set of requirements for fishing vessels. (Bureau Veritas, 1997) (Chapter 10.081, section 12) 
15.  *He wanted to start university this year, yet and he hasn.t done a thing about it 
16.  *The University of Briston has banned smoking throughout its buildings furthermore, and is 
planning to close all the bars on campus within the following year.  
17.  *Ships with bulwarks and trunk of breadth at least equal to 0,6B which is included in the 
calculation of the freeboard in application of the regulation 36 of the  LL66 Convention are to be 
fitted with open rails on the weather parts of the freeboard deck in way of  the trunk for at least half 
the length of these exposed parts alternatively, or, be fitted with freeing ports complying with 14-
073-51.  
  42
18. *The attention of the Shipyard is drawn to the fact that the 1966 International Load Line 
Convention does not apply to fishing vessels consequently and National Authorities have 
developed their own set of requirements for fishing vessels. 
  43
2. The role of discourse markers in computational linguistics
19.  (a) Turn on the printer. Click on print.   
(b) Turn on the printer and click on print.  
(c) Turn on the printer then click on print.  
Before moving on to the main question of this thesis (how can we generate multiple 
discourse markers?), it is important to understand why discourse markers are necessary to 
text, in particular, computer generated text. Mann and Thompson.s theory of discourse 
coherence is unusual in that it takes no account of discourse markers in its definition of 
rhetorical relations. Although it is argued that not all relations can be marked lexically 
(for example, ELABORATION)11, most studies tend to agree that discourse markers are 
clues to the reader that a relation exists between the text spans and thus refer to discourse 
markers in their theories of coherence. In other words, the majority of studies recognise 
that discourse markers have a facilitative role in establishing discourse coherence. For 
example, propositions (a) and (b) above are ambiguous to any reader that does not know 
how to use a printer. Neither of the propositions explicitly states whether turning on the 
printer must occur at the same time as clicking on print or before clicking on print. 
According to RST, a discourse analyst must make assumptions about the writer.s 
intention and the reader.s knowledge and infer which relation can account for the text 
span in question. These inferences cannot be affected by the discourse marker in the text 
as, according to Mann and Thompson, the use of a single discourse marker cannot be 
considered as evidence for the occurrence of a relation. However, one could argue that if 
analysts cannot relate the use of a discourse marker to the use of a relation, then 
                                                 
11 According to Scott and Souza (1990), the ELABORATION relation should only by signalled by
embedding the satellite in the nucleus. Scott and Souza’s work is discussed in further detail in
section 1.6.2. However, we suggest that ELABORATION can, in fact, be cued by discourse markers,
but that this is a less common phenomenon than syntactic cueing. The following example of the
discourse marker also illustrates this:
While numbers of new AIDS cases reported officially every month have remained
relatively steady, there has been a big increase in those needing expert medical and
nursing advice at home with a 24-hour on call back up. The numbers with pain are also
higher. (BNC)
  44
ambiguities are almost certain to occur owing to the differences of perception of the 
writer.s intention and the knowledge of the reader.  
As has been highlighted, there are strong arguments both for and against the use of 
discourse markers in theories of coherence. Ignoring them completely, as Mann and 
Thompson do (1988), makes the work of the analyst unnecessarily complicated and, as 
discourse markers do seem to be useful to readers, denies the importance of these lexical 
items in text processing. However, creating relations for all discourse markers, as Knott 
(1995) attempts to do, produces an enormous taxonomy of discourse relations which fails 
to capture some of the similarities between relations and discourse markers, for example 
between CONTRAST and CONCESSION, and but and although.  
What is needed is a theory that takes account of the similarities between relations and of 
the importance of discourse markers. This theory should be able to explain, predict and 
generate discourse markers and relations through the application of, firstly, general rules, 
and secondly, rules related to the language, genre and mode of the text. This chapter 
explores some of the findings in these areas, beginning with the generation of similar 
discourse markers, followed by how these rules for similar markers can be used to 
account for other languages and concluding with a discussion of a recently emergent 
research topic, and the focus of this thesis - the generation of multiple discourse markers.  
2.1. Generation of single discourse markers
2.1.1. Distinguishing between similar discourse markers without using
relations: Elhadad & McKeown
Elhadad and McKeown (1990) argue that when generating discourse markers, it is 
necessary to distinguish between different markers of similar relations. They argue that 
rhetorical relations cannot be used to do this as they do not provide a fine-grained 
characterisation of the different markers12. Instead, they argue for an interpretive format 
                                                 
12 Although this claim may have been true at the time (1990), as has been illustrated above,
relation-based theories have advanced greatly since RST was first proposed. Knott (1995) for
example argues that a single relation should exist for every discourse marker. Nevertheless,
  45
(IF) model of propositions in which six features can be used to classify the proposition 
and differentiate between similar discourse markers. Their theory is different to the other 
feature-based theories described above, like those of Sanders et al  (1992) and Knott 
(1995), because the features are used to classify the utterances conjoined by a discourse 
marker and not the marker itself. The reasoning behind this approach is that a discourse 
marker is argued to be .a set of constraints between the features of the propositions it 
connects. (Elhadad & McKeown, 1990). The most basic constraint is argued to be the 
homogeneousness condition according to which the propositions must be semantically 
and/or syntactically homogeneous. The semantic part of this constraint is taken account 
of in the IF model by a feature called the thematisation procedure.  
The thematisation procedure is used to establish if a semantic link exists between two 
propositions, and if so, which discourse marker can be used to represent this type of link. 
A semantic link occurs when the themes of P and Q intersect. In simple cases a common 
entity,  like .he. or .shopping., is found in the propositional contents of P and Q. 
However, links may also exist between speech acts and utterance acts. In example (20) 
below, the speech act in P is the theme of proposition Q (because is linking the speech act 
not the propositional content). Example (21) is a similar case, but here, since is used to 
link on an utterance act in which speaker 2 is justified in giving her response .since 
speaker 1 wants to know everything.. 
20.  He paid for the book, because I saw him. (i.e. I claim that because...)  (Quirk et al 1972:752 in 
[page 99]Elhadad & McKeown, 1990) 
21.  Speaker 1: Where is she? 
Speaker 2: She is sick, since you wanted to know (i.e. I talk because you insist...)  (Roulet et al, 
1985 in Elhadad & McKeown, 1990:99) 
Thus, if any of the above links between utterances can be recognised, they can be 
assigned a feature under the thematisation procedure class (for example proposition Q in 
                                                                                                                                                 
Elhadad and McKeown’s model is still an interesting one as it provides an alternative means of
accounting for text coherence without using rhetorical relations for which, they argue, “precise
definitions...have tended to be subjective”. (Elhadad & McKeown, 1990:98)
  46
example (20) above would be assigned .Speech-Act.). The combination of this feature 
with the other features in the IF model allows the generator to decide upon the 
appropriate discourse marker.  
Two further pragmatic features in the IF model are the argumentative orientation and 
functional status of the propositions. Elhadad and McKeown illustrate how the 
functional status of proposition Q and the argumentative orientation of P can be used to 
differentiate between the similar discourse markers but and although. 
The notion of a functional status for a proposition has been developed from theories of 
conversation analysis which describe conversation as a three-level hierarchical structure. 
The three levels are speech acts, moves and exchanges. A move is made up of several 
speech acts and corresponds to a turn of a speaker in a conversational exchange. Speech 
acts are either directive or subordinate. Subordinate speech acts modify or elaborate on 
the directive speech act. The directive act is in some respects similar to the nucleus in 
Mann and Thompson.s (1988) RST, in that it constitutes the reason for the speaker 
having spoken.  Because the directive speech act controls what may follow, it can be used 
to distinguish between similar discourse markers. Elhadad and McKeown give the 
following examples which both show a contrastive relation between the propositions: 
22.  *He failed the exam, although he is smart. Let.s hire him. 
23.   He failed the exam, but he is smart. Let.s hire him. (Elhadad & McKeown, 1990:98) 
It is argued that example (22) sounds strange because of the difference in functional 
status between proposition Q in both sentences and the differences in argumentative 
orientation of the propositions. In (23), proposition Q (.he is smart.) has directive status, 
whereas in (22), Q has subordinate status. The argumentative orientation of (22) is thus 
.he failed the exam. whereas the argumentative orientation of (23) is .he is smart. which 
is more compatible with .Let.s hire him. than .He failed the exam.. Thus but should only 
be attached to a directive speech act and should be followed by a proposition which is 
compatible with the argumentative orientation of the directive. In contrast, although 
should only be joined to a subordinate speech act. By using these pragmatic features, it is 
  47
possible not only to distinguish between discourse markers, but also to ensure that 
coherent text will follow.  
However, in the case of the similar discourse markers because and since which share the 
same argumentative behaviour and assign the same functional status to the propositions 
they connect, it is necessary to use a further feature: polyphony. Polyphony theory 
allows a distinction between the speaker and the utterer  (the utterers are those whose 
beliefs are being reported by the speaker). According to Elhadad and McKeown, because 
and since have different polyphonic features. Propositions connected by because must 
have the same utterers whereas propositions connected by since need not. A further, 
related constraint on the use of because and  since is based upon whether the information 
is new or already known to the speaker. Because is used to link new information and 
since for already known, or given, information.  
In order to use these features for generation, each discourse marker is described 
functionally so that all of the features of the propositions it can connect are represented. 
Examples of the kinds of sentences that can be generated and the features used to do this 
are given below: 
(a) FEATURES
Polyphonic mention of a known principle: use since.  
EXAMPLE
Since turning the switch to the left causes the power to decrease, the transmission 
capacity decreases. 
(b) FEATURES    
Explanation by a new fact: use because. 
EXAMPLE     
The transmission capacity decreases because you turn the switch to the left. 
(c) FEATURES  
Subordinate act is an imperative: use but. 
EXAMPLE  
Replace the battery, but keep the old battery. 
(d) FEATURES  
Subordinate act can be syntactically subordinate: use although. 
EXAMPLE 
  48
Although you replaced the battery, keep the old battery.  (Elhadad & McKeown, 
1990:100) 
Although Elhadad and McKeown argue that relation-based theories cannot provide a 
fine-grained account of the differences between similar relations and discourse markers, 
the following study by Grote et al (1995) suggests that if relations are defined on more 
than one level, it will be possible to account for such a distinction when both syntactic 
constructions and discourse markers are used.  
2.1.2. Using syntax and discourse markers to generate relations: Grote,
Lenke & Stede
Like Elhadad and McKeown (1990), Grote et al (1995) argue that the choice of discourse 
marker should be an informed decision rather than one based upon .trivial rules. (Grote 
et al, 1995:11) like always using although to mark CONCESSION. Using the distinction 
between intentional and informational (Moore & Pollack, 1992) levels of discourse they 
argue that although separate, distinct markers cannot be assigned to a single intentional or 
informational level of the relation, ambiguity can be avoided by using discourse markers 
and syntactic constructions to signal the underlying type of relation.  
The aim of their study is to create a .grammar of conceding. (Grote et al, 1995:13) for 
both English and German which can be used to generate a wider range of discourse 
markers to signal the same relation or differences within a relation. They suggest that if 
all discourse relations and discourse markers could be accounted for in this way (i.e. from 
the representation of beliefs and goals through to the surface realisation of the relation), it 
would also be possible for a generation system to decide if and when a marker should be 
signalled (i.e. their occurrence). At present, most studies (Hovy, 1993b; Di Eugenio et al., 
1997) concentrate on the placement and selection of a marker. Regarding their 
occurrence, as was shown in section 1.6.2, for generation purposes at least, it is 
preferable that when a relation holds, a discourse marker should be used. However, other 
studies have suggested that layout (Bouayad-Agha & Scott, 1998), punctuation (Dale91), 
degree of formality (Grote et al, 1995), text genre  (for example, children.s stories, 
newspaper articles, legal documents, academic writing) and the mode of discourse 
(Schiffrin, 1987)  (written or spoken) will all influence the number of markers necessary 
  49
or expected. Therefore, a set of constraints that could determine, not only which 
discourse marker to use, but also if a discourse marker is really necessary, would be very 
useful to those working within natural language generation.  
In order to establish this grammar of concession, Grote et al argue for three subtypes of 
the CONCESSION relation. The first two types are intentional relations. The first intentional 
relation (CONCEDE-I) is used when the writer wishes either to convince the hearer of a 
point or to act in some way. In this case, the counter argument is conceded and emphasis 
is placed on the writer.s own argument. The counter argument is referred to as the .minor 
act. and the writer.s argument as the .main act.. As, Grote et al note, a similar distinction 
between main and minor acts is used by Elhadad and McKeown (1990) in their 
.functional status feature.. Furthermore, Mann and Thompson (1988) also make this 
distinction by referring to the nucleus and satellite of a relation.  
Typical markers of CONCEDE-I are On the one hand...on the other hand, however, but and 
while, for example: 
CONCEDE-I On the one hand it is correct that Windows is cheap. (minor act) On the 
other hand it has many bugs. (main act) 
The second intentional relation CONCEDE-II is used to prevent false implicatures13. In 
order to prevent the reader from making incorrect inferences, the writer may use 
discourse markers to explicitly deny what they expect the reader to infer: 
CONCEDE-II - Windows is very cheap, that doesn.t mean you should buy it though, 
because it is full of bugs. 
The third type of concessive relation is similar to the one above in that the reader would 
not usually expect the two clauses to be joined together. However, the difference is that 
in the above relation, an inference is being cancelled, whereas in CONCEDE-III, a general 
expectation is violated or an assumed cause-effect relation in the world is cancelled. The 
                                                 
13 This has also been referred to as the ‘denial of expectation’ relation, see section 1.2
  50
writer.s primary intention is simply to inform the reader of a surprising event, thus this 
relation, in Moore and Pollack.s (1992) terms, is a purely informational one:   
CONCEDE-III - Although it was December, no snow fell and the temperature rose to 
20 degrees. 
Given the distinctions above, the following general rules are proposed to represent all 
types of the concessive relation on the knowledge level: 
A ¨C  
B ¨ Not-C  
In other words: .On the one hand, A holds, implying the expectation of C. On the other 
hand, B holds, which implies Not-C, contrary to the expectation induced by A.. (Grote et 
al, 1995:16) 
A and B are both represented in the knowledge base and are referred to as the although-
part and because-part, respectively. C/Not-C is referred to as the nevertheless-part and is 
the connection between A and B. It is the reason why a concession is being used in the 
first place. Grote et al (1995) refer to this as the ABC-scheme. Generally, not all of the 
information in these rules is made explicit when making a concession. Most concessions 
verbalise either A and B (substitution concessions, see example 24) or A and C (violated 
implication concessions see example 25). Table 1 shows how the meaning of each of 
these sentences is represented and realised in a text: 
24.  Verbalising A and B  
He doesn.t have a car but he does have a bike. (Grote et al, 1995:17) 
25.  Verbalising A and C 
Their term papers were brief. Still, they were better than I expected. (Quirk et al 1972 in Grote et al, 
1995:12) 
26.  Verbalising A, B and C 
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; 
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. (Psalm 23, King James Bible in Grote et al, 1995:12)
  51
  
Eg
no.  
A(although)  B(because)  Not-C (nevertheless)  A¨C  B¨NotC 
24  Not-own (he,car)  own(he,bike)  mobile(X)  not-own (X,car) 
¨ not-mobile(X) 
own(X,bike) ¨ 
mobile(X)   
25  brief(papers)  ?  not-bad(papers)  Brief(X) ¨ 
bad(X) 
? 
26  walk(i, dark)  support(i, lord)  no-fear(i)  Walk(X, dark) ¨ 
fear(X) 
support(lord,X) 
¨ no-fear(X) 
Italics = not explicit in text, inferred by reader 
Table 1: Explicit and implicit information in concessive clauses (Grote et al, 1995:17) 
In order to explicitly mark the underlying differences between these concessive relations, 
Grote et al first distinguish between five different types of marker: conjunctive adjuncts, 
coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions, prepositions and split particles. A 
similar distinction between different discourse markers has also proved useful for Power 
et al (1999) in their study of multiple discourse markers (see section 2.3.2). However, 
although Grote et al do not discuss the occurrence of multiple discourse markers in detail, 
they do mention that conjunctive adjuncts (like nevertheless) can be added to the second 
clause in argumentative texts for emphasis. This is illustrated in the following example 
containing a single relation, but two markers -  although and nevertheless:  
27.  Although the weather was bad, we nevertheless had a good time. (Grote et al, 1995:21) 
They also argue that syntax has an important role to play in marking a concessive 
relation. For example, they found that CONCEDE-I was best represented by subordinating 
conjunctions like although, while and even if and that the counterargument should always 
occur first. CONCEDE-II relations were best expressed using conjunctive adjuncts like 
nevertheless, however, admittedly and still or coordinating conjunctions with the main act 
being stated as an independent clause. Propositions expressing the CONCEDE-III relation 
were usually ordered so that the minor act occurred first, however, the order can be 
reversed for a change in emphasis. Conjunctive adjuncts are also used for expressing this 
relation. 
  52
All of the above information is used to create a framework for generating concession 
relations in text. From the beliefs, attitudes and communicative goals an RST-like tree is 
constructed which contains the content of the propositions to be generated. Since Grote et 
al aim to generate concessive relations in both English and German, all information 
represented in these levels is language independent. Following these levels, sentence 
boundaries, typical order of the propositions and the discourse marker to be used are 
determined. Like Elhadad and McKeown (1990), Grote et al recognise that RST-trees are 
not entirely sufficient to represent all levels of information necessary for determining the 
syntax and discourse marker to be used. Reference is made, therefore, to the knowledge 
base during the mapping of an RST tree to a sequence of sentence plans. The knowledge 
base is used here to determine how the satellite and nucleus in the RST tree map onto the 
ABC-scheme. This is necessary in order to determine whether a violated expectation 
relation or a substitution relation is being used. The final choice of discourse marker will 
depend upon the choices made using a systemic network like those in Figure 4.  
 
  53
condition
non-condition
even if
INTENSIFICATION
even though
intensified
non-intensified FORMALITY
colloquial
though
neutral
although
CONDITIONALITY concession
dependent
concession
dependent
CONCESSION
TYPE
THEMATIZATION
thematic
wenn auch...so doch
non-thematic
wenn auch
substitution
violated
implication
CONDITIONALITY
wenn auch
condition
noncondition
FORMALITY
EMPHASIS
un das
emphasised
obwohl
neutral
obgleich, obzwar, obschon
formal
neutral
Hypotactical Concessive Relations in English
Hypotactical Concessive Relations in German
 
Figure 4: Choosing a Discourse Marker to Represent a Hypotactic Concessive Relation 
(Grote et al, 1995:29)  
  54
There are noticeable differences between the English and German networks. Although 
both would be used to represent a hypotactic concessive, the options of emphasis and 
thematisation (for example, whether a subordinating conjunction may be used) are not 
available for this type of relation in English. This raises questions as to whether all 
languages make the same distinctions between relations and if they mark these 
distinctions in similar ways. This question is raised again with regard to multiple 
discourse markers in section 6.4 of this thesis. Spanish, French and German all have a 
marker which is pragmatically similar to the English although (Fraser & Malamud-
Makowski, 1996,Rey, 1997,Grote et al, 1995). However, less is known about the more 
unusual types of discourse marker like nevertheless and notwithstanding. Crosslinguistic 
studies have so far tended to focus on the more common discourse markers which are 
pragmatically similar to the English markers and, but, if and because (Delin et al., 1996; 
Fraser & Malamud-Makowski, 1996). The following section describes the findings of 
some of these studies and, where applicable, how they can be applied to natural language 
generation. 
2.2. Discourse markers in languages other than English
2.2.1. French discourse markers: Hansen
Like Knott (1995), Hansen (1998) proposes that the different functions of discourse 
markers are best represented as set of hyponyms and hypernyms. However, this approach 
differs from Knott.s as it also takes account of the other functions that a lexical 
expression may have. The overriding theory behind this proposal is that .words may have 
different senses, but rather than being homonymous and discrete, these various senses are 
related in an often non-predictable, but nevertheless motivated way, either in a chain-like 
fashion through family resemblances, or as extensions from a prototype. (Hansen, 
1998:240-241). This proposal differs from the description of discourse markers by Power 
(personal communication see section 1.1.2, page 14) as a common core meaning is 
assigned to all syntactic, semantic and pragmatic uses of the lexical expression, rather 
than a core set of functions. For example, a core meaning is assigned to the adjectival, 
substantival and discourse marking use bon in French. Hansen argues that all uses should 
  55
be attached to a single node in a network as they are all used to represent a core meaning 
of acceptance upon which the hearer will expand and interpret the intended meaning by 
taking account of the communicative context. Because all uses are closely related, a 
single lexical expression used as a discourse marker may, in certain contexts, 
simultaneously function on more than one level of discourse: 
28.  [A]: et il m.a jamais dit Sophie ouais bon t.as tel petit problème ça va pas trop bien ti devrais faire 
comme ça jamais j.ai jamais rien eu 
[A]: and he never said to me Sophie yeah well this little problem
you’ve got you should do this never I’ve I’ve never ever had
 
[B]: non mais ça il le dit...à personne 
[B]: no but he won’t tell...anyone about it 
 
[A]: non...si si il il l.a dit à Didier 
[A]: no...he did he did he he told Didier 
 
[B]: pas en question animation et pas en question....de rien de tout 
[B]: no way now and no way never....no way 
 
[A]: mais si.......parce que Didier me la répété après 
[A]: but he did.......’cos Didier told me about it afterwards 
 
[B]: ça étonnerait... 
[B]: well that suprises me... 
 
[A]: non non ne ne crois ....moi vraiment 
[A]: no no don’t don’t think....honestly 
 
[B]: ...parce que nous il nous a jamais aidé de cette manière-là 
[B]: ...but never he’s never behaved like that before 
 
[A]: alors moi j.ai jamais su que finalement j.étais prise pour deux mois... 
[A]: so me I didn’t know until the end I went along with it for two
months... (Hansen, 1998:241) 
In the above example, alors may signal both a result on the informational level and a 
return to a previous topic on the interactional level. According to Hansen, the hearer may 
recognise one of these meanings or both simultaneously.   
Like Maier and Hovy (1991), Hansen recognises three levels of discourse: the textual 
level, the interactional level (interpersonal) and the propositional content (ideational) 
level. The distinction between different levels in this theory can account for the subtle 
differences in use of the discourse marker bon. 
  56
Some interesting cross-comparisons can be made between this study and Schiffrin.s 
study. Hansen.s findings from her study of bon are very similar to Schiffrin.s findings in 
her study of well. For example, on the interactional level, a speaker may use bon to signal 
a desire to change the subject. As this is a potentially face-threatening act, bon is used to 
express that they accept the other speaker.s point of view, but they wish to discuss a new 
topic. Similarly, Schiffrin found that well was used as a general turn-initiator and in 
specific cases, to begin a new topic of conversation. Furthermore, on the textual level, 
Hansen argues that bon is used to signal either a break in coherence, in which the speaker 
uses bon to signal to the hearer that a digression is being made, but that they intend to 
return to the main topic afterwards, or when there is disagreement between speakers. 
Schiffrin.s (1987:126) study also found that well .anchors the speaker into a conversation 
at precisely those points where upcoming coherence is not guaranteed....[for example,] an 
answer whose propositional content is not presupposed by a question, non-compliance 
with a request, disagreement or lack of appreciation. . However, the studies differ when 
the propositional content use of bon and its English counterpart well are compared. On 
this level, bon is used for clarification, whereas in English, oh is more commonly used to 
fulfil this function.  
Thus, a comparison of Hansen.s and Schiffrin.s studies shows that French and English 
often use their own respective markers for a similar set of discourse marking functions. 
Both studies postulate a core meaning for bon and well that is similar to its meaning when 
used for other functions: bon and well are both are used to signal a positive evaluation as 
discourse markers and as an adjective and adverb respectively. As a discourse marker, 
bon is suggested to mark acceptance, often of a disprefered phenomenon, like 
disagreement or temporary incoherence. The same core meaning for well is largely 
supported by Schiffrin.s study of English discourse markers.  
However, although a comparison of Hansen.s and Schiffrin.s studies shows some 
interesting similarities between languages. The theory built from these studies tends to be 
ill-defined. As has been discussed earlier Schiffrin.s integrated model of discourse 
coherence is integrated to such an extent, that it is often difficult to determine which level 
of talk best describes the use of a discourse marker. Similarly, Hansen uses the terms 
  57
textual, interactional and propositional content levels without providing a definition. 
Therefore, it is often unclear to the analyst which level is best used to describe the 
occurrence of a discourse marker. For example, when bon is used to signal a break in 
coherence, why is it classed as a marker of the textual rather than interactional level? It 
could be argued that it is used interactionally to signal to the hearer that the speaker will 
make a digression but intends to return to the current topic of conversation. Similar 
problems with Schiffrin.s study were illustrated using but as an example in section 1.2.2.  
A further criticism of this study is that the theory behind it is supported solely by the use 
of the discourse marker bon. According to Knott (1995), English has at least 350 
discourse markers. It is argued here that even if French were to have a quarter of the 
number of discourse markers that English has, a study based upon the use of one could 
not be said to account for the other 87 discourse markers in the language. Although 
Hansen.s description of the use of bon does seem to be supported by Schiffrin.s study, 
whether Hansen.s theory that discourse markers and their semantically similar but 
functionally different counterparts can all be said to have a common meaning remains 
unsupported. Further studies of a wider range of discourse markers in French and other 
languages is necessary before such a proposal can be accepted.  
2.2.2. Discourse markers in English, French and Portuguese: Delin, Scott &
Hartley
An example of a study which takes both a wider range of discourse markers and a wider 
range of languages is that of Delin, Scott & Hartley (1996). From a corpus of 
instructional texts, they examined all of the possible realisations of the semantic relations 
of GENERATION and ENABLEMENT. In addition to the differences in syntactic realisation of 
these relations, there were also many differences in the rhetorical relations and discourse 
markers which could be used in the different languages. Although only the relations and 
markers will be discussed here, Delin et al do argue that syntactic and lexical choice 
interact and that syntax will play an important part in enabling the reader to recognise the 
underlying rhetorical structure of a text.  
  58
The study showed the following similarities between English, French and Portuguese. 
Firstly, all languages except English used a greater number of rhetorical relations for 
GENERATION than ENABLEMENT. English uses four relations for each. Furthermore, in 
order to represent GENERATION, all languages used the rhetorical relation PURPOSE more 
than any other relation. Finally, as a general rule, ENABLEMENT was represented in the 
three languages either by SEQUENCE or PURPOSE. French and English used SEQUENCE 
more often and Portuguese used PURPOSE in the majority of cases. Overall, the study 
showed that there was little difference in the choice of relations used to represent 
GENERATION and ENABLEMENT in English, French and Portuguese.  
However, there were large differences between the languages when the occurrence and 
number of discourse markers per relation was compared. In Portuguese, for example, 
they found that all discourse relations must be explicitly signalled by a discourse marker, 
whereas in English only 37 of the 130 clauses contained a discourse marker. French was 
between the other languages with some relations being signalled and others not. The fact 
that discourse markers are obligatory in Portuguese may suggest that Portuguese would 
have a more varied range of discourse markers available. However, the number is fairly 
small when compared to French and English. In Portuguese only four discourse markers 
are used for GENERATION and five for ENABLEMENT. In contrast, French has six for 
GENERATION and eight for ENABLEMENT and English has the choice of seven for 
GENERATION and as many as thirteen for ENABLEMENT.  
Overall, such results show how Portuguese allows for little ambiguity in the realisation of 
semantic content as text. It has a restricted set of markers and relations that can be used to 
represent GENERATION and ENABLEMENT. In contrast, English allows for a greater amount 
of ambiguity, whereby often the relation is not marked explicitly at all and the number of 
discourse markers available to signal a rhetorical relation may, as in the case of 
SEQUENCE, be as many as seven. This acceptance of ambiguity may be related to the fact 
that, in some sentences, multiple markers are necessary to make the relation explicit.  
Delin et al found that in certain syntactic constructions, the discourse markers just and 
simply must always occur in conjunction with another discourse marker. Means of 
  59
representing multiple discourse markers and multiple relations are discussed in the 
following section.    
Through studying the occurrence of discourse markers and the context in which they are 
used, it is possible to construct a set of constraints for each language detailing how 
different relations may be realised. A plan based, language independent, model of the 
task is used as a basis for generating the relations in the text. Delin et al argue that this is 
preferable to using a language specific source text as it avoids the possibility of bias 
towards its source language.  
However, there are problems with such an approach to the multilingual generation of 
discourse markers. Instructional texts are a very marked text genre. For example, unlike 
the majority of texts that we come across in everyday life (e.g. newspapers, letters, books, 
information on the back of cereal packets) instructional texts are presented as a list in 
which usually only two clauses are joined by a relation. There are very few examples of 
global relations in such texts, instead global coherence and cohesion is obtained by 
stating the instructions in an overall temporal order and often, by numbering these 
instructions to make the relation between the sentences explicit. By starting with such a 
marked text genre, it is possible that some of the more general patterns are being missed 
which may be able to account for the realisation of discourse relations in the majority of 
texts. For this reason, from a methodological perspective, it may be preferable to begin a 
study of discourse relations with less marked text genres. Then, once generalities for 
discourse relations in these texts have been established, several smaller sets of different 
constraints for different text genres could be established and applied to specific 
generation systems when needed. 
2.3. Multiple markers and relations in computational linguistics
Many of the studies we have looked at so far have argued for a more thorough account of 
discourse markers, however the general direction of research has until very recently only 
concentrated upon the occurrence of single discourse markers in a clause. Although 
multiple markers were mentioned by several researchers (Knott, 1995; Fraser, 1990; 
Redeker, 1990;Delin et al., 1996), the implications of their occurrence for their theories 
  60
of discourse structure were never investigated. As a result, theories that may have proved 
sufficient for analysing texts in the past may now prove to be insufficient when asked to 
account for multiple discourse markers. One such theory is RST. It is argued (Wiebe, 
1993; Webber et al., 1999a) that because RST trees are so similar to the surface structure 
of the text, they are unable to account for the deeper-level relations that are not realised 
by adjacent text spans. The example below shows how a single clause may contain two 
relations, each linking different spans of text. The relation cued by but (CONTRAST) exists 
between (a) (and possibly (c)) and (d), whereas the relation cued by then (SEQUENCE) 
exists between (b) and (d): 
29. (a) The car was finally coming toward him. 
(b) He finished his diagnostic tests, 
(c) feeling relief. 
(d) But, then the car started to turn right. (Wiebe, 1993:149) 
2.3.1. Webber, Knott & Joshi
Webber et al (1999a) propose that the problem above can be resolved through the use of a 
lexicalised tree-adjoining grammar (L-TAG) in which discourse markers, like other lexis, 
.contribute to both what a construction presupposes and what it asserts. (page309).  
Each of the elementary trees in this grammar has a lexical anchor, in this case, a 
discourse marker which specifies its syntactic and semantic scope (Webber & Joshi, 
1998). There are two types of elementary tree in L-TAG. Initial trees are used for 
subordinate conjunctions, like although and so, and parallel constructions which have 
two lexical anchors like, for example on the one hand...on the other hand... and not 
only....but also. Whereas auxiliary trees are used for recursion and elaboration and are 
lexically anchored either by adverbial discourse markers or punctuation / and 
respectively.  
Although the structure of some of the initial trees is similar to some RST tree schemas 
(for example, the single nucleus and satellite schema and JOINT (see Figure 5), an 
important difference between L-TAG and RST is that, at present, L-TAG is unable to 
account for the intentions of the writer (Webber & Joshi, 1998). Thus, the multiple 
  61
relations described in this paper account for the co-occurrence of discourse markers of 
informational, not intentional relations.  
Webber et al (1999) suggest that relation-based approaches to discourse would either 
have to argue that the marker for example in (f) below was not a discourse marker or that 
multiple discourse relations exist between the clauses. As was described in section 1.4.2, 
Moore and Pollack (1992) do allow more than one relation to occur simultaneously, 
however they do not describe the co-occurrence of two informational relations as is 
illustrated in example 30 (EXEMPLIFICATION and SEQUENCE).  Webber et al (1999a:319) 
argue that they can account for such a phenomenon as the semantics of the discourse 
markers then and for example .do most of the work.. The fact that the relations are not 
expressed in two syntactically separate adjacent clauses poses no problems as the lexical 
anchor can account for both syntactic and semantic information. The semantics of then 
and for example in example (f) are as follows. Then K presupposes a telic event  (going to 
the National Gallery) and asserts that the event in clause K follows (i.e. going to the 
White House). For example is used in (f) because the event of going to the White House 
is in the future and  a set of possible worlds is available, of which going to the White 
House may be one of them. Webber et al argue that the use of for example is thus 
strongly constrained by the tense and the modality of the clause to which it is related. 
30.  (a) There.s many things we can do in Washington. 
(b) For example, we could go the White House.  
 
(c) Why don.t we go to the National Gallery. 
(d) Then we can go to the White House. 
 
(e) Why don.t we go to the National Gallery. 
(f) Then, for example, we can go to the White House. (Webber et al., 1999a:319) 
  62
RST - Joint schema
([ ] is filled with a comma or ’and’)
*
schemas
L-TAG initial trees for subordinate
conjunctions
RST - Simple nucleus satellite
L-TAG auxiliary tree for basic elaboration
[ ]
[ ]
[ ]
:
1) Trees expressing no other relations than the connection of two units:
2) Trees expressing a relation between two units
 
Figure 5: Comparing L-TAG Elementary Trees & RST Schemas  
  63
a . b
, c
[but]
[then] d
 
Figure 6: L-TAG Tree for Example 29 (Webber et al., 1999a)  
Using example 29, page 60, Webber et al also illustrate how informational relations 
between non-adjacent clauses can be represented in L-TAG. The discourse marker then 
(linking event (b) to event (d))  produces the same tree as would example (f) in text 30. 
But is used to deny a presupposed defeasible rule between (a) and (d), in this case 
Webber et al suggest the rule may be .If the approaching car continues in its direction 
and stops, Chee will rendezvous (as intended) with its driver. (Webber et al., 1999a:322). 
Thus, a tree like the one in Figure 6 can be produced to represent all of the links between 
utterances whether they are adjacent or not.   
By taking account of syntactic structure but by separating it to a certain extent from the 
structure of discourse, Webber et al.s grammar is able to account for both the co-
occurrence of markers of informational structure in the same clause and for relations 
holding across syntactically unlinked spans of text. This has been shown to be impossible 
to do in relation-based accounts unless the tree-structure rules are broken. Instead 
Webber et al provide initial trees to account for syntactic links and auxiliary trees to 
allow non-adjacent clauses to be linked by presupposition. Such trees allow the 
antecedent to be taken from the context of the preceding discourse and can account for 
the use of discourse markers like then which are not linked syntactically to the text. When 
events are anaphorically presupposed, it may sometimes be necessary for their 
  64
antecedents to be explicit in the text. However, at other times, defeasible rules may be 
inferred from the context.  
This account is not complete. As was mentioned above, the intention of the writer still 
needs to be accounted for as does the occurrence of two discourse markers anchoring 
initial trees in a single sentence as in examples 31 and 32. In this case, the same clauses 
would fill the same substitution sites in each tree. Webber et al argue that neither of the 
markers in the following example can be regarded as redundant as although introduces a 
defeasible rule and nevertheless indicates the theme/rheme structure. Grote et al found 
that nevertheless  and other conjunctive adjuncts could be used in this way for emphasis:  
31.  Although the weather was bad, we nevertheless had a good time. (Grote et al, 1995:21) 
32.  Although the episodic construction of the book often makes it difficult to follow, it nevertheless 
makes devastating reading. (Webber et al., 1999a:322) 
The following study examines whether the distinction between different grammatical 
types can be helpful in accounting for the occurrence of multiple discourse markers and 
provides a means of accounting for multiple discourse markers using a feature-based 
account of discourse.  
2.3.2. Power, Scott & Doran
As was described in section 1.6.2, owing to the communicative context in which 
generation takes place, it may be preferable to mark every occurrence of a discourse 
relation. However, Power et al (1999) show that when one relation is embedded within 
another, as in the examples below, new constraints will be necessary to enable the 
appropriate selection and placement of the different discourse markers. For example, we 
would want a generation system to produce sentences like 33 and 34, but not 35 and 36: 
33.  Elixir has no significant side effects. However, the medicine is for you, so never give it to other 
patients. 
34.  Elixir has no significant side effects. But since the medicine is for you, never give it to other 
patients. 
  65
35.  *Elixir has no significant side effects. But the medicine is for you, consequently never give it to 
other patients. 
36.  *Elixir has no significant side effects. Since the medicine is for you, never give it to other patients, 
however. 
Like Knott (1995) and Sanders et al (1992), and in contrast to Elhadad and McKeown 
(1990), constraints on the generation of multiple discourse markers are provided by a set 
of features for each marker rather than for the propositions that it connects. Thus each 
discourse marker is represented by a set of syntactic, semantic and textual features that 
can be used to distinguish between them.  The set of features, rather than the discourse 
marker itself, occurs on the nodes of an RST tree (see Figure 7). These features will 
affect the order of the clauses, the boundaries of sentences and the choice and placement 
of the discourse markers.  
Like Grote et al (1995), Power et al also use the grammatical distinction between 
conjunctive adverbs (Power et al call these parentheticals), subordinating conjunctions 
and coordinating conjunctions to motivate the position of the discourse marker. For 
example, parentheticals always occur in the linearly second unit of a relation, whereas 
subordinating conjunctions occur at the beginning of either unit. They also show how this 
has an effect on the order of the spans. This feature is called position. For example, spans 
can occur in either order when a subordinating conjunction is used, whereas when a 
parenthetical or coordinating conjunction is used, the placement of the discourse marker 
on the satellite or the nucleus will have an effect on their order.  
Further constraints made clear by this distinction are related to the different levels of 
grammar. For example, subordinating and coordinating conjunctions can link phrases (the 
smallest unit possible in the text-grammar) whereas parentheticals usually link text spans 
of a level greater than a phrase. This information is accounted for by the level feature. For 
generation purposes, the RST-tree is annotated with relations and the nuclei and satellites. 
Only when the discourse marker has been selected, are the level and position features 
described above accounted for. 
  66
When generating multiple discourse markers, it is necessary to take account of their 
scope. According to Power et al, this can also be done by reference to the above 
grammatical distinction. Those discourse markers with the widest range of scope are 
parentheticals, those with the smallest are subordinators, coordinators have medium 
scope. It is argued that where one relation dominates another, for example CONCESSION 
dominates JUSTIFY, the marker for the dominating relation must outscope the marker for 
the dominated relation. The following examples are given to illustrate this: 
37.  Elixir has no significant side effects. However (parenthetical), since (subordinator) the medicine is 
for you, never give Elixir to other patients.  
38.  *Although (subordinator) Elixir has no significant side effects, the medicine is for you, 
consequently (parenthetical), never give Elixir to other patients14.  
Interestingly, when only one relation occurs and two discourse markers are used, the 
above constraint seems to apply in the opposite direction. Discourse markers with smaller 
scope always occur before discourse markers with wider scope (see examples 39 and 41 
below). When this rule is flouted, the resulting sentences seem ungrammatical (examples 
40 and 42 below). Whether this can be explained through scope, syntax or semantics is a 
question for further research. Such a phenomenon may be solely explainable in terms of 
the grammatical category of the discourse marker, for example whether it is a coordinator 
or subordinator. However, the semantic distinction between weak and strong markers 
may also be useful to theorists. For example, it may be because and and or are 
hypernyms of consequently and alternatively that they can only occur in this order. 
Hypernyms may be used to introduce a relation and hyponyms to emphasise the relation 
and make the writer.s intended meaning explicit. We test the role of grammatical 
category in determining the order of multiple discourse markers against a hypothesis 
based on the strength of a marker in chapter 5.  
                                                 
14 Power et al do note that if a full stop was to be inserted before consequently this passage
would sound better, but would also have a different rhetorical structure.
  67
39.  Ships with bulwarks and trunk of breadth at least equal to 0,6B which is included  in the calculation 
of the freeboard in application of the regulation 36 of the  LL66 Convention are to be fitted with 
open rails on the weather parts of the freeboard deck in way of  the trunk for at least half the length 
of these exposed parts or, alternatively, be fitted with freeing ports complying with 14-073-51. 
(Chapter 14.072, section 15) (Bureau Veritas, 1997)  
40.  *Ships with bulwarks and trunk of breadth at least equal to 0,6B which is included  in the 
calculation of the freeboard in application of the regulation 36 of the  LL66 Convention are to be 
fitted with open rails on the weather parts of the freeboard deck in way of  the trunk for at least half 
the length of these exposed parts alternatively, or, be fitted with freeing ports complying with 14-
073-51.  
41.  The attention of the Shipyard is drawn to the fact that the 1966 International Load Line Convention 
does not apply to fishing vessels and consequently  National Authorities have developed their own 
set of requirements for fishing vessels. (Bureau Veritas, 1997) (Chapter 10.081, section 12) 
42.  The attention of the Shipyard is drawn to the fact that the 1966 International Load Line Convention 
does not apply to fishing vessels consequently and National Authorities have developed their own 
set of requirements for fishing vessels. 
Returning to complex occurrences in which the relations are embedded  (illustrated in 
example 37), rhetorical structure trees are composed of two types of unit: simple and 
embedded. Simple units occur on the terminal nodes of the RST tree and their meaning is 
represented by the proposition feature. In contrast, the relation, nucleus and satellite 
represent the meaning of embedded units. As can be seen in the annotated Figure 7, the 
nucleus and satellite features are expressed on the arcs rather than the nodes of the tree.    
Although RST-trees have proved to be a useful tool in representing the structure of 
discourse for embedded relations, because the nucleus and satellite of the different 
relations must be adjacent in the tree and only one relation can be represented at a time, 
they are still unable to account for examples of two relations occurring simultaneously 
between two propositions. The benefits of Webber et al.s representation of discourse 
structure over that proposed by Power et al, is that not only can it account for relations 
like this, but also it can account for embedded relations cued by multiple discourse 
markers (see Figure 8). However, it remains to be seen whether the information included 
within the L-TAG structures contains enough syntactic information for generation 
purposes.   
 
  68
 
PROPOSITION p2
LEVEL phrase
p3 = never give it to other patients
p2 = the medicine is for you
p1 = Elixir has no side effects
The discourse marker is only
The position of the
proposition in
relation to its sister
node
PHRASE but
SYNTAX coordinator
LOCUS nucleus
RELATION concession
DISC-MARKER are
The subfeatures of the feature
since]
CUE -STORE [but
POSITION 1
NUMBER single
expressed in the terminal node CUE -STORE [ ]
POSITION 2
RELATION concession
SATELLITE
NUMBER single
LEVEL phrase
PROPOSITION p3
CUE -STORE [ ]
POSITION 1
NUMBER single
LEVEL phrase
PROPOSITION p1 RELATION justify
DISC-MARKER since
LEVEL phrase
NUMBER multiple
POSITION 2
CUE-STORE [but ]
CUE-STORE [ ]
DISC-MARKER but
NUCLEUS
SATELLITE
NUCLEUS
POSITION 1
NUMBER single
LEVEL sentence
Figure 7: RST-tree for Embedded Discourse Relations (Power et al., 1999)  
  69
a
[however]
[since] b c
= initial tree for subordinate
conjunctions
= initial tree that presupposes
a defeasible rule
Presupposes the existence of a
defeasible rule. For example;
effects, then it is safe to give it
to somebody else’.
‘If the medicine has no side -
a = Elixir has no side effects.
b = The medicine is for you
c = Never give Elixir to other patients.
 
Figure 8: L-TAG Representation of Embedded Relations  
2.4. Possibilities for research
Research into multiple markers is still in its early stages. The need for further research in 
this area has been illustrated by the fact that previous theories based upon single 
discourse markers are unable to account for multiple discourse markers and relations. For 
example, Redeker (1990), Moore and Pollack (1992), and Rey (1997) have all argued that 
a distinction between semantic and pragmatic relations must be both accounted for and 
represented in a theory of discourse coherence. Others, have suggested that two levels are 
not sufficient (Hovy, 1993b; Maier & Hovy, 1991; Hobbs, 1985). Either way, theories 
based strictly on RST structures have been shown to be unable to account for certain 
examples of multiple discourse markers (see examples 43 to 48 for different examples of 
multiple discourse markers). 
  70
As far as natural language generation is concerned, it has been shown that a dialogue 
system must have access to at least two levels in order to generate relevant responses 
(Moore & Pollack, 1992). However, there is no consensus over how many levels really 
are necessary for language processing and whether all levels must be marked even when 
they occur simultaneously. The order and number of the discourse markers which cue 
multiple relations must also be taken into account. For example, when informational and 
intentional relations occur simultaneously, which discourse marker do we use first? and 
can we doubly mark one relation and use a single discourse marker for the other, thus 
using a total of three markers in one sentence? Fraser (1990:395), for example, asks how 
we should account for sentences like the following that was overheard in a conversation 
between two students:  .Well, anyway, I mean, what was the reason..y.know, why did 
she do it, anyway?.. None of the studies above have put a limit on the number of 
discourse markers that may occur. 
It has also been shown that there is little consensus over how many relations are 
necessary. Some theorists argue for as little as two relations (Grosz & Sidner, 1986), 
whereas others need as many as twenty-three (Mann & Thompson, 1988). Whether the 
number of relations can be linked to the mode and genre (Di Eugenio et al., 1997) of the 
discourse is a further question to be answered. Some studies suggest that differences exist 
between spoken and written discourse (Schiffrin, 1987; Grote et al, 1995), others do not 
make a distinction (Blakemore, 1989). However, it has been shown that there certainly 
are  differences in the discourse markers used in these different contexts (Schiffrin, 1987; 
Grote et al, 1995). 
A further gap in the research concerns the occurrence of discourse markers. At present, 
generation systems tend to mark all occurrences (Scott & Souza, 1990). However, it is 
questionable whether this is really necessary or suitable for all texts. Future studies could 
concentrate on whether relations can occur without discourse markers and in which 
contexts this is possible. A non-linguistic theory similar to Schiffrin.s (1987) may be 
necessary to account for such factors.    
  71
Furthermore, there are questions about differences in language. For example, do 
languages mark relations in the same way? Do they have the same number of discourse 
markers?  and are these discourse markers semantically and pragmaticaly equivalent? 
Studies by Delin et al (1996) and Grote et al (1995) suggest that there are marked 
differences. However, whether there are enough similarities to construct a basic set of 
cross-linguistic constraints for generation to which further language-specific constraints 
can be added is a question that remains to be answered. 
2.5. The focus of this thesis
Finally, and this is the question upon which we focus in this thesis, is it possible that the 
difference between general and more specific markers (earlier, we referred to these as 
hypernyms and hyponyms) will affect their placement and occurrence? And, if so, how 
can we formalise this observation for the purposes of natural language generation? In all 
of the examples provided above of multiple markers cueing one relation, there is a 
mixture of both general and specific markers - the general ones always occurring first. 
Whether this distinction is useful for generation on a broader scale has not been studied. 
We will consider whether it is helpful to describe general and specific markers in terms 
of a continuum with markers like and occurring at the general end and strong markers 
like in other words occurring at the other. Before moving to the methodology behind this, 
however, it is important to encapsulate exactly what it is that constitutes (a) a discourse 
marker and (b) multiple discourse markers. The examples below have all occurred in the 
literature and are possible candidates for inclusion as multiple markers. This is not an 
exhaustive list, merely an illustration of the types of occurrence we have found. In the 
following section, we investigate the possible types of multiple marker occurrence and 
elaborate on the general/specific distinction.  
  72
 
43.  Two discourse markers in the same text span expressing different relations to the same preceding 
text span (SEQUENCE and EXEMPLIFICATION): 
Why don.t we go to the National Gallery? Then, for example, we can go to the White House. 
(Webber et al., 1999a:319) 
44.  Two discourse markers in the same text span expressing different relations to two different 
preceding text spans: 
Chee saw a car coming toward him. He pulled over to the side of the road feeling relief. But then 
the car started to turn right. (Webber et al., 1999a:231) 
45.  Two discourse markers marking a single relation: 
Ships with bulwarks and trunk of breadth at least equal to 0,6B which is included in the calculation 
of the freeboard in application of the regulation 36 of the LL66 Convention are to be fitted with 
open rails on the weather parts of the freeboard deck in way of the trunk for at least half the length 
of these exposed parts or, alternatively, be fitted  with freeing ports complying with 14-073-51. 
[Chapter 14.072, section 15](Bureau Veritas, 1997) 
 
Although the weather was bad, we nevertheless had a good time. (Grote et al, 1995:21) 
46.  Two discourse markers in the same text span. Each expressing one relation between two different 
text spans. One of the relations (marked by .since.) is embedded:   
Elixir has no significant side effects. However, since this medicine is for you, never give Elixir to 
other patients. (Power et al., 1999) 
47.  One relation is expressed by two discourse markers on the two text spans (on the one hand..on the 
other hand). Discourse markers like these are correlative markers (Webber et al., 1999b): 
On the one hand, John loves Chateau d.Yquem. So he went and ordered three cases. On the other 
hand, he doesn.t have much money. So then he had to cancel the order. (Webber et al., 1999b) 
48.  Three discourse markers holding three levels of relation between the same clauses: 
Well (presentational), frankly (interpersonal), earlier (semantic) I had a wonderful time. (Hovy, 
1993b:20) 
  73
3. Discourse markers and multiple occurrences
Definitions of discourse markers differ between theories. However, we can conclude 
from chapter 1 the following areas of agreement.  
Firstly, discourse markers are general purpose linking devices. They are 
domain independent. However, we have seen that the style of the text may affect 
the markers used. Particular markers may be more common in a particular text 
style, but this is not to the exclusion of other markers being employed (Delin et 
al., 1996). 
Secondly, since they are linking devices, discourse markers cannot themselves
be propositions. All studies agree that discourse markers cannot stand alone, they 
generally fall into one of the following categories; conjunctive adverbs, 
coordinating conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions. Some verbs have also 
been classed as discourse markers but they more commonly occur in spoken 
language, for example, look and see (Fraser, 1990). 
Thirdly, discourse markers signal how one proposition should be interpreted
given the other(s) in the discourse (e.g., Hobbs, 1978; Mann & Thompson, 
1987). Schiffrin (1987) is the only study here to suggest that a relation may hold 
between the writer.s beliefs which are not made explicit in the discourse and an 
uttered discourse unit. 
And finally, most researchers in this field agree that the relation between
propositions may exist regardless of whether a discourse marker is used (e.g., 
Scott & Souza, 1990; Knott, 1995): a discourse marker is simply an explicit 
signal of a specific relation between two or more propositions.  
Consider, for example, the following utterance containing one relation and no explicit 
marker. The relation of CONTRAST is present regardless of the presence of an explicit cue. 
Thus the non-occurrence of a marker does not mean that a discourse relation is absent: 
  74
49.  The artist did not intend to offend the public; she wanted to raise awareness of this issue.  
By the same token, the presence of more than one discourse marker does not always 
signal a multitude of relations. In the following text, for example, two markers are used 
(but and instead) to signal only one relation: 
50.  The artist did not intend to offend the public, but instead to raise awareness of this issue.  
These examples are not taken from a corpus, they are constructed to illustrate the utility 
of discourse markers in signalling relations. Much of the research on discourse markers to 
date has concentrated on examples produced in this way and has been, to a certain extent, 
successful in accounting for them. Generation systems like ILEX 
(http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk), for example, are able to use discourse markers to join simple 
propositions, thus creating short textual descriptions of objects in a museum. In a world 
wide web environment, ILEX simulates a situation in which a user is visiting a museum, 
moving from exhibit to exhibit in their preferred order. The user can click on a picture 
which interests them and a description is dynamically generated. The system is able to 
compare objects and to generate text to account for the fact that the user may have seen 
either that very object, or a related one, before. In the following example, ILEX generates 
a description of a brooch, then makes a comparison with some earrings, then regenerates 
a description of the brooch when the user returns to the picture.  
51.  (a) This jewel is a brooch. It was made by a designer called David Watkin and a designer called 
Wendy Ramshaw. It is in the Sixties style and was made in 1967. It is made from wood. It has an 
ephemeral quality; indeed Sixties style jewels usually have an ephemeral quality. 
 
(b) These jewels are some earrings and were made in 1967. They were also made by David 
Watkin. They were also made by Wendy Ramshaw. They have a steel mount. They are made of 
orange card, printed in black with a stylized floral design. They are also in the Sixties style. They 
are made from steel. Like most Sixties style jewels, they have an ephemeral quality. 
 
(c) This brooch is made from gilt metal and paper.  
 
As already mentioned, it is also in the Sixties style. Sixties style jewels are usually very simple.  
 
We have also mentioned that this brooch was also made by David Watkin. Watkin was important 
and lived in London.  
 
We have also mentioned that this brooch was also made by Wendy Ramshaw. Ramshaw was 
important and lived in London. 
  75
However, as is clear from these texts, generation systems are still unable to use markers 
and relations in the same way as a human might. The texts above generated by ILEX 
have an unnatural quality about them. They seem unstructured. Where structure is 
apparent, through the use of discourse markers, we find the same markers being repeated 
too frequently. This is because only two relations are used in all of these texts 
(ELABORATION and JUSTIFY) and only a small subset of markers are used to signal these 
relations (as already mentioned, indeed, also, and). If a human were to describe these 
objects in a museum, how would it be realised? The following texts illustrate the 
difference:  
52.  (d) This is a wooden brooch. It was made by the designers David Watkin and Wendy Ramshaw in 
1967 and is in a Sixties style. It has, therefore, an ephemeral quality since this is a trait of many 
Sixties style jewels.  
 
(e) In the same way, these earrings have a similar ephemeral quality since they were also made in 
1967 by David Watkin and Wendy Ramshaw. They have a steel mount and are made from orange 
card printed in black with a stylised floral design. 
 
(f) As already mentioned, Sixties style jewels have an ephemeral quality. They are usually very 
simple. In addition to wood, this brooch is also made from gilt metal and paper. It was created in 
the Sixties by two very important designers - David Watkin and Wendy Ramshaw - while they 
lived in London.  
Here, we have a wider range of relations (JUSTIFY, JOINT, CIRCUMSTANCE, ELABORATION, 
RESULT, COMPARISON) marked by a larger set of markers (and, therefore, since, in the 
same way, also, as already mentioned, in addition, while). Two important factors for the 
generation of more human-sounding texts arise from this comparison. Firstly, the 
selection of discourse markers - more variety is needed in the actual markers selected, we 
can.t simply use also for every occurrence of the ELABORATION relation, for example. 
Secondly, the number of markers used for each relation needs to be accounted for. 
Sometimes it is more felicitous to use multiple discourse markers as, for example, in (f) 
in addition to.also and (d) therefore.since in example 52.  
3.1. Multiple discourse markers
Searching through the British National Corpus (BNC), a corpus of 100 million words in 
British English, many examples can be found of multiple discourse markers.  
  76
Multiple discourse markers are classed as all cases where more than one marker is 
used to cue either (a) a single relation, as in the example below; 
53.  Since the question turns on the meaning of the word .appropriate" in section 1(1) of the Act of 
1968, the problem is therefore one of statutory interpretation. (BNC) 
or (b) to cue multiple relations which are embedded within each other as in the 
following examples: 
54.  Having said that, if you weigh only 60 kg (132lb) and yet still manage to sit your 90 kg (198lb) 
opponent down with a solid thump to his mid-section, then the refereeing panel may well 
applaud your fervour with a full point. (BNC) 
55.  (a) Mr Dear repeated that although the six were interviewed by the squad, (b) there was no link 
he could see, although (c) he understood the well-placed concern. (BNC) 
 
Correlative markers (Quirk et al., 1985), like either.or, on the one hand.on the other, 
and if.then, are not classed as multiple discourse markers, unless they occur with other 
discourse markers (correlative or not) in the text. In the example below, the correlative 
markers for a start.for another thing, are used in the same text as though, thus this 
grouping would be classed as an instance of multiple discourse marker occurrence. 
56.  The job of being an Acorn Project leader is an unenviable one. For a start, they don.t get paid, 
though they do receive a petrol allowance; for another thing, it.s a bit like being in a group of 
unruly children for the week... (BNC)  
Note also that, although simultaneously occurring relations are often cued by multiple 
discourse markers, they are not accounted for in this thesis. An example of such an 
occurrence is given below. Here, two relations hold between the same text spans - (a) and 
(b) are joined by a SEQUENCE relation and a CONTRAST relation simultaneously: 
57.  Initially, (a) that gaping space can be a little puzzling, but (b) it.s quite simple really. (BNC) 
As has been made clear in sections 1.4.2 - 1.4.4, at present there is no means of 
representing simultaneously occurring relations for a generation system, therefore these 
occurrences have been ignored in this study. However, an investigation into the 
  77
representation and linguistic realisation of these multiple levels of discourse would, 
certainly, prove an interesting area for further research.  
Returning to the term multiple markers. By this we do not simply mean .multiple 
words..  
Multiple marker occurrence consists of two or more words (e.g., but, yet), two 
or more phrases (e.g., having said that, in reality) or a combination of words and 
phrases (e.g., but, having said that). Since a discourse marker must be able to cue 
a relation in its own right, multiple markers occur when several words or phrases, 
each able to mark a relation independently, occur in a grouping.  
Thus having said that may be composed of many words, but it is classed only a single 
marker since it cannot be broken into smaller parts and still be able to cue a relation. In 
other words, we could not, for example, cue a CONTRAST relation using said that or 
having. However, we could instead use saying that alone, therefore this phrase is classed 
as a single marker too. Thus, multiple marker occurrence is characterised by a number of 
markers, each able to mark a relation on their own, occurring in a grouping within the 
text.  
We distinguish two main types of multiple marker occurrence: simple and complex. 
Simple multiple marker occurrence is characterised by a single relation being cued by 
more than one discourse marker. The markers may occur within the same clause, as in the 
example below, or in separate clauses as in example 53. Further subcategories of simple 
marker occurrence are discussed in section 5.2.  

 
 
Figure 9: An example of simple multiple markers 
The pores in the skin are a classic example: they
cannot become perceptible to us by themselves,
but yet their presence in the skin can be
deduced from sweat.
CONTRAST
  78
In contrast, complex multiple marker occurrence is characterised by more than one 
relation being marked by different discourse markers. Figure 10 shows the relation 
CONCESSION(a) holds between propositions (1) and (2-4). This is marked by having said 
that. A different CONCESSION relation (CONCESSION(b)) holds between propositions (2) 
and (3) and is marked by a grouping of simple multiple markers (and, yet, still). Finally, a 
CONDITION relation holds between propositions (2-3) and (4). This is marked by the 
correlative discourse marker if.then.  
Thus, Figure 10 provides examples of both simple and complex multiple marker 
occurrence, and, yet, still being a simple marker occurrence since they cue a single 
relation and all other markers being part of a complex (or embedded) occurrence since 
there is an overriding relation of CONCESSION(a) within which we find the embedded 
relations of CONDITION and CONCESSION(b).  

 

 
 
Figure 10: An example of complex multiple marker occurrence 
Previous research on discourse markers accounts for a wide range of phenomena, from 
choosing between similar discourse markers (Fraser, 1998; Sanders et al., 1992) to 
abstracting away from discourse markers and using syntax to signal underlying discourse 
relations (Delin et al., 1996). However, the issue of multiple markers, like those in the 
examples above, is only now beginning to be addressed. As we have described, recent 
work in computational linguistics provides possible solutions for the use of correlative 
CONCESSION (a)
CONDITION
CONCESSION (b)
(2) Having said that, if
you weigh only 60kg
(3) And yet still manage to sit
your 90kg opponent down with
a solid thump to his midsection
(4) then the refereeing panel
may well applaud your fervour
with a full point.
(1)…..
  79
markers (Webber & Joshi, 1998) and embedded clauses (Power et al., 1999). However, as 
section 2.3 has shown, these solutions do not account for all aspects of their production 
and further research is needed. 
The aim of this thesis is to account for simple multiple markers in order that a generation 
system may produce more human-like texts. The results from a smaller study on complex 
occurrences of multiple markers are also presented.   
3.2. Factors affecting multiple marker occurrence
As the example from ILEX (page 74) illustrates, it is important to take account of 
multiple discourse markers. From a generation perspective, it is insufficient to account 
only for propositions containing one marker and one relation, since realistically, texts will 
be larger and more complicated than this. However, as the number of propositions 
increases, so does the problem of multiple marker generation. For example, a message or 
text plan containing only twelve propositions would typically have a discourse structure 
similar to the one in Figure 11. 

 

 
Figure 11: A typical discourse structure. The nodes are discourse relations; the leaves are 
propositions. 
Potentially, each of the 11 discourse relations (i.e, nodes in the tree) can be marked and 
these discourse markers will be expressed on the leaves. Previous research has 
concentrated on occurrences of one marker between two text spans. However, more than 
(a) 
(b) 
  80
one marker may be used for each relation, thus many discourse markers could occur on 
one proposition. For example, even when only 2 markers are used for each relation, in the 
case of proposition (a), we would find 4 discourse markers on one text span: 2 for the 
white node above (a) and a further two for the black node which represents a 
superordinate relation. This thesis, however, concentrates on cases where two markers are 
used to cue a single relation, nevertheless, text generation can be more complicated than 
these cases. For example, using one marker per relation, proposition (b) could be 
associated with eight discourse markers, one for each of the relation nodes marked in 
black. There are clearly stylistic and cognitive constraints affecting when, where and how 
relations can be marked in text. Human and machine language producers alike must be 
able to access this information to make informed decisions on: 
 
• whether to mark the relation 
• which marker(s) to use 
• where to place the marker(s) 
• how to order multiple markers 
Let us consider each of these points in detail. Firstly, whether we should mark a relation. 
It is widely recognised that the number of relations in a text is usually higher than the 
number of markers signalling these relations (Mann, 2000). In other words, when a 
relation exists, a marker need not necessarily be present. However, little research has 
been conducted on which relations should be explicitly cued and when. The following 
relations are suggested to be cued less frequently; BACKGROUND, ELABORATION, 
ENABLEMENT, EVALUATION, EVIDENCE, INTERPRETATION, JUSTIFY, LIST, MOTIVATION, 
RESTATEMENT and SOLUTIONHOOD (Mann, 2000). However, we have already shown that 
by not making these relations explicit, we increase the probability that the reader will not 
understand the text.  
A further example of this is De Carolis et al.s (1999) ARIANNA system which generates 
descriptions of clinical guidelines for three different types of user; students, doctors and 
  81
patients. In their preliminary studies, they found that the clinical expertise of the hearer 
had an effect on (a) whether a marker was used by the speaker, and, (b) if a marker was 
employed, which type. They found that when the participants were of the same level of 
expertise, either more general markers like and were used or, often, a marker did not 
occur at all. Markers were commonly absent for JUSTIFICATION, SOLUTIONHOOD and 
PURPOSE. In contrast, when the hearer was of a lower level of expertise, markers were 
used more frequently and tended to be more specific. For example, sentence 58 below 
would, typically, be addressed to a hearer of a high level of expertise. Here, and is used 
to mark JUSTIFICATION. However, if the speaker was addressing a hearer of lower 
expertise, we would expect the two occurrences of and to be replaced with more specific 
markers, for example, consequently and so.  
58.  I.ve examined Mrs Smith and I think she.d got angina with some congestive cardiac failure and 
I.ve prescribed some Frusemide. 
However, as discussed in section 1.6, Scott & Souza (1990:49) point out that when 
generating text, it is difficult to establish a reliable representation of the user.s 
knowledge. For this reason, messages often need to be .more explicit than would be 
ideal.. In other words, discourse markers need to be used to a greater extent in order to 
avoid ambiguity or confusion over the underlying discourse relation.  
For the purposes of this study, we accept Scott & Souza.s suggestion that discourse 
markers should be used to as great an extent as possible and concentrate, instead, on the 
final three points in our list above. To repeat them again for convenience, the aim of this 
thesis is to answer the questions; (1) which marker(s) should we use? (2) where should 
we place the marker(s)? (3) is there a preferred order of occurrence and, if so, which 
factors govern this order? 
To address the first two questions, a database of discourse markers was constructed. This 
database contains more than 300 discourse markers with information on their 
grammatical category, the number and type of rhetorical relations they may cue and 
whether they occur on the nucleus or satellite, given a particular relation. Each use of a 
particular marker is illustrated by an example from the British National Corpus (BNC). 
  82
Despite the quantity of research in the area of discourse analysis, there was no resource 
available to researchers in this field needing information on the mapping between 
markers and relations, thus the database was constructed entirely from our findings. More 
information on the database is provided in chapter 4. 
To address the third question on the ordering of multiple markers, we searched the BNC. 
Our search confirmed that, as has already been illustrated (see examples 11-18 and 59-60 
below), the order of occurrence of multiple markers is not free. Compare, for example, 
the grouping of markers in sentence 59 below to 60. The first group is perfectly 
acceptable, we can allow and so consequently. However, the second grouping is not 
acceptable: 
59.  This blood-line was particularly helpful to the early breeders because the line was in-bred, his 
parents being brother and sister of excellent breeding and so consequently true to type. (BNC) 
60.  *This blood-line was particularly helpful to the early breeders because the line was in-bred, his 
parents being brother and sister of excellent breeding so and consequently true to type. 
3.3. Factor 1: Grammatical category
One factor that we can be sure is governing the placement of discourse markers is 
grammatical category. We would not want a generation system to produce sentences like 
60 above, since they are not grammatical. When placing single discourse markers, one of 
the most important factors to be considered is their grammatical category. This is a major 
factor governing where in a text unit a marker may occur. In this section we examine the 
effect of grammatical category on single marker placement. Then we present results from 
tests on the effect of grammatical category on multiple discourse marker occurrence.  
3.3.1. Coordinators, subordinators and conjunctive adverbs
As highlighted in section 1.1, the term discourse marker covers a wide and disparate set 
of words and phrases ranging from coordinate conjunctions, for example, and, or and but 
to the less accepted interjections (e.g., well, oh), verbs (e.g., look, see), and literally used 
phrases (e.g., to repeat, what I mean to say, overall). Thus, the available set of discourse 
  83
markers for English can be sliced into many grammatical categories. To simplify matters 
for the moment we can say that the majority of discourse markers fall into three 
categories; coordinators, subordinators and conjunctive adverbs. The main difference 
between coordinators and subordinators is in the relative importance of the text units they 
link. As a general rule, coordinators link spans of equal rank while subordinators 
emphasise one text unit and place the text unit to which they are attached in the 
background. The facilitative role of discourse markers in establishing discourse 
coherence and, therefore, the importance of selecting the appropriate discourse marker in 
text generation has already been discussed (chapter 2). However, as the following 
examples illustrate, it is also important to consider where in a text unit a marker should 
be placed since the position of an explicit lexical cue will have an effect on the reader's 
interpretation of the meaning. Sentence 61, for example, places emphasis on failure 
whilst 62 places emphasis on effort:  
  84
61.  Although he tried hard, he failed.  
62.  He tried hard, although he failed. (Quirk et al, 1985:919) 
Note that these units could also be linked using a coordinator: 
63.  He tried hard but he failed. 
And by using a conjunctive adverb:  
64.  He tried hard; nevertheless he failed.  
Those markers falling into the category of conjunctive adverbs are the most free in their 
placement. Coordinators and subordinators have greater constraints. Coordinators, for 
example, must occur clause initially as must most subordinators. Exceptions to the latter 
can be found, for example: 
65.  Poor though he is, he is happy. (Quirk et al, 1985:921) 
As a general rule, conjunctive adverbs occur in the same position as coordinators and 
subordinators. They are most commonly found at the beginning of the second text unit as 
in example 64. However, since they are more free in their placement, they may also occur 
medially in the second unit as in the example below: 
66.  He tried hard, he nevertheless failed.  
or finally in the second text unit: 
67.  He tried hard, he failed nevertheless. 
Like conjunctive adverbs, coordinators must also be attached to the linearly second text 
unit. Subordinators, however, must be attached to the text unit upon which least emphasis 
is being placed. In other words, they are attached to the subordinate text unit. The 
importance of this rule was illustrated by examples 61and 62. According to Quirk et al 
(1985:922), however, the unit upon which least emphasis is placed often occurs linearly 
  85
second, therefore it could be said that, as a general rule, all categories of marker will most 
commonly occur on the linearly second text unit (see examples 68-71).    
68.  Conjunctive adverb: He tried hard, nevertheless he failed. 
69.  Coordinator: He tried hard but he failed. 
70.  Subordinator (2nd unit): He failed, although he tried hard. 
71.  Subordinator (1st unit): Although he tried hard, he failed. 
It is argued here that, in the case of multiple discourse markers, grammatical category 
cannot be the only factor governing their order of occurrence. Consider the following 
examples in which markers of the same grammatical category co-occur. It is not possible 
to reverse the order of the markers in 72 and 74 even though they belong to the same 
grammatical category (conjunctive adverb):  
72.  The term phototropism strictly refers to the directional growth of an organ in response to blue light. 
However, light is of such crucial importance for plant growth and development that there are, in 
fact, several additional means by which it can influence the orientation of plant organs . <ICE-
GB:W2A-025 #18:1> 
73.  *The term phototropism strictly refers to the directional growth of an organ in response to blue 
light. In fact, light is of such crucial importance for plant growth and development that there are, 
however, several additional means by which it can influence the orientation of plant organs .  
74.  .her blonde head was bent over a set of papers, which she was examining with the critical 
expression of a Persian cat having doubts about the freshness of its fish. Reflecting, however, in the 
flickering candlelight she could not in fact be attempting to read them.<ICE-GB:W2F-011 
#15:1> 
75.  *.her blonde head was bent over a set of papers, which she was examining with the critical 
expression of a Persian cat having doubts about the freshness of its fish. Reflecting, in fact, in the 
flickering candlelight she could not however be attempting to read them. 
However, example 76 illustrates a different ordering of these markers. In this case the 
markers could be reversed with no effect on meaning or grammaticality. This is the only 
text unit in the International Corpus of English in which in fact occurs before however. 
  86
This suggests that there must be preferences on the order of multiple markers that fall 
outside the scope of grammatical category:  
76.  A concise and sharply focused statement of these difficulties appears in the submission of Arata 
Isozaki & Associates in the recent competition for a broadly sketched Paternoster redevelopment  
In fact, however, the constraints under which the competitors were required to operate were in one 
respect less tightly drawn than would have been the case a few years ago . <ICE-GB:W2A-005 
#51:1> 
77.  A concise and sharply focused statement of these difficulties appears in the submission of Arata 
Isozaki & Associates in the recent competition for a broadly sketched Paternoster redevelopment 
However, in fact, the constraints under which the competitors were required to operate were in one 
respect less tightly drawn than would have been the case a few years ago . <ICE-GB:W2A-005 
#51:1> 
3.4. Factor 2: Hypernyms
Preliminary tests using the British National Corpus and Knott.s (1995) taxonomy of 
discourse markers suggested that the order of multiple markers cueing a single relation is 
affected by their position in the taxonomy. As a general rule, those higher in the 
taxonomy, in other words the more general markers, precede those lower in the taxonomy 
- the more specific markers, see Figure 12 & examples 78-79 below; 
78.  Mr Chairman thank you very much for those extremely kind remarks. I think possibly some 
undeserved but thank you all the same. <ICE-GB:S2B-045 #1:1:A> 
79.  Last year alone they sold more than two million. Yet despite their popularity many parents who 
read the books regretted the decision to buy them. <ICE-GB:S2B-011 #10:1:B> 
80.  It has to be said that some of the reason for this is that S&P rate only the top tier of companies in 
Europe, so the highly publicised troubles that have hit smaller companies don.t show in the 
European statistics, while they will have been a major factor behind the increase in the US 
downgradings . But despite this, Hancock does not think Europe will follow the way led by 
America . <ICE-GB:W2C-013 #56:3> 
  87
  NEGATIVE POLARITY RELATIONS
NON-SHARED 
MULTICATEGORY 
PHRASES 
EXCLUSIVE 
NEGATIVE 
POLARITY PHRASES
NEGATIVE POLARITY 
RELATIONS - TOP 
LEVEL 
Since, when, anyway, afterwards, 
eventually, at last, after this, 
finally, then(1), either(1), too, also, 
that is, that is to say, to conclude, 
in conclusion 
rather  instead
Either(2) 
While(2)  On one hand on the
other hand 
whereas 
All the same 
still  
even so 
nevertheless 
nonetheless 
Despite 
this  
in spite 
of this 
Having 
said 
that 
Though 
although  
even though 
But 
yet 
however
unless  until 
Though 
although 
even though 
and 
 
On the 
other 
hand 
whereas 
While(2) 
Then again Otherwise  
if not 
alternatively 
Or 
or else 

Figure 12: A portion of Knott.s (1995) Taxonomy  
Given this, a suitable algorithm for generating multiple markers could be to apply Knott.s 
taxonomy in this way. However, this taxonomy is unsuitable as a basis for the generation 
of multiple discourse markers for the following three reasons. Firstly, it is inefficient. 
  88
Much of the work is redundant since information is repeated in different taxonomies. 
Secondly, it is incomplete. For example, with respect to markers of contrast, we find only 
44 in Knott.s taxonomy, whereas Oates (2000) has shown that at least 73 different 
markers are able to cue contrastive relations. Finally, it is not empirically based; all 
examples in Knott.s study were fabricated. Since we can only access the examples that he 
produced, it is highly possible that other uses of discourse markers were overlooked. A 
more suitable solution would be to use a corpus. This enables us to check all occurrences 
of multiple markers in real, naturally occurring texts. For this piece of research we 
accounted only for those occurrences that were found in the British National Corpus 
(BNC) (Leech et al, 1994). The BNC contains 100 million words of written and spoken 
language. For the purposes of this study, we selected only the written section; this 
represents a wide cross-section of English texts ranging from newspaper articles to letters 
and memoranda. Although it is possible to search for a given grammatical category, the 
BNC is not marked up for discourse markers, thus all results were manually checked. 
Since all our findings are taken from the BNC, we can be sure that our results are 
representative of multiple discourse marker occurrence in natural language. 
  89
4. A database of discourse markers
Using the British National Corpus (BNC), a list of 332 English discourse markers and 
Mann and Thompson.s (1988) original 23 Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) relations, 
we created a database on the number and type of relations each marker can cue. Despite 
the criticisms of RST relations given in chapter 1, they were chosen for this study since 
they have been shown to be sufficiently descriptive for use in generation systems. 
Furthermore, RST relations are frequently used as a means of text analysis and 
description and are, thus, widely recognised within the natural language generation 
community. Some examples of natural language systems drawing from RST are 
DRAFTER (Paris et al, 1995) and ILEX (http://cirrus.dai.ed.ac.uk:8000/ilex/).  
The list of discourse markers was taken from the available literature. Essentially, any 
phrase or word that was referred to as a marker within the literature, was included in the 
database. An extract from the resulting database provided in Table 2. The entire database 
is provided on the attached compact disc. The first column contains the marker itself. The 
second, its grammatical category. The third and fourth are the source (written or spoken 
text and bibliographic reference) of the marker. The fifth column contains information on 
the type of relations that the marker can cue, below, for example, we see that so can cue 
at least 5 different relations. The next column states whether the marker occurs on the 
nucleus or satellite when cueing this relation and the final column contains an example of 
the marker from the BNC.  
In order to distinguish the different functions of each marker, Mann & Thompson.s 
(1988) rhetorical relations were used. A search was performed on each marker in the 
database in order to establish which relations it could signal15. Some markers were highly 
frequent in the corpus and it was, therefore, both unfeasible to manually check each 
example and impossible to check functions automatically. Instead, a random selection of 
                                                 
15 The implications of using a single annotator for this study are discussed in section 6.3.
  90
200 was made when more than 200 occurrences of a single marker were present in the 
BNC. These 200 occurrences were then separated and manually checked.  
Discourse 
Marker 
Grammatical 
category 
Spoken / 
written 
source 
Source 
Number / 
type of 
relations 
Satellite 
/nucleus  
Example of 
use 
So   Subordi
-nator 
Written  Knott,
1995
Volitional 
cause  
n  He had no chance of winning so he 
pretended he wasn.t trying. 
        Non-
volitional 
cause  
n  .I contacted ACET who I knew provided 
practical care at home. I had previously 
spent about 2 years asking local services 
and friends for help and not having it 
happen, so my flat had become pretty run 
down.  
        Sequence   Multi-
nuclear 
.that.s what I guessed so I said .no., I 
said they.re fine so she said .oh, I.m ever 
so sorry.. I said .don.t be.. 
        Enablement  n  Loosen the cord so you can remove the 
curtains easily.  
        Justify  n  If you went on strike, they didn.t pay you 
off. You got sacked and you just didn.t get 
any money. So the people had no other 
option but to work.  
        Purpose  s  Remind her so she.ll remember. 
Table 2: A fragment of the database for the discourse marker .so. 
 
4.1. Results from the BNC
The corpus study revealed that discourse markers vary greatly in the number and type of 
relations that they may cue. Of the 332 discourse markers collected from the literature, 
228 were found to mark a rhetorical relation in written text: 108 of these could mark only 
a single relation and 120 could mark two or more rhetorical relations. It was not possible 
to assign a relation to the remaining104 markers in the list since our study does not 
include rhetorical relations that account for the repairs, corrections, interjections and 
changes of belief that are prevalent in spoken discourse.  
  91
The marker cueing the highest number of relations was so which cued 14 in all. This was 
followed by and (11), since (9), thus (9), which means (8) and because (8). Of those 
which cued only single relations, the highest number were for SEQUENCE (25) and 
CONCESSION (21). Most markers that could only cue single relations were phrases rather 
than single words, examples of these are for example, first of all, we might say that, at the 
moment when and despite the fact that. Some relations could only be cued by markers 
that were also available for other relations. These were BACKGROUND, INTERPRETATION, 
EVALUATION, SOLUTIONHOOD, ENABLEMENT, MOTIVATION, EVIDENCE, NON-VOLITIONAL 
CAUSE, VOLITIONAL CAUSE, NON-VOLITIONAL RESULT AND VOLITIONAL RESULT.  
The complete results from the corpus study are shown in Figure 13. On the far left side in 
upper case is the list of Mann and Thompson.s rhetorical relations that were used for 
constructing the database. To the right of this list are blocks of relations to which are 
attached a number and one or more markers. The number indicates how many relations 
the marker beneath can cue and the block of relations constitute the actual relations that 
the marker can cue according to the corpus study. Thus, on the far left is the most general 
marker so which can cue 14 relations; INTERPRETATION, EVALUATION, ENABLEMENT, 
MOTIVATION, EVIDENCE, JUSTIFY, NON-VOLITIONAL CAUSE, VOLITIONAL CAUSE, NON-
VOLITIONAL RESULT, VOLITIONAL RESULT, PURPOSE, CONDITION, SUMMARY and 
SEQUENCE. In contrast, on the far right, are markers like actually and if so that can only 
cue a single relation. 
  92
INTERPRETATION
EVALUATION
ENABLEMENT
MOTIVATION
EVIDENCE
JUSTIFY
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE
NVRESULT
VRESULT
PURPOSE
CONDITION
SUMMARY
SEQUENCE
so
only after
SEQUENCE
CONDITION
VRESULT
NVRESULT
VCAUSE
NVCAUSE
now that
VRESULT
PURPOSE
NVRESULT
VCAUSE
NVCAUSE
JUSTIFY
which is why
VRESULT
NVRESULT
VCAUSE
NVCAUSE
JUSTIFY
MOTIVATION
CIRCUMSTANCE
EVIDENCE
JUSTIFY
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE
NVRESULT
VRESULT
as
CONTRAST
BACKGROUND
ENABLEMENT
MOTIVATION
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE
NVRESULT
VRESULT
PURPOSE
CONDITION
SEQUENCE
and
CIRCUMSTANCE
ENABLEMENT
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE
NVRESULT
VRESULT
SEQUENCE
after
MOTIVATION
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE
NVRESULT
VRESULT
so that
5
CIRCUMSTANCE
MOTIVATION
EVIDENCE
JUSTIFY
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE
NVRESULT
VRESULT
PURPOSE
since
as soon as
SEQUENCE
CONDITION
VRESULT
NVRESULT
VCAUSE
NVCAUSE
CIRCUMSTANCE CIRCUMSTANCE
EVALUATION
JUSTIFY
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE
NVRESULT
VRESULT
PURPOSE
SUMMARY
thus
JUSTIFY
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE
NVRESULT
VRESULT
consequently
largely because
mainly because
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE
NVRESULT
VRESULT
PURPOSE
it is because..that
thereby
NVRESULT
VCAUSE
NVCAUSE
VRESULT
SEQUENCE
finally
following this
in the end
subsequently
thereafter
from then on
SEQUENCE
VRESULT
NVRESULT
VCAUSE
NVCAUSE
BACKGROUND
whereupon
afterwards
SEQUENCE
VRESULT
NVRESULT
VCAUSE
NVCAUSE
CIRCUMSTANCE
when
CONDITION
PURPOSE
VCAUSE
NVCAUSE
MOTIVATION
CIRCUMSTANCE
BACKGROUND
JUSTIFY
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE
NVRESULT
VRESULT
PURPOSE
for this reason
INTERPRETATION
EVALUATION
EVIDENCE
JUSTIFY
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE
SUMMARY
therefore
INTERPRETATION
EVALUATION
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE
NVRESULT
VRESULT
PURPOSE
RESTATEMENT
which means
MOTIVATION
EVIDENCE
JUSTIFY
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE
NVRESULT
VRESULT
PURPOSE
because
MOTIVATION
EVIDENCE
JUSTIFY
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE
NVRESULT
VRESULT
seeing as/that
CIRCUMSTANCE
EVALUATION
ENABLEMENT
SEQUENCE
then
INTERPRETATION
EVALUATION
SUMMARY
CIRCUMSTANCE
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE
CONDITION
once whenever
the moment
BACKGROUND
EVALUATION
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE
presumably because
BACKGROUND
JUSTIFY
NVRESULT
PURPOSE
for the reason that
SEQUENCE
in conclusion
SOLUTIONHOOD
ENABLEMENT
PURPOSE
CONDITION
in order to
ENABLEMENT
EVIDENCE
JUSTIFY
PURPOSE
for
ENABLEMENT
MOTIVATION
PURPOSE
CONDITION
if...then
EVIDENCE
JUSTIFY
NVCAUSE
NVRESULT
it follows that
JUSTIFY
VCAUSE
NVRESULT
PURPOSE
hence
JUSTIFY
NVCAUSE
NVRESULT
VRESULT
only because
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE
NVRESULT
VRESULT
as a consquence
as a result
CONTRAST
CONCESSION
BACKGROUND
INTERPRETATION
RESTATEMENT
(to put it) in other words
INTERPRETATION
EVALUATION
EVIDENCE
it may be concluded that
INTERPRETATION
EVALUATION
in short
SUMMARY
in sum
overall
summing up
EVIDENCE
JUSTIFY
SEQUENCE
for a start
for one thing...
for another thing
while
at the same time
CIRCUMSTANCE
CONCESSION
CONTRAST
CONTRAST
ANTITHESIS
SEQUENCE
only
then again
CIRCUMSTANCE
BACKGROUND
SEQUENCE
earlier
originally
BACKGROUND
JUSTIFY
CONDITION
given that
ELABORATION
BACKGROUND
JUSTIFY
for example
for instance
CIRCUMSTANCE
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE
each time
every time
NVRESULT
EVIDENCE
VRESULT
accordingly
JUSTIFY
NVCAUSE
SEQUENCE
ultimately
CONTRAST
CONCESSION
although
ANTITHESIS
whereas but
yet however having said that
on (the) one hand...
on the other hand
though
CONTRAST
ANTITHESIS
instead
on the contrary
CONTRAST
SEQUENCE
at once
this time
CONCESSION
INTERPRETATION
at any rate
CONCESSION
JUSTIFY
granted that
CONCESSION
CONDITION
if
if only
CONCESSION
SEQUENCE
even after
CONCESSION
ELABORATION
anyway
anyhow
for that matter
at that
SEQUENCE
ELABORATION
to make matters worse
on top of this
ELABORATION
as it happened
ELABORATION
CIRCUMSTANCE
EVIDENCE
moreover
CIRCUMSTANCE
BACKGROUND
until then
CIRCUMSTANCE
CONDITION
as long as
the instant
wherever
CIRCUMSTANCE
SEQUENCE
after that
until
ever since
the first time
to start with
BACKGROUND
SEQUENCE
previously
INTERPRETATION
RESTATEMENT
put another way
that is (to say)
INTERPRETATION
SUMMARY
to sum up
to summarise
EVALUATION
SUMMARY
all in all
ENABLEMENT
CONDITION
in case
ENABLEMENT
SEQUENCE
before
EVIDENCE
JUSTIFY
after all
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE on the grounds that
NVRESULT
VRESULT
in doing this
such that
PURPOSE
CONDITION
only when
CONDITION
OTHERWISE
unless else
or or else
CONDITION
SEQUENCE
next time
only before
RESTATEMENT
SEQUENCE
once more
CONTRAST
actually
similarly
by contrast
conversely
in contrast
alternatively
NVCAUSE
VRESULT
PURPOSE
in this way
NVRESULT
VRESULT
PURPOSE
in so doing
with that the next time
in the beginning
in the first place
once again
much later
thirdly
later
second(ly)
or again
initially
for one
first (of all)
to begin with
firstly
next eventually
lastly
at the outset
last
at last
at first sight
another time
again above all
SEQUENCE
to conclude
summarising
altogether
SUMMARY
what I mean to say
we might say
RESTATEMENT
otherwise
failing that
either..or
OTHERWISE
always assuming that
let us assume
on condition that
provided that
suppose(ing) that
in the event of (that)
in which case
only...if
if so
CONDITION
in the hope that
PURPOSE
in that
simply because
considering that
insofar as
JUSTIFY
now
just then
at the moment when
where
meanwhile
wherein
even before
by then
by the time
just as
presently
CIRCUMSTANCE
too
equally
besides
as well
also
in the case of X
what is more
in addition
further(more)
to be precise
in other respects
in comparison
by comparison
not only...but also
in the meantime
CONCESSION
albeit
all the same
as it is
at least
nevertheless
much as
that said
even if
in any case
in spite of that
nonetheless
not
still even though
even so
even when
notwithstanding that
admittedly....(but)
despite (this/that/ the fact that)
ANTITHESIS
in fact
in truth
rather
regardless of that
the fact is that
it might appear that
it might seem that
ELABORATION
indeed
7 8 3 2 1 9 11 14 Number of relations sharing a marker 4 6  
Figure 13: Complete results from the database showing markers and all possible relations 
they may cue 
  93
4.2. Discourse marker strength
We call the more general markers weak discourse markers since there is a weak 
association between the marker being used and the relation being signalled: weak 
markers cue many relations. In contrast, the more specific markers are referred to as 
strong because there is a strong association between the marker being used and the 
relation being signalled: strong markers cue few relations and in some cases (e.g. albeit 
for CONCESSION) a strong marker may only be used for a single relation. Such a notion is 
implicit within Knott.s (1995) taxonomy of discourse markers in which hypernymic 
markers can be used in a greater number of contexts than can the hyponyms. 
It is important to note that our distinction between strong and weak markers differs from 
that of Scott & Souza (1990). According to Scott and Souza  (page 52) a strong marker is 
an available marker whose presence strongly correlates with the perceived presence of a 
relation. The inverse is said to hold for markers whose presence weakly correlates with 
the perceived presence of that relation. Thus, while our definition of weak and strong 
markers is based upon the relation between markers (weaker markers can cue more 
relations than stronger markers), Scott and Souza.s notion of weak and strong markers 
applies to a relation between a given marker and a given discourse relation or set of 
relations. For example, they point out that because is a strong marker of what Mann and 
Thompson refer to as the cause cluster of discourse relations (e.g., CAUSE, RESULT, 
MEANS and PURPOSE) whereas and is a weak marker of these relations16. For example, 
and is used below in its weak sense to cue RESULT, SEQUENCE and JUSTIFY, respectively: 
81.  As a result Rennes and Nantes were conquered and became part of Brittany. <ICE-GB:W1A-003 
#21:1> 
82.  .there is reference to Batram, a monk of Columbus Columba, who died and was buried in the 
oakwood of Calcach <ICE-GB:W1A-002 #45:1> 
                                                 
16 In fact and is a weak marker of many relations, our study showed that and may cue 11 relations
in all.
  94
83.  The series of events beginning in the late fourth century, which led to the end of Roman Britain , 
provide an important background to the question and are worth outlining . <ICE-GB:W1A-001 
#15:1> 
However, in its strong sense, it can also be used to cue the JOINT relation:  
84.  There influences were clearly shown eg. the use of the Totem pole and a violent and expressive use 
of symbols . <ICE-GB:W1A-019 #19:1> 
In contrast, according to our definition, both and and because are weak markers since 
they are both available to cue many relations (11 and 8, respectively).  
To summarise the results from our corpus analysis (Figure 13), we find that some 
markers can be used for a wide number of relations (e.g, so, and), while others appear to 
be much more specific, some applying to only one relation (e.g., actually, alternatively). 
Furthermore, we find that a given relation can be cued by several markers that are also 
used to cue other relations. For example, SEQUENCE shares the marker so with 13 other 
relations and the marker as soon as with 6 other relations. However, a relation may also 
be cued by several other markers (indeed, 25 in the case of SEQUENCE) that are specific to 
it alone.  
The following chapters compare the utility of grammatical category and strength in 
placing multiple discourse markers. It is undisputable that grammatical category has an 
effect on the order of multiple markers, however we do not know the extent to which this 
factor can account for all occurrences. It seems that the strength of the marker also plays 
a role in constraining the order of occurrence. As has been shown already, an informal 
study of the BNC suggested that when two markers of the same category occur together, 
the first marker is able to cue more relations than the second. We find that, not only does 
this rule apply to single relations cued by multiple markers; 
85.  2 coordinators: The pores in the skin are a classic example: they can not become perceptible to us 
by themselves, but yet their presence in the skin can be deduced from sweat. (BNC) 
but also, to a certain extent, to complex occurrences in which two relations are cued by 
two markers in the same text span. In the following example, we have two relations and 
two contrastive markers. The superordinate relation, marked by although, holds between 
  95
proposition (a) and propositions (b-c), whilst the subordinate relation, marked by even if, 
holds between propositions (b) and (c); 
86.  2 subordinators: .(a) they separated themselves from the Catholic Church, that is, from the unity 
of all nations. Although, even if (b) the charges had been true, (c) we are still bound not for the sake 
of any man to leave the Church. <ICE-GB:W1B-014 #13:1> 
In each case the markers could not occur in the opposite order despite being of the same 
grammatical category.  
4.3. A hierarchy of discourse markers
Following the preliminary tests on the BNC, the hypothesis was established that weak 
markers will always occur before strong. In order to test this hypothesis, the results from 
the database were used to create a hierarchy of weak and strong discourse markers.  
In order to limit the study to a feasible size, the relations were divided into families from 
which, it was decided, two hierarchies would be built and one would be tested17. The 
contrastive and causal families (given in bullet points 5 and 6 below) were chosen since 
they both contain and share many discourse markers. The RAGS reference architecture 
for NLG (Cahill et al., 1999) distinguishes the following families (or .classes.) on the 
basis of approximate semantic equivalence amongst relations: 
1.  Elaboration, Circumstance, Background, Interpretation, Evaluation 
2.  Solutionhood 
3. Enablement, Motivation 
4.  Evidence, Justify  
5.  Non-volitional Cause, Volitional Cause, Volitional Result, Non-volitional Result, 
Purpose, Means 
                                                 
17 In fact, since the information was readily available, having completed the study, hierarchies for
the remaining families (ELABORATION and CONDITION) were also built in addition to a hierarchy for
French contrastive markers. These are included in the appendix. No tests were completed on
these hierarchies.
  96
6.  Contrast, Antithesis, Concession  
7.  Condition, Otherwise  
8. Restatement, Summary 
9. List, Sequence 
However, these groups were not entirely suitable to this study. In order to prevent the 
same markers occurring in several hierarchies, it was necessary to expand upon the 
RAGS groups, therefore the following changes were made. 
The contrastive family was adopted directly. However, the EXCEPTION18 relation was 
added to it since it shared many of the same markers with the other relations in this 
group. An addition was also necessary to the causal family. The results from the corpus 
showed that the SEQUENCE relation shares many markers with the group of causal 
relations. This is because, whenever there is a cause and effect, there must be a sequence 
of events. Thus it is to be expected that SEQUENCE and CAUSE will share many markers. 
As a result of these changes, the contrastive family now consists of the following 
relations; CONTRAST, CONCESSION, ANTITHESIS and EXCEPTION. The causal family is 
composed of NON-VOLITIONAL CAUSE, VOLITIONAL CAUSE, NON-VOLITIONAL RESULT, 
VOLITIONAL RESULT, PURPOSE and SEQUENCE.  
Using the information in Figure 13, the markers from each family were used to construct 
a hierarchy. The hierarchies show that (a) some discourse markers may be used to cue 
many relations and (b) there are further preferences (e.g., formality of the text) on marker 
choice that should be accounted for. In our hierarchy, those discourse markers which can 
cue many relations (weak markers) appear to the left and those marking only a single 
relation (strong markers) occur to the right. Thus in the contrastive family hierarchy 
(Figure 14) but is the weakest marker since it can cue all of the contrastive relations 
without constraint. The relations that each marker can cue are contained in square boxes. 
As we move to the right of the hierarchy, towards the stronger markers, the number of 
                                                 
18 This is a relatively new discourse relation found in a recent poster by Mann (2001) presented at
the 7th International Pragmatics Conference, 9-14 July, Budapest.
  97
relations is reduced. For example, on the second level, we see that yet can cue three 
relations; CONTRAST, CONCESSION and ANTITHESIS. On a lower level, again, we see that 
though can only mark two relations; CONTRAST and CONCESSION. To the right of this box 
are brackets containing circular boxes and further discourse markers. The circular boxes 
contain preferences for occurrence. In other words, should the context be met, the use of 
the markers below these boxes will be preferable. So, if the writer is trying to signal a 
CONTRAST relation, but at the same time hoping to forward a balanced argument, it would 
be preferable to use a marker like on the one hand.on the other or in theory.in 
practice, for example. Examples of the preferences for occurrence are the style of the 
text, its formality, whether other relations are marked simultaneously and the content of 
the related propositions. The information for these preferences was obtained from the 
literature already available on discourse markers, particularly Chalker (1996), and 
findings from the corpus study. Preferences are marked only in the contrastive family 
hierarchy since this is the hierarchy upon which our hypothesis is tested. 

  98
in actual fact
actually
= RELATIONS MARKER CAN CUE
CONCESSION
CONTRAST
though
whereas
although
EXCEPTION
CONCESSION
apart from
excepting that
except
while, whilst
at the same time
meanwhile
in theory...in practice
on one side..on the other
on one hand...
on the other hand
notwithstanding
ANTITHESIS
it might appear that
in truth
in fact
in reality
at first sight
regardless of that
indeed
the fact is that
EXCEPTION
rather than
nothing...but
but for
tho’
still and all
even though, even so
despite (this/that)
despite the fact that
in spite of
even when
at least
even if, only if, if
CONTRAST
by contrast
in contrast
alternatively
and
conversely
CONCESSION
admittedly
even so
for that matter
much as
granted that
that said
at any rate
+SPOKEN
in any case
all the same, still
nonetheless
+FORMAL
nevertheless
-FORMAL
+POETIC
+US ENGLISH
+SUPRISING N
+EMPHASIS ON
CONDITION
+FORMAL
+SIMILARITIES
in comparison, similarly
by comparison
+SEQUENCE
this time
not only...but also
+ELABORATION
save, bar
+FORMAL
+EMPHATIC
ANTITHESIS
-FORMAL
&
&
&
&
-MODERN
+BALANCED
ARGUMENT
+SIMULTANEITY
+ELABORATION
if only
as it is
+LEGAL TEXT
anyway, anyhow
notwithstanding that
+SEQUENCE
even after
albeit
-MODERN
+POSITIVE
OUTCOME
ANTITHESIS
CONTRAST
instead
then again
on the contrary
only
rather
yet
not that...but
ANTITHESIS
CONTRAST
CONCESSION
however
but
EXCEPTION
ANTITHESIS
CONCESSION
CONTRAST
= PREFERENCES FOR OCCURRENCE  
Figure 14: The contrastive family hierarchy 
  99
VCAUSE
NVCAUSE
NVRESULT
VRESULT
PURPOSE
SEQUENCE
and
so
SEQUENCE
NVCAUSE
ultimately
as a consquence
as a result
which is why
as
so that
mainly because
largely because
consequently
seeing as/that
VRESULT
NVRESULT
VCAUSE
NVCAUSE
NVRESULT
NVCAUSE
such that
in doing this
accordingly
VRESULT
NVRESULT
it follows that
NVRESULT
PURPOSE
for the reason that
every time
each time
the moment
whenever
once
on the grounds that
therefore
VCAUSE
NVCAUSE
presumably because
it is because..that
because
which means
now that
for this reason
thereby
thus
since
PURPOSE
VRESULT
NVRESULT
VCAUSE
NVCAUSE
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE
NVRESULT
VRESULT
SEQUENCE
as soon as
only after
after
from then on
afterwards
whereupon
thereafter
subsequently
so in the end
following this
finally
PURPOSE
if...then
for
only when
in the hope that
in order to
VRESULT
NVRESULT
NVCAUSE
only because
in so doing
PURPOSE
VRESULT
NVRESULT
hence
PURPOSE
NVRESULT
VCAUSE
PURPOSE
NVCAUSE
VCAUSE
when
PURPOSE
VRESULT
NVCAUSE
in this way
SEQUENCE
at first sight
at the outset
at last
eventually
first (of all)
firstly
for one
another time
this time
in the beginning
last
in the first place
lastly
initially
again
in conclusion
above all
second(ly)
at once
once more
for a start
or again
the next time
to begin with
only before
with that
after that
until ever since
to start with
next time
originally
thirdly
the first time
next
before
then
earlier
once again
much later
later
even after
on top of this at that
previously then again
only
for one thing...for another thing
to make matters worse
 
Figure 15: The causal family hierarchy
  100
5. Testing the strength hypothesis
The aim of the first study in this chapter is to investigate the hypothesis that weak 
discourse markers will always precede strong discourse markers when multiple markers 
occur cueing a single relation. In order to test this hypothesis, we concentrated on a 
smaller subset of markers from our database - the contrastive discourse markers. This 
subset includes subordinators like although, coordinators like but, conjunctive adverbs 
like admittedly and phrases like it might seem that. 
5.1. The test corpus
We also limited the size of the corpus selecting only the written section of the 
International Corpus of English (ICE-GB). The entire corpus contains 500 texts. Each 
text contains approximately 2000 words, thus the size of the entire corpus is 
approximately one million words. The written section, however, comprises 200 texts 
taken from a range of sources. Briefly, we find in this section of the corpus: 40 academic 
texts, 40 non-academic texts, 20 reportages, 20 instructional texts, 10 persuasive texts and 
20 creative writing texts. The total number of words in this section is 423,702.  
In this section of the corpus we identified 3273 occurrences of contrastive discourse 
markers  - in other words, those markers used to cue the rhetorical relations of CONTRAST, 
CONCESSION, ANTITHESIS and EXCEPTION. However, this total does not include markers 
that can in principle be used for contrastive relations but which did not cue a contrastive 
relation in the given text unit, for example, although if can be used contrastively to mark 
CONCESSION: 
87.  An understandable, if occasionally nannyish, attitude to the perils of fireworks has discouraged 
people from back garden festivities and has urged them out to supposedly safer civic displays. 
<ICE-GB:W2E-003 #63:2> 
  
  101
It is more frequently used as a marker of CONDITION: 
88.  If one takes the nature of rule to mean govern and control then the Franks did not rule Brittany, 
though they were responsible for the formation of Brittany into a political unit. <ICE-GB:W1A-003 
#94:1> 
In our total, we only count those occurrences in which the marker is understood to be 
cueing a contrastive relation. For example, the marker if occurred 1313 times in the 
written corpus, of which only 7 marked a CONCESSION relation. In order to distinguish 
these different uses, it was necessary to manually annotate the texts for relations.  As a 
result, further, smaller corpora of contrastive discourse markers were created upon which 
much of the analysis could be conducted.  
In one case, the number of relations a marker could cue was so great, and as a result it 
occurred so frequently in the texts, that a smaller sample was taken of its occurrence and 
all results were based upon this sample and generalised across the corpus. For the 
contrastive relations, and was particularly difficult to analyse since not only does it occur 
10,809 times in the written corpus, but also it can be used as both a simple conjunction: 
89.  The problem lies in the paucity and the confusing nature of the sources currently available as well 
as controversy arising over their interpretation. <ICE-GB:W1A-001 #6:1> 
and as a discourse marker: 
90.  There was a desire to settle amicably and even in formal court proceedings a compromise solution 
was often reached .<ICE-GB:W1A-003 #65:1> 
As a result of these factors, a smaller corpus was created of 1,100 occurrences of and 
behaving as a discourse marker. This was done by saving the occurrences of and to a 
separate file, then rejecting any examples from the file which were not considered to be 
functioning as discourse markers. This process continued until 1,100 examples were 
established. In total there were 117 occurrences of  and behaving contrastively within this 
subcorpus.  
Besides and, the most common contrastive markers were but (1,776), however (426), 
although (333) and yet (80). These are all considered to be fairly weak discourse markers 
  102
since they were used to cue a number of relations. In contrast, we found that many of the 
stronger markers did not occur in the test corpus, these were at all events, bar, in actual 
fact, still and all, tho, that said, at first sight, regardless of that, granted that, on one 
side...on the other and excepting that. Of the seventy-three contrastive discourse markers 
occurring in the contrastive hierarchy, only the eleven listed above did not occur in the 
test corpus. Therefore, a total of sixty-two markers were tested in all. The total number of 
occurrences for these markers was 3,273. If all of these markers occurred multiply, there 
would be 1636.5 examples of multiple markers in the corpus, since two markers 
occurring together make a single example of multiple marker occurrence. However, in 
the corpus, we identified 170 examples of multiple markers. In other words, 340 markers 
(10% of all contrastive markers in the corpus) occurred in a grouping. Of the 171 
examples, 74 (148 markers) were examples of simple multiple marker occurrence and 96 
(192 markers) were examples of complex occurrences. 
5.2. The influence of strength on simple multiple marker occurrence
As described in chapter 3, we distinguish between simple and complex multiple marker 
occurrence. To repeat, simple multiple marker occurrence is characterised by a single 
relation being cued by more than one discourse marker. In contrast, complex multiple 
marker occurrence is characterised by many relations being marked by different 
discourse markers. We found that a finer level of distinction is necessary to account for 
all occurrences of a particular type. For example, even though both of the following 
examples could be classed as simple multiple markers, a generation system would need to 
distinguish between markers immediately occurring together as in the following sentence; 
91.  It is a common misconception that this is true of monkeys generally but in reality the feature is 
only found in this region. <ICE-GB:w2b-021-029> 
and markers that occurred in different propositions, as below: 
92.  Although we couldn.t charge for the extra hours, it at least showed what a bargain CEC was getting 
and how hard people actually work. <ICE-GB:w1b-029-098> 
  103
Section 5.3.3 examines this type of occurrence and its relation to the more commonly 
used correlative discourse markers, for example, either.or and on the one hand.on the 
other hand. Neither of  the factors tested here  are expected to account for the more 
obvious correlative markers, however examples like 92 are not excluded from the corpus 
study owing to the similarities to simple multiple marker occurrence as shown in 91. In 
both cases, two markers cue one relation, the difference between the two types being that 
for 91 the markers are attached to the same text span, whereas with 92 the text spans to 
which the markers are attached are different. 
It was also necessary to distinguish those markers that have strict placement constraints 
from those markers that are more free in their placement (mostly conjunctive adverbs and 
phrases). We  call the  relatively free markers  floating markers as  they need not 
necessarily occur sentence initially or finally as would the more constrained markers. The 
following examples show that the discourse marker  at  least  is  relatively  free  in  its 
placement within a proposition compared to although which is constrained to occurring 
clause initially: 
93.  Although we couldn.t charge for the extra hours, it at least showed what a bargain CEC was getting 
and how hard people actually work.<ICE-GB:w1b-029-098> 
94.  Although we couldn.t charge for the extra hours, at least it showed what a bargain CEC was getting 
and how hard people actually work. 
95.  Although we couldn.t charge for the extra hours, it showed what a bargain CEC was getting at least 
and how hard people actually work. 
96.  Although we couldn.t charge for the extra hours, it showed what a bargain CEC was getting and 
how hard people actually work at least . 
  104
Therefore we further distinguish subtypes of simple multiple markers to account for these 
differences. The corpus contained the following eight patterns of multiple marker 
occurrence19:  
1 Two markers are attached to proposition B. The first marker immediately 
precedes the second. No punctuation. 
Pattern  [A] [<marker> <marker> B] 
example  It is a common misconception that this is true of monkeys generally but in 
reality the feature is only found in this region. <ICE-GB:w2b-021-029> 
   
2 Two markers are attached to B but the first does not immediately precede 
the second. 
Pattern  [A] [<marker> B <marker> ] 
example  I.m rather late but Happy Birthday, anyway. <ICE-GB:w1b-010-125> 
   
3 Two markers are attached to B. A and B are separated by punctuation. 
Pattern  [A <./,/:/;>] [<marker>  <marker> B] 
example  The apolgia was not quite convincing, since Italy profited as much as the 
provinces from the Roman peace, and far more from public expenditure, 
and yet paid little taxes until c. AD 300 [p.515], long after it had lost 
other privileges. But at any rate from the time of Augustus Roman arms 
did secure peace and order. <ICE-GB:w2a-001-052> 
                                                 
19 The patterns of occurrence for embedded multiple markers are available in the appendix. The
results for this type of occurrence are summarised in section 5.5. Complex occurrences are not
the central interest in this thesis.
  105

4 There is a floating second marker which often occurs after the verb in 
proposition B. The first marker occurs initially in proposition B 
Pattern  [A<./,/:/;>] [<marker> B <float-marker>] 
example  The term phototropism strictly refers to the directional growth of an 
organ in response to blue light. However, light is of such crucial 
importance to plant growth and development that there are, in fact, 
several additional means by which it can influence the orientation of 
plant organs. <ICE-GB:w2a-025-018> 
   
5 This type is similar to (1) and (3) but, in this case, the second marker is a 
floating one and first marker occurs initially. 
Pattern  [<marker> A <./,/:/;>] [B <float-marker>] 
example  Although we couldn.t charge for the extra hours, it at least showed what 
a bargain CEC was getting and how hard people actually work.<ICE-
GB:w1b-029-098> 
 
6 Both markers are attached to different propositions. Both occur initially. 
Pattern  [<marker> A] [<marker> B ] 
example  Admittedly it is unlikely that heir culture could have survived under all 
the external pressure but Spicer traces the death of their culture due to the 
wheel, in the form of a wagon. <ICE-GB:w1a-012-061> 
   
7 The first marker floats, the second marker begins second proposition. 
Pattern  [A <float-marker> <./,/:/;>] [<marker> B] 
example  In the Basque country and in Wales the indigenous languages have 
actually survived, whereas in [sic] Gaul Celtic ultimately disappeared 
with few traces except in place names. <ICE-GB:w2a-001-081> 
   
  106
8 The first marker is attached to A and occurs initially. The second marker 
is attached to B and occurs finally. 
Pattern  [<marker> A <./,/:/;>] [B <marker>] 
Example  Although there is some validity to this point, as it is one without an 
answer I do feel we have to make the best of what we have and can do 
and accept the ideal representation as unachievable. The presence of the 
observer or visitor changes the situation anyway. <ICE-GB:w1A-012 
#27:1> 
 
5.2.1. Methodology
For each of the seventy-three discourse markers in the hierarchy, we examined whether 
they occurred either before or after every other marker in the hierarchy. To give a small 
example using only three discourse markers (and, yet, still), we tested the following 
combinations: 
and yet; and still; and and 
yet and; yet still; yet yet 
still yet; still and; still still 
When multiple markers were found, three types of information were recorded: (1) the 
number of occurrences, (2) whether the occurrence was simple or complex and (3) the 
pattern of occurrence. The pattern was recorded by a number corresponding to examples 
above. Thus, if the pattern [A] [<marker> <marker> B] occurred twice in the corpus and 
each was an example of simple multiple marker occurrence, the code 2(s)1 was entered 
into the table. The first number being the number of occurrences (2), the letter being the 
type of occurrence (s=simple) and the final number being the pattern of simple 
occurrence (pattern 1).  
The results tables for simple and complex occurrences can be seen on pages 108 and 109. 
Some results in these tables are shaded. In the simple table, complex marker occurrences 
  107
results are shaded grey and vice versa for the table of complex occurrences. The tables 
contain all occurrences of multiple markers in the written section of the ICE corpus. In 
the original tables, seventy-three markers were included. However, some markers never 
occurred in a grouping in the corpus and, thus, have been omitted from the tables. The 
markers in these tables are all of those that occurred in a grouping in the corpus. 
In order to read the tables, the left-hand column should be understood to contain the 
marker that occurred first in the clause or sentence while the top row contains the marker 
occurring in second place in the text unit. 
  108
Table 3: Simple multiple marker occurrences 
 
2nd marker 
anyway (8)
actually (contrast =19)
this time(10)
At Least(12) 
Despite this/that
At any rate (4)
in any case(7)
still (23)
nonetheless (10)
nevertheless (27)
But for(2)
in reality (7)
in fact (28)
in truth  (2)
indeed (contrast=8)
And (1,100 corpus)
At the same time(14)
while (121)
rather (18)
instead (21)
whereas (30)
though (157)
yet (80)
but (1,776)
but (1,776) 3(s)2 5(s)1 3(s)1/ 2(s)3 5(s)1 / 1(s)2 / 2(e)1 1(s)3 1(s)3 2(s)3 1(s)2 1(s)2 1(s)1 3(s)1 1(s)1 5(e)1/ 2(e)1 1(s)2/ 3(s)1 3(s)3/ 1(e)1 6(s)1 2(s)1 / 1(s)3 1(e)2 2(e)1 4(e)1
yet (80) 1(s)3
however (426) 1(s)3 2(s)4 2(e)1 1(e)2 14e
though (157)
although (233) 1(s)8 1(s)5 1(s)5 1(e)3 1(e)3 1(e)3 1(e)2 / 2(e)1
whilst (39) 1(s)5
In theory.in practice(1) 1(s)1
Admittedly(2) 1(s)6
And (1,100 corpus) 1(s)3 1(s)1 1(s)1 3(s)1 1(s)1 1(e)2 3(s)1 1(e)1
It might appear (1) 1(s)6
in fact (28) 1(s)3 4(e)2
still (23) 1(s)2
even though (29) 1(s)5
Despite this/that 1(s)5 1(e)1 1(e)1 1(e)3
despite (the fact that) (despite=47, 
the fact that = 5) 3(s)4 1(e)3 1(e)3
Actually (contrast=19) 1(s)7
1st marker
  109
Table 4: Complex multiple marker occurrences
albeit (8)
even after(7)
even if (26)
At Least(12) 
even when (8)
In spite of (10)
despite (the fact that) (despite=47, the fact that = 
5)
even though (29) 
But for(2)
And (1,100 corpus)
If only(1)
on the one hand.on the other
while (121)
except (36)
apart from(35)
whereas (30)
although (233)
though (157)
however (426)
but (1,776)
but (1,776) 1(e)1 1(e)1 5(s)1 / 1(s)2 / 2(e)1 1(e)1 1(e)1 2(e)1 5(e)1/ 2(e)1 1(e)1 3(s)3 / 1(e)1 1(e)1/ 1(e)1 1(e)1 1(e)2 1(e)1 / 1(e)2 2(e)1 4(e)1
yet (80) 1(e)1
however (426) 1(e)2 / 1(e)1 1(e)1 2(e)2 / 1(e)1 2(e)1 1(e)2 2(e)1 3(e)2 8(e)1 / 6(e)1
although (233) 1(s)5 1(e)3 1(e)3 1(e)3 1(e)3 1(e)2 / 2(e)1
whereas (30) 1(e)1
instead (21) 1(e)1
apart from(35) 1(e)1
except (36) 1(e)1
while (121) 1(e)3 1(e)1
in / by contrast (5) 1(e)1
And (1,100 corpus) 1(e)2 1(e)2/ 1(e)1 2(e)2 1(e)1 1(e)1  1(e)2 1(e)1
indeed (contrast=8) 1(e)2
in fact (28) 1(e)2 / 1(e)1 1(s)3 4(e)2
nevertheless (27) 1(e)1 1(e)2
Despite this/that 1(e)1 1(e)1 1(e)3
despite (the fact that) (despite=47, 
the fact that = 5) 1(e)3 1(e)3 1(e)3
similarly (13)  1(e)1
2nd marker
  110
5.2.2. Results
The following tables show the results from testing the occurrence of simple multiple 
markers on the ICE corpus. The hierarchy was divided into six sections ranging from 
very weak (weak+) to very strong markers with additional preferences on occurrence 
(strong+&preference). The six sections are shown in Figure 16. 
in actual fact
actually
CONCESSION
CONTRAST
though
whereas
although
EXCEPTION
CONCESSION
apart from
excepting that
except
while, whilst
at the same time
meanwhile
in theory...in practice
on one side..on the other
on one hand...
on the other hand
notwithstanding
ANTITHESIS
it might appear that
in truth
in fact
in reality
at first sight
regardless of that
indeed
the fact is that
EXCEPTION
rather than
nothing...but
but for
tho’
still and all
even though, even so
despite (this/that)
despite the fact that
in spite of
even when
at least
even if, only if, if
CONTRAST
by contrast
in contrast
alternatively
and
conversely
CONCESSION
admittedly
even so
for that matter
much as
granted that
that said
at any rate
+SPOKEN
in any case
all the same, still
nonetheless
+FORMAL
nevertheless
-FORMAL
+POETIC
+US ENGLISH
+SUPRISING N
+EMPHASIS ON
CONDITION
+FORMAL
+SIMILARITIES
in comparison, similarly
by comparison
+SEQUENCE
this time
not only...but also
+ELABORATION
save, bar
+FORMAL
+EMPHATIC
ANTITHESIS
-FORMAL
&
&
&
&
-MODERN
+BALANCED
ARGUMENT
+SIMULTANEITY
+ELABORATION
if only
as it is
+LEGAL TEXT
anyway, anyhow
notwithstanding that
+SEQUENCE
even after
albeit
-MODERN
+POSITIVE
OUTCOME
ANTITHESIS
CONTRAST
instead
then again
on the contrary
only
rather
yet
not that...but
ANTITHESIS
CONTRAST
CONCESSION
however
but
EXCEPTION
ANTITHESIS
CONCESSION
CONTRAST
STRONG WEAK STRONG&PREF WEAK+ STRONG+ STRONG+&PREF  
Figure 16: The division of strength in the hierarchy 
It was hypothesised that when two markers of different strength co-occur, the first marker 
would always be weaker than the second. The white areas in the tables below indicate 
that a number in this box is in support of the hypothesis. A number occurring in the light 
grey area is an indication of a contradiction to the hypothesis and number in the dark grey 
area signals that two markers of the same strength have co-occurred.  
  111
When reading the tables, the strength indicated in the left-hand column is to be 
interpreted as the strength of the first marker occurring in a grouping. The strength 
indicated in the top row being the strength of the second marker in the grouping. For 
example, the top-right box in Table 5 indicates that there were four occurrences of a very 
weak marker being followed by a very strong marker with additional preferences on 
occurrence (three occurrences of but and this time and one occurrence of but with in 
reality). The box is white, therefore this number of occurrences supports our hypothesis 
that weaker markers will occur before strong. A table is provided for each pattern of 
occurrence listed above.  
Example Weak+  Weak  Strong  &preference  Strong+  &preference 
Weak+           
 
3(but this time) 
1(but in reality) 
Weak             
Strong             
&preference             
Strong+              
&preference             
Table 5: Understanding the tables of results 
The corpus contained 74 occurrences of multiple markers, each of which is assigned a 
pattern (1-8). Of the 74 occurrences, 41 were distinct types and 33 were repetitions 
(tokens) of these types. For example, there were 6 occurrences (tokens) of the marker but 
immediately preceding the marker rather, however, this was only classed as a single type 
of occurrence.  
It is the different types of occurrence upon which this analysis will concentrate. However, 
the figures in the tables below indicate the number of occurrences of a particular type in 
order that we may ensure that the strength and grammatical category factors are 
accounting, not only for a wide range of different types of occurrence, but also for the 
most common types of occurrence in the corpus. 
  112
Pattern 1 Weak+  Weak  Strong  &preference  Strong+  &preference 
Weak+      6(but rather) 
2(but instead) 
3(but at the same time)  1(but in truth) 
3(but in fact) 
1(but in reality) 
5(but actually) 
3(but this time) 
5(but at least) 
Weak            1(yet despite this) 
Strong             
&preference             
Strong+     3(and yet)  1(and instead)  3(and at the same time)  1(and indeed)  1(and in any case) 
&preference             
Table 6: Results from the ICE corpus for pattern 1 using strength 
Regarding the different patterns in which discourse markers can occur, the tables show 
that the majority of occurrences of simple multiple markers followed pattern 1 (see Table 
6), whereby both markers are attached to the beginning of the linearly second proposition 
with the first marker immediately preceding the second and no punctuation, for example: 
97.  The facility of the computer can be used to relate definitions which may be different from 
department to department but actually describe the same process simply by using the same codes. 
<ICE-GB:W2A-016 #91:1> 
Of the 74 occurrences of simple multiple discourse markers, 39 followed this pattern. Of 
this 39, 15 different types of occurrence were recognised. The fact that most occurrences 
of multiple markers followed this first pattern can be explained by grammatical category: 
coordinators must occur on the linearly second text unit, as must conjunctive adverbs 
(although not necessarily initially, this explains why other types occurred) and, in most 
cases according to Quirk et al (1985) subordinators are found here too. Section 5.3 uses 
the results described here to examine the role of grammatical category in multiple 
discourse marker placement.  
The strength factor accounts for 11 types of occurrence of pattern 1, there were 3 
counterexamples to this factor and 1 type of occurrence in which markers of the same 
strength co-occurred. All of the counterexamples to strength which follow pattern 1 
contained the marker and. The fact that and does produce so many counterexamples to 
  113
the strength hypothesis highlights a potential problem in merging the hierarchies in the 
future. Although and marker should be classed as weak, since according our study of the 
British National Corpus (Figure 13, page 92) it can cue as many as 11 different rhetorical 
relations, in the contrastive marker hierarchy, and is classed as very strong (strong+), 
since, of the four relations in this hierarchy, and can only cue CONTRAST. This suggests 
that by focusing on families of relations rather than the entire range, the level of success 
for the strength factor in accounting for multiple markers may be different to the success 
rate of the strength factor when using a hierarchy containing all markers and all relations. 
Further work must be done in order to understand what effects there would be on the 
ability for strength to account for multiple marker occurrence, if families of relations are 
ignored. 
Pattern 2 Weak+  Weak  Strong  &preference  Strong+  &preference 
Weak+        1(but at the same time)    3(but anyway) 
1(but nonetheless) 
1(but nevertheless) 
1(but at least) 
Weak          2(however in fact)   
Strong             
&preference             
Strong+              
&preference            1(still anyway) 
Table 7: Results from the ICE corpus for pattern 2 using strength 
Like pattern 1, occurrences of pattern 2 (see Table 7) contain two markers that are 
attached to the linearly second unit. However, in this case, the first does not immediately 
precede the second, for example:  
98.  For equation-based theories, the programs are normally entirely algorithmic and solve the relevant 
equations, but there are nevertheless instances of heuristic search for solutions where no algorithm 
is known . <ICE-GB:W2A-035 #29:1> 
  114
Of the 10 occurrences following this pattern, there were 7 different types. Again, the 
majority of these types (5 out of 7) were examples of coordinators followed by 
conjunctive adverbs. However, there were a further two types of occurrence in which 
conjunctive adverbs co-occurred, one was supported by the strength factor and one was 
an example of markers of the same strength co-occurring:  
99.  What a ridiculous letter. Still might as well send it anyway . <ICE-GB:W1B-010 #115:2> 
Pattern 3 Weak+  Weak  Strong  &preference  Strong+  &preference 
Weak+      1(but instead)  3(but while) 
 
  2(but this time) 
1(but at any rate) 
2(but in any case) 
1(but despite this) 
Weak            1(however this time) 
Strong             
&preference             
Strong+       1(in fact though)      1(and anyway) 
&preference             
Table 8: Results from the ICE corpus for pattern 3 using strength 
  115
Occurrences following pattern 3 are similar to those for pattern 1. Again, they consist of 
two markers being attached to the beginning of the linearly second text unit. However, 
type 1 occurrences are not separated by punctuation, whereas type 4 occurrences are. 
Punctuation includes colons, semi-colons, commas and full stops: 
100. Later when shocks were being associated with another stimulus the group who got regular shocks 
were conditioned while those who had erratic shocks failed to be as they had no notion of shocks 
predicting anything but instead being erratic and irregular. <ICE-GB:W1A-017 #73:2> 
There were 13 occurrences of multiple markers in pattern 3 (see Table 8), 9 of which 
were examples of different types of occurrence. The strength of a marker was relatively 
successful in accounting for marker placement for this pattern. The only example it was 
unable to account for being in fact followed by though. 
Pattern 4 Weak+  Weak  Strong  &preference  Strong+  &preference 
Weak+             
Weak             
Strong             
&preference             
Strong+              
&preference            3(despite the fact that in any case) 
Table 9: Results from the ICE corpus for pattern 4 using strength 
There were only 3 occurrences of markers for pattern 4. These were all examples of 
despite the fact that being followed by in any case. Since both markers are of the same 
strength (strong+ &preferences), the strength factor was unable to account for their order. 

 
  116
Pattern 5 Weak+  Weak  Strong  &preference  Strong+  &preference 
Weak+             
Weak             
Strong            1(although nevertheless) 
1(although at least) 
&preference            1(whilst still) 
Strong+              
&preference            1(despite this/that in any case) 
1(even though still) 
Table 10: Results from the ICE corpus for pattern 5 using strength 
Pattern 5 (Table 10) is recognisable by the one marker occurring initially in the first text 
unit and the second marker occurring in the second unit. The placement of the second 
marker is relatively free in this unit, for example: 
101. Although we couldn.t charge for the extra hours, it at least showed what a bargain CEC was getting 
and how hard people actually work.<ICE-GB:w1b-029-098> 
For this pattern of occurrence, 5 different types of occurrence were identified. Strength 
was not entirely successful in accounting for these occurrences since 2 of the 5 were 
examples of markers of the same strength co-occurring. Strength could account for the 
other three types of occurrence, however. 
  117
 
Pattern 6 Weak+  Weak Strong &preference Strong+ &preference 
Weak+             
Weak             
Strong             
&preference             
Strong+   1(Admittedly.but) 
1(it might appear that.but) 
         
&preference             
Table 11: Results from the ICE corpus for pattern 6 using strength 
There were very few occurrences overall for the remaining three patterns. These patterns 
were unusual in that the markers occur on separate text spans. In contrast, the markers 
occur on the same text span (the second) for the other five patterns. There were 2 types of 
occurrence for pattern 6, strength could not account for this pattern since in both cases a 
very strong marker occurs before a very weak marker. The occurrences we found of this 
type were as follows: 
102. Admittedly it is unlikely that their culture could have survived under all the external pressure put 
but Spicer traces the death of their culture due to the wheel, in the form of a wagon. <ICE-
GB:W1A-012 #61:2> 
103. It might appear that these customs are odd or unusual, but they are not to those who have been 
brought up in that way. <ICE-GB:W2B-017 #76:1> 
It seems most appropriate to class these markers as correlative discourse markers, since 
they have the same characteristics as the other correlative markers we considered earlier 
in section 3.1, for example if and then; 
104. If I owned up to something I haven't done, then I would be guilty . <ICE-GB:W2F-008 #79:1> 
  118
And the markers on the one hand, on the other: 
105. .on the one hand the boroughs wanted to abolish the system and replace it with a uniform 
network of boroughs, on the other the counties and districts wanted to keep the system and tidy it 
up at the edges. <ICE-GB:S2B-025 #27:1:A> 
The strength hypothesis was not established to account for the occurrence of common 
correlative markers like the one in 105. These cases are considered to be examples of 
single markers, since they usually occur as a pair in text. The reader is directed to 
research by Webber, Knott & Joshi (1999a) for further information on correlative 
markers in computational linguistics. Section 2.3.1 provided a brief overview of their 
work.   
There are, however, undeniable similarities between the type of occurrence in 104 and 
those in examples 102 & 103. In both cases, two contrastive markers are used to signal a 
single relation, in most cases either marker could be removed and the contrastive 
meaning would remain (though possibly in a weaker form) and, finally, the markers used 
frequently occur alone in a text unit, in other words, they are not considered part of a pair. 
Section 5.3.3 makes further comparisons of these types of occurrence.  
Pattern 7 Weak+  Weak  Strong  &preference  Strong+  &preference 
Weak+             
Weak             
Strong             
&preference             
Strong+              
&preference      1(actually whereas)       
Table 12: Results from the ICE corpus for pattern 7 using strength 
There was only one occurrence following pattern 7 (Table 13) in which the first marker is 
relatively free in its placement within the first proposition and the second marker occurs 
initially in the second proposition. Strength could not account for this type of occurrence, 
  119
since both markers were very strong with further preferences on their occurrence. The 
example from the corpus was as follows:  
106. In the Basque country and in Wales the indigenous languages have actually survived, whereas in 
[sic] Gaul Celtic ultimately disappeared with few traces except in place names. <ICE-GB:w2a-001-
081> 
Pattern 8 Weak+  Weak  Strong  &preference  Strong+  &preference 
Weak+             
Weak             
Strong            1(although anyway) 
&preference             
Strong+              
&preference             
Table 13: Results from the ICE corpus for pattern 8 using strength 
Finally, pattern 8 in which the first marker occurs initially in the first proposition and the 
second marker occurs finally in the second proposition. Again, there was only one 
example of this type of occurrence, this time, however, strength was able to account for 
this, the first marker being strong and the second very strong with additional preferences 
on occurrence:  
107. Although there is some validity to this point, as it is one without an answer I do feel we have to 
make the best of what we have and can do and accept the ideal representation as unachievable. The 
presence of the observer or visitor changes the situation anyway. <ICE-GB:w1A-012 #27:1> 
Given the small number of occurrences for many of the groups above and the fact that 
several share similar features, the groups were amalgamated in order to see more general 
patterns in order of occurrence. An example of how similar the groups are is illustrated 
by patterns 1 and 3.  The text units to which the markers are attached in these patterns are 
the same and, further, the placement of these markers within the text units, in this case 
initially, are also identical. The only difference between these two sets is in the 
punctuation used.   
  120
Although we lose the distinction between those occurrences containing punctuation and 
floating markers and those which do not, by amalgamating the groups, we benefit from 
the tables containing more data and, as a result, better generalisations can be made on the 
occurrence of simple multiple markers. The patterns of occurrence were divided into the 
following three groups: 
Group 1: First marker directly precedes second. Propositions A and B 
occur on opposite sides of these markers. Both markers are 
attached to B. 
  This group consists of: 
 
(pattern 1) [A] [<marker> <marker> B] 
(pattern 3) [A <./,/:/;>] [<marker>  <marker> B]   
Group 2: Propositions A and B each precede a marker. Both markers are 
attached to B. 
  This group consists of:  
(pattern 2) [A] [<marker> B <marker> ] 
(pattern 4) [A<./,/:/;>] [<marker> B <float-marker>] 
Group 3: The first marker is attached to A, the second to B. 
  This group consists of:  
(pattern 5) [<marker> A <./,/:/;>] [B <float-marker>] 
(pattern 6) [<marker> A] [<marker> B ] 
(pattern 7) [A <float-marker> <./,/:/;>] [<marker> B] 
(pattern 8) [<marker> A <./,/:/;>] [B <marker>] 
Again, the tables are colour-coded, numbers in the white blocks signal occurrences that 
support our hypothesis while numbers in the light grey boxes contradict our hypothesis. 
The results have been summarised for each table. Before examining the individual 
groups, we present the results for all occurrences of simple multiple discourse markers in 
the International Corpus of English (ICE), these results are summarised in Table 14: 
  121
ALL
GROUPS
Weak+  Weak  Strong  &preference Strong+  &preference 
Weak+     1(but instead) 
6(but rather) 
2(but instead) 

3(but while) 
3(but at the 
same time) 
1(But at the 
same time) 

1(But in reality)  
3(but in fact) 
1(but in truth) 

5(but actually) 
3(but this time) 
5(but at least) 
2(but this time) 
1(but at any rate) 
2(but in any case) 
1(but despite this) 
3(but anyway) 
1(but nonetheless) 
1(but nevertheless) 
1(but at least) 
Weak          2(however in 
fact) 
 
1(yet despite this) 
1(however this 
time) 
Strong            1(although 
nevertheless) 
1(although at least) 
1(although anyway) 
&preference            1(whilst still) 
Strong+   1(admittedly but) 
1(it might appear 
that but)
3(and 
yet) 
1(and instead) 
1(in fact 
though) 
3(and at the 
same time) 
 
1(and indeed)  1(and in any case) 
1(and anyway) 
&preference      1(actually 
whereas) 
    1(despite this/that 
still) 
1(even though still) 
3(despite still) 
1(still anyway) 
Table 14: Results for all occurrences in the ICE corpus of marker strength 
  122
There were 74 occurrences in total and 41 different types of occurrence. Overall the 
number of weaker markers occurring before strong (i.e. the number of occurrences 
supporting the strength hypothesis) was 56 (76%). However, the number of markers is 
not the most important factor since many were duplicated, the most common occurrence 
in the entire corpus, for example, being but followed by rather which occurred 6 times in 
all. Instead, we are interested in the number of different types of marker. There were 41 
different types. Marker strength can account successfully for 29 (71%) of all occurrences. 
Group1 Weak+  Weak  Strong  &preference  Strong+  &preference 
weak+     1(but instead) 
6(but rather) 
2(but instead) 
3(but while) 
3(but at the same 
time) 
1(but in 
reality) 
3(but in fact) 
1(but in truth) 
5(but actually) 
3(but this time) 
5(but at least) 
2(but this time) 
1(but at any rate) 
2(but in any case) 
1(but despite this) 
Weak            1(yet despite this) 
1(however this 
time) 
Strong             
&preference             
Strong+    3(and 
yet) 
1(and instead) 
1(in fact 
though) 
3(and at the same 
time) 
 
1(and indeed)  1(and in any case) 
1(and anyway) 
&preference             
Table 15: ICE corpus results for group 1 using strength 
Group 1 represents the most common pattern of occurrence for simple multiple markers 
in which both markers are attached to the second proposition and both occur initially in 
this proposition. The section of the corpus used in this study contained 74 examples of 
multiple marker occurrence, group 1 contains 52 (70%) of these occurrences. Within this 
group we found 24 different types of occurrence, this is equal to 59% of all types of 
  123
occurrence in the written corpus. Thus, although the group contains the greatest number 
of occurrences, the variety of types of occurrence was not as great as was found for other 
groups. The most common occurrences were: 
• but rather (6 occurrences) 
• but actually (5 occurrences) 
• but at least (5 occurrences) 
19 (79%) of the different types supported the strength hypothesis, 4 (17%) did not and 
there was 1 (4%) example of markers of the same strength co-occurring. The majority of 
those occurrences that were not supported by the strength hypothesis contained and. The 
occurrence of and and its effect on the strength factor were discussed on pages112-113. 
Group2 Weak+  Weak  Strong  &preference  Strong+  &preference 
Weak+        1(but at the same time)   3(but anyway) 
1(but nonetheless) 
1(but nevertheless) 
1(but at least) 
Weak          2(however in fact)   
Strong             
&preference             
Strong+              
&preference            3(despite still) 
1(still anyway) 
Table 16: ICE corpus results for group 2 using strength
  124
Compared with group 1, the number of occurrences in groups 2 and 3 are small. 
However, the occurrences for group 2 follow a similar pattern to those for group 1. Like 
group 1, both markers are attached to the second proposition, the difference for group 2 
being that the second marker does not immediately follow the first. There were 13 
examples of markers co-occurring in this pattern, in other words, group 2 contains 18% 
of all occurrences of multiple markers in the corpus. From this, 8 types of co-occurrence 
were identified, this constitutes 20% of all different types of occurrence in the corpus. 
Thus, although this group is smaller than group 1, it has a wider variety of different types 
of occurrence. The strength hypothesis was, again, successful in accounting for multiple 
marker occurrences in this group. There were no examples of stronger markers occurring 
before weaker markers and only 2 (25%) types of markers of the same strength co-
occurred (despite .still and still.anyway) Thus overall, the strength hypothesis 
accounted for 75% (6) of the different types of occurrence, compared to 79% for group 1.  
Group3 Weak+  Weak  Strong  &preference  Strong+  &preference 
Weak+             
Weak             
Strong            1(although anyway) 
1(although 
nevertheless) 
1(although at least) 
&preference            1(whilst still) 
Strong+   1(admittedly but) 
1(it  might  appear  that 
but) 
         
&preference      1(actually 
whereas) 
    1(despite  this/that 
still) 
1(even though still) 
Table 17: ICE corpus results for group 3 using strength 
Again, group 3 is a relatively small group. There were 9 (12% of all occurrences) 
occurrences of multiple markers occurring in this pattern, each of which counted as a 
different type. The strength of the marker was not successful in accounting for this 
  125
pattern of occurrence. Only 4 (45%) of the 9 types were accounted for by this hypothesis, 
3 (33%) types directly contradicted this hypothesis and 2 (22%) types were occurrences 
of markers of the same category.  
Unlike any other group we have looked at so far, the markers in this category are attached 
to separate propositions. The similarities between this type of occurrence and correlative 
markers has already been noted. Given the success of strength in accounting for multiple 
marker occurrence for groups 1 & 2, it seems that markers occurring on separate units, 
whether we call the correlative or not, do not adhere to the same constraints on 
occurrence as do markers occurring on the same units. Section 5.3 examines this type of 
occurrence in detail and discusses the utility of grammatical category in accounting for 
correlative marker occurrence.  
5.3. The influence of grammatical category on simple multiple markers
The issue of grammatical category and its effect on single marker placement has already 
been raised (section 3.3). In this section, we test the extent to which grammatical 
category can be used as a factor in the natural language generation of multiple discourse 
markers and compare its efficiency to the results for using strength as a factor in multiple 
marker placement. The same set of contrastive discourse markers are used as were for the 
previous study.  
5.3.1. Methodology
In the strength factor tests, the markers were divided into groups based upon the number 
of relations they could cue. Here, markers are divided into three sets based upon their 
grammatical category; coordinators, subordinators and conjunctive adverbs. The markers 
in our database had already each been assigned a grammatical category. This had been 
done either by adopting the categories assigned by Knott (1995) in the appendix to his 
thesis or by referring to Quirk et al (1985).  
Of the 73 markers in the contrastive hierarchy, we find 3 coordinators, 15 subordinators 
and 55 conjunctive adverbs. Because of the syntactic constraints discussed in section 3.3, 
  126
it was hypothesised that, in most cases, coordinators and subordinators will occur before 
conjunctive adverbs when simple multiple markers occur. Further to these constraints, we 
do not expect coordinators to precede subordinators, since this pattern seems only to be 
valid for complex occurrences (i.e, when embedded relations are being cued): 
108. He'd heard from Mr Stuart he said in April 1988 that Lampitt's were talking to Ferndale again. But 
although Mr Stuart according to him promised to keep him informed, he did not until he read this 
article. <ICE-GB:S2A-070 #82:1:A> 
Also, we do not expect subordinators to precede coordinators, since this ordering would 
be prevented by the syntactic rules of a generation system: 
109. He'd heard from Mr Stuart he said in April 1988 that Lampitt's were talking to Ferndale again. 
Although but Mr Stuart according to him promised to keep him informed, he did not until he read 
this article.  
Finally, the hypothesis does not account for the possibility that two markers of the same 
grammatical category may co-occur (see 110 below for the co-occurrence of two 
coordinators and 111 for conjunctive adverbs).  
110. The more sons a man has, the more labour and so the larger he can make his herd. <ICE-
GB:W52A-069 #27:1:A> 
111. All in all the seas around us, as well as being useful protection against would-be invaders, are a 
good natural defence against extremes of very cold weather. Despite this, there can still be quite 
large variations in climate. <ICE-GB:W1A-070 #82:1:A> 
Here we investigate the extent to which our hypothesis that coordinators and 
subordinators will precede conjunctive adverbs can account for multiple marker 
occurrence. Comparisons with the results using strength will be made wherever relevant.  
The tests in section 5.2.1 on the ICE corpus showed that results were more manageable 
when larger groups were examined. Thus, in this section, only a brief comparison of the 8 
different patterns of occurrence will be made before examining the larger three groups of 
occurrence. The results tables for each pattern of occurrence are available in the 
appendix, page 159. 
  127
5.3.2. Results
Of the 74 occurrences for multiple markers, there were 39 occurrences that followed 
pattern 1. These can be further divided into 15 different types of occurrence, all of which 
are examples of coordinators being followed by conjunctive adverbs.  Our established 
rules based upon the grammatical category of the marker can account for all of these 
examples, while strength accounts for 11 of the 15 types.   
The corpus contained only 10 occurrences following pattern 2 from which 7 distinct 
types of occurrence were identified. Again, the majority of these types (5 out of 7) were 
examples of coordinators followed by conjunctive adverbs. Thus, the rules for 
grammatical category were successful in accounting for these occurrences. However, 
overall, the grammatical category factor did not perform as well as strength, since there 
were a further 2 types of occurrence in which markers of the same grammatical category 
co-occurred. The strength hypothesis allows for one of these occurrences and thus 
accounts for 6 of the 7 types of occurrence, compared with 5 for grammatical category. 
Neither factor could account for the occurrence of still followed by anyway.   
There were 13 occurrences of multiple markers for pattern 3, 9 of which were examples 
of different types of occurrence. Once again, the strength of a marker was more 
successful in accounting for marker placement than was grammatical category. The only 
example it was unable to account for being in fact.though. Grammatical category was 
unable to account for three occurrences for this pattern. 
There were only 3 occurrences of multiple markers for pattern 4. These were all 
established as the same type of occurrence. Neither the strength of the marker, nor its 
grammatical category could account for this type of co-occurrence since, for both factors, 
the markers were of the same category.
There were 5 occurrences of pattern 5, each being a different type of occurrence. 
Grammatical category fared well for this pattern of occurrence accounting for all 
examples in the corpus compared to strength which could only account for 3, the 
counterexamples being markers of the same strength co-occurring.  
  128
Neither strength nor grammatical category could account for the 2 occurrences of pattern 
6, nor the 1 occurrence for pattern 7. Overall, when markers occurred on separate text 
units, like the strength hypothesis, grammatical category was not successful in accounting 
for these examples. An exception to this was pattern 8. Both factors were able to account 
for this one type of occurrence. These results provide us with detailed information on the 
utility of grammatical category in accounting for simple multiple markers. However, as 
the tests for the strength hypothesis have shown, we can learn more about the role of the 
different factors if we ignore punctuation and floating markers and merge the above 
patterns into three larger groups. The groups for grammatical category are identical to 
those used to test strength in section 5.2 in order that we may make direct comparisons of 
the different factors, the groups are repeated here for convenience: 
Group 1: First marker directly precedes second. Propositions A and B 
occur on opposite sides of these markers. Both markers are 
attached to B. 
  This groups consists of: 
 
(pattern 1) [A] [<marker> <marker> B] 
(pattern 3) [A <./,/:/;>] [<marker>  <marker> B]   
Group 2: Propositions A and B each precede a marker. Both markers are 
attached to B. 
  This groups consists of:  
(pattern 2) [A] [<marker> B <marker> ] 
(pattern 4) [A<./,/:/;>] [<marker> B <float-marker>] 
Group 3: The first marker is attached to A, the second to B. 
  This groups consists of:  
(pattern 5) [<marker> A <./,/:/;>] [B <float-marker>] 
(pattern 6) [<marker> A] [<marker> B ] 
(pattern 7) [A <float-marker> <./,/:/;>] [<marker> B] 
(pattern 8) [<marker> A <./,/:/;>] [B <marker>] 
  129
 
In order that the results are clear, occurrences of markers of the same category are 
recorded in the dark grey blocks through the centre of the results tables. The white blocks 
are filled by occurrences supporting the hypothesis and the light grey blocks are filled 
either by those contradicting the hypothesis (bottom-left three boxes) or by those 
occurrences which would not be permitted because of syntactic rules (top-centre box). 
Before examining the individual groups, we present the results for all occurrences of 
simple multiple discourse markers in the International Corpus of English (ICE) separated 
by grammatical category and order of occurrence. These results are summarised in Table 
18. 
  130
Table 18: Results for all occurrences in the ICE corpus of grammatical category 
Of the 74 occurrences of multiple discourse markers in the written section of the ICE 
corpus, grammatical category can account for 62 (84%) and strength can account for 56 
(76%). Of the 74 occurrences, it is possible to distinguish 41 different types of 
occurrence. Grammatical category accounts for 32 (78%) of these different types of 
occurrence while strength accounts for 29 (71%) of all types of occurrence in the corpus. 
There were only 3 (7%) types of counterexample to grammatical category, but 7 (17%) 
counterexamples to strength. However, there were fewer examples of markers of the 
ALL GROUPS Subordinator  Coordinator  Conjunctive adverb   
Subordinator      3(despite still) 
1(whilst still) 
1(although 
nevertheless)  
1(although at least) 
1(even though still) 
1(although anyway) 
Coordinator    3(And yet) 
  
3(but while) 
1(and instead) 
5(but actually) 
3(but this time) 
5(but at least) 
1(but in reality) 
3(but in fact) 
1(but in truth) 
3(but at the same time) 
2(but instead) 
3(and at the same time) 
1(but at least) 
1(but at the same time)  
1(and indeed) 
1(and in any case) 
1(and anyway) 
2(but this time) 
1(but at any rate) 
1(yet despite this) 
2(but in any case) 
1(but instead) 
6(but rather) 
1(but despite this) 
3(but anyway)  
1(but nonetheless) 
1(but nevertheless) 
Conjunctive 
adverb 
1(In fact 
though)  
1(admittedly.but) 
1(it  might  appear 
that.but)  
2(however in fact) 
1(still anyway) 
1(despite this/that still)  
1(actually whereas) 
1(however  this 
time) 
  131
same category occurring for strength (5) than there was for grammatical category (6), the 
most simple explanation being that there were fewer categories for grammatical category 
than there were for strength. Overall, the results for the three groups show that 
grammatical category performs slightly better than strength being able to account for 3 
extra types of occurrence. The following tables show how the results for each of these 
groups compare to the strength factor. 
Table 19: ICE corpus results for group 1 using grammatical category 
Group 1 represents the most common pattern of occurrence containing 70% all 
occurrences in the corpus and 59% of all the different types of occurrence. Grammatical 
category was a more reliable method of determining the order of occurrence for this 
group than was marker strength. Of the 24 types of marker in this group, 21 (88%) 
supported the grammatical category rules, there were 2 (8%) types of occurrence of the 
same grammatical category and 1 (4%) type of occurrence that contradicted the 
established grammatical rules.  This compares to 19 (79%) examples supported by the 
Group1 Subordinator    Coordinator    Conj-adverb     
Subordinator         
Coordinator    3(And yet) 
  
3(but while) 
1(and instead) 
5(but actually) 
3(but this time) 
5(but at least) 
1(but in reality) 
3(but in fact) 
1(but in truth) 
3(but at the same time) 
2(but instead) 
1(but despite this) 
3(and at the same time) 
1(and indeed) 
1(and in any case) 
1(and anyway) 
2(but this time) 
1(but at any rate) 
1(yet despite this) 
2(but in any case) 
1(but instead) 
6(but rather) 
 
Conj-adverb    1(In fact though)    1(however this time)   
  132
strength hypothesis, 4 (17 %) counterexamples and 1 (4%)  example of markers of the 
same strength markers co-occurring.  
All of the occurrences in support of grammatical category were composed of a 
coordinator followed by conjunctive adverb.  Of those which were considered as the 
same grammatical category, we found 3 examples of coordinators co-occurring  (though 
these were of the same type . and followed by yet ). There was also 1 example of 
conjunctive adverbs co-occurring  (however.this time).  
In sum, grammatical category can account for two types more than can the strength 
hypothesis. However, both factors would be useful to a generation system since they 
account for around 80% of all occurrences in which two markers occur initially in the 
linearly second unit of text. 
Group2 Subordinator  Coordinator  Conj-adverb 
Subordinator       3(despite still) 
Coordinator      3(but anyway) 
1(but nonetheless) 
1(but nevertheless) 
1(but at least) 
1(But at the same time) 
Conj-adverb      2(however in fact) 
1(still anyway) 
Table 20: ICE corpus results for group 2 using grammatical category
There were 13 examples of markers co-occurring in group 2. These can be further 
divided into 8 types of co-occurrence. Group 2 contains 20% of all types of occurrence in 
the corpus. There were no direct counterexamples to either the strength or the 
grammatical category factors in this group. There was, however, a small difference in the 
markers that they were able to account for. For example, the strength hypothesis was 
unable to account for despite occurring before still, but was able to account for however 
preceding in fact, whereas, the opposite was true for grammatical category which allowed 
  133
despite before still but could not account for  however preceding  in fact since both 
however and in fact are conjunctive adverbs. Neither factors could account for still 
occurring with anyway: 
112. What a ridiculous letter. Still might as well send it anyway. <ICE-GB:W1B-010 #115:2> 
Although the factors did not perform as well for this group as they did for group 1 
occurrences, both strength and grammatical category were able to account for 6 (75%) 
types of occurrence overall.
Group3 Subordinator  Coordinator  Conj-adverb 
Subordinator      1(although anyway) 
1(whilst still) 
1(although nevertheless) 
1(although at least) 
1(even though still) 
Coordinator       
Conj-adverb    1(admittedly.but) 
1(it might appear that.but) 
1(despite this/that still) 
1(actually whereas) 
Table 21: ICE corpus results for group 3 using grammatical category 
Group 3 is relatively small containing the smallest number of occurrences (12%) in the 
corpus. However, each of the 9 occurrences counted as a different type. The strength of 
the marker was not successful in accounting for this pattern of occurrence. Only 4 (45%) 
of the 9 types were accounted for by this hypothesis, 3 (33%) types directly contradicted 
this hypothesis and 2 (22%) types were occurrences of markers of the same category.  
The grammatical category of the marker was not helpful for this group either. It was able 
to account for 5 (56%) types of occurrence, but there were two occurrences of markers of 
the same category co-occurring (in both cases, these were instances of two conjunctive 
adverbs) and there were also two types of occurrence that contradicted grammatical 
category. In these cases, a conjunctive adverb occurred before a coordinator.  
  134
Neither factors could account for the following occurrences which are clear examples of 
correlative markers:  
113. Admittedly it is unlikely that their culture could have survived under all the external pressure put 
but Spicer traces the death of their culture due to the wheel, in the form of a wagon. <ICE-
GB:W1A-012 #61:2> 
114. It might appear that it is odd or unusual to outsiders, but not to those who have been brought up in 
that way . <ICE-GB:W2B-017 #76:1> 
However, there were further examples which shared qualities of both correlative markers 
and multiple marker occurrence. The following section explains the similarities and 
differences between simple multiple marker occurrence and correlative discourse markers 
explaining why this type of occurrence needs further research but cannot be accounted 
for in the realms of this study.   
5.3.3. Correlative markers, multiple markers and grammatical category
Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik (1985:643) argue that the difference between 
sentences 115 and 116 below, is that the first is  .stylistically undesireable. and .more 
characteristic of loose informal talk than formal writing., while the second is found in 
.rather mannered and formal styles of writing.. The distinction we are suggesting is that 
sentence 115 is an example of simple multiple marker occurrence, while sentence 116 is 
an example of correlative discourse markers: 
115. And so he then said well it will only be fifteen or twenty minutes if you 'd like to come back. 
<ICE-GB:S1A-064 #148:1:A> 
116. .although taking a more distant, panoramic view and stressing the agricultural scene in the 
foreground, [it] nevertheless showed the Marly aqueduct on the far left horizon and carefully lit the 
suburban agglomerations in the distant river valley. <ICE-GB:W2B-002 #85:2> 
In contrast to the claim above, the results from this study show that multiple markers do 
occur in formal writing. More than three-quarters of the written material used in this 
study was taken from published works including books, journals, magazines, leaflets and 
newspapers, the remaining quarter comprising personal correspondences. The following 
  135
example of simple multiple discourse markers is taken from a published academic 
textbook on the subject of artificial intelligence:  
117. For equation-based theories, the programs are normally entirely algorithmic and solve the relevant 
equation, but there are nevertheless instances of heuristic search for solutions where no algorithm is 
known. <ICE-GB:W2A-035 #29:1> 
And the sentence below containing four discourse markers in all is taken from a 
published broadsheet newspaper report on the .popularity. of the Conservative party. 
118. It seems to be agreed that the slightest possibility of body-bags coming home will deter all 
contestants. And yet a challenge to Mrs Thatcher seems quite widely agreed to be necessary, and 
therefore likely . <ICE-GB:W2C-003 #14:1> 
As these examples show, multiple markers are often found in structured, logical, 
educated arguments and are, by no means, reserved for less formal styles of writing. 
Likewise, as Quirk et al (1985) acknowledge, correlative markers do occur in less formal 
works: 
119. but she wants to convert to be a Catholic because she wants to be on the safe side so that if she dies 
and she 's been wrong then she goes then she 's safe and goes up to Heaven .<ICE-GB:S1A-084 
#164:1:B> 
120. Even though you knew I knew, you could have told me in any case. (Quirk et al, 1885:643) 
Clearly, writing styles do not affect the occurrence of correlative and multiple markers to 
the extent to which Quirk et al (1985) have suggested.  
The argument in this thesis is that all markers occurring on a single unit should be 
classed as multiple while all occurrences of more than one marker in which the 
first marker occurs on the first text unit, and the second marker on the following 
text unit should be classed as correlative markers. This contrasts to the usual 
descriptions of correlative markers which only refer to the more common types of 
this occurrence for example either.or and on the one hand.on the other hand 
(Quirk et al., 1995) 
  136
All of the occurrences of markers following this pattern were contained within group 3. 
This explains why neither strength, nor grammatical category could account for this type 
of occurrence, since neither factor was established to cater for such examples. Thus what 
we have shown here is that that correlative markers cannot be accounted for by the same 
factors as can multiple discourse markers. Nevertheless, the similarities between the two 
types of occurrence are undeniable, both contain two markers cueing a single relation 
and, unlike the common correlative markers, for example either.or, both contain 
markers that frequently occur alone in text.  
Nevertheless, since the strength and grammatical category rules that we established do 
not account well for these examples, a possible solution would be as Quirk et al (1985) 
suggest, to only allow subordinators to precede conjunctive adverbs when generating 
correlative discourse markers. However, such a solution would still only account for 
around 60% of these occurrences, therefore, further research into these types of 
occurrence is necessary before a generation system can be expected to produce examples 
of this pattern. Here, we simply provide a solution for multiple discourse markers.  
If we exclude markers from group 3 and only account for multiple marker occurrence in 
which both markers are attached to the linearly second unit both strength and 
grammatical category become more powerful, see Table 22 below. Strength can now 
account for 25 (78%) of the 32 types of occurrence compared with 71% when correlative 
markers were included. There are 4 (13%) examples directly contradicting the strength 
hypothesis and 3 examples of markers of the same strength co-occurring. However, 
grammatical category is slightly more successful, being able to account for 27 (84%) of 
the 32 types of occurrence, compared with 78% when correlative markers are included. 
There is now only 1 (3%) direct counterexample to grammatical category and 4 markers 
of the same strength co-occurring (13%).  
  137
 
  Strength  Grammatical 
Category 
    Strength  Grammatical 
Category 
Including Correlatives  Of 41 types    Excluding Correlatives  Of 32 types 
Types supporting  
hypothesis 
29(71%)  32 (78%)    Types supporting  
hypothesis 
25(78%)  27 (84%) 
Types contradicting  
hypothesis 
7 (17%)  3 (7%)    Types contradicting  
hypothesis 
4 (13%)  1 (3%) 
Types of same 
category  
5 (12%)  6 (15%)    Types of same 
category 
3 (9%)  4 (13%) 
Table 22: Corpus results including and excluding correlative markers 
Thus, the results show that by removing all occurrences of correlative markers in group 3, 
grammatical category can account for two additional examples than can discourse marker 
strength. Since strength and grammatical category can account for virtually the same 
number of occurrences, this raises the question whether the two factors really are distinct. 
5.4. The interaction between grammatical category and marker strength
Both strength and grammatical category could be used by an NLG system to place around 
80% of simple multiple markers. The corpus study has shown that strength and 
grammatical category are not identical since they do not account for the exact same 
examples. The counterexamples to each category and to both are summarised in the table 
below:  
  138
 
Strength only 
counterexamples 
Grammatical category only 
counterexamples 
Counterexamples to strength 
& grammatical category 
3(despite still) 
1(and indeed) 
3(and at the same time) 
1(and instead) 
1(however this time) 
2(however in fact) 

3(and yet) 
1(in fact though) 
1(still anyway) 
 
Figure 17: Differences in strength and grammatical category 
Nevertheless, overall the results are very similar, it is necessary, therefore, to investigate 
whether the strength of a marker is affected by its grammatical category, and if so to what 
extent.  
To summarise the main issues for each factor, the contrastive hierarchy of discourse 
markers was built upon the basis that some markers can cue more relations than others. 
Those that can cue many relations are referred to as weak, while those that can few are 
referred to as strong. The strength factor can be represented as a continuum, the 
distinction is not simply between weak or strong markers, but between six groups ranging 
from very weak (weak+) to very strong with additional preferences on occurrence 
(strong+&preference). In contrast, the grammatical category factor is divided into three 
separate groups: coordinators, subordinators and conjunctive adverbs. These groups were 
taken directly from Knott (1995) or, when the marker did not occur in Knott.s taxonomy, 
Quirk et al (1985). 
When building the hierarchy of discourse markers, grammatical category was not 
accounted for directly. However, the number of markers available for each category may 
have some indirect effect on their strength. To be specific, since English has very few 
coordinators (in the contrastive hierarchy we find only 3), it seems sensible that these 
markers should be more flexible in their usage. In other words, that they should be 
capable of cuing a number of relations in any context. In the same way, there are 
  139
relatively many conjunctive adverbs in English (55 in the contrastive hierarchy), thus it is 
expected that these would be used for a single or only few relations and often in more 
specific contexts, for example, when the text is formal. Subordinators fall somewhere in 
between (there are 15 in the hierarchy). We would expect subordinators to cover less 
relations than could coordinators, but more than conjunctive adverbs. Thus, with respect 
to marker strength, we would expect coordinators to be weak markers in the hierarchy, 
conjunctive adverbs to be strong and subordinators to have medium strength. Figure 18 
shows the grammatical categories of the markers in the contrastive family hierarchy, 
conjunctive adverbs are represented in plain text, subordinators in italics and coordinators 
in bold. 
in actual fact
actually
CONCESSION
CONTRAST
EXCEPTION
CONCESSION
apart from
excepting that
except
at the same time
meanwhile
in theory...in practice
on one side..on the other
on one hand...
on the other hand
notwithstanding
ANTITHESIS
it might appear that
in truth
in fact
in reality
at first sight
regardless of that
indeed
the fact is that
EXCEPTION
rather than
nothing...but
but for
tho’
still and all
at least
CONTRAST
by contrast
in contrast
alternatively
conversely
CONCESSION
admittedly
much as
granted that
that said
at any rate
+SPOKEN
in any case
all the same, still
nonetheless
+FORMAL
nevertheless
-FORMAL
+POETIC
+US ENGLISH
+SUPRISING N
+EMPHASIS ON
CONDITION
+FORMAL
+SIMILARITIES
in comparison, similarly
by comparison
+SEQUENCE
this time
not only...but also
+ELABORATION
save, bar
+FORMAL
+EMPHATIC
ANTITHESIS
-FORMAL
&
&
&
&
-MODERN
+BALANCED
ARGUMENT
+SIMULTANEITY
+ELABORATION
+LEGAL TEXT
anyway, anyhow
notwithstanding that
+SEQUENCE
-MODERN
+POSITIVE
OUTCOME
ANTITHESIS
CONTRAST
instead
then again
on the contrary
only
rather
ANTITHESIS
CONTRAST
CONCESSION
EXCEPTION
ANTITHESIS
CONCESSION
CONTRAST
TEXT = conjunctive adverb
ITALICS = subordinator
BOLD = coordinator
Key:
but
yet
and
although
whereas
though
not that...but
however
while, whilst
for that matter
as it is
if only
even so
even when
even though, even so
despite the fact that
despite (this/that)
in spite of
even if, only if, if albeit
even after
 
Figure 18: The grammatical categories of markers in the contrastive family hierarchy 
The subordinators are concentrated in the top right of the hierarchy. This is where 
markers of CONCESSION are found. In fact, the majority of subordinators in the hierarchy 
can only be used for CONCESSION (11 of the 15), the others being used for CONCESSION 
  140
and CONTRAST only. This cluster of subordinators for CONCESSION may be due to the 
complicated nature of this relation. CONCESSION is the most cognitively complex of the 
contrastive relations since (a) not all of the information involved in this type of relation is 
made explicit (see Grote et al, 1995 or section 2.1.2), thus the reader is forced to make 
inferences, and then (b) after making those inferences, the reader must deny or cancel 
them. For example, in the following text, the reader infers from the statement .the attacks 
will be partly or wholly controlled. that both medicines will make them feel better. 
However, this inference is cancelled by the second unit which states that other side 
effects caused by one of the medicines, like drowsiness and dizziness, may make a person 
feel ill: 
121. In most cases, the attacks will be partly or wholly controlled by sodium valproate or ethosuximide , 
although in some patients the latter may cause drowsiness, dizziness, sensitivity to light and 
digestive problems. <ICE-GB:W2B-023 #105:1> 
Since this relation is complex, it makes sense for language to have specific indicators that 
can act as a warning signal to the reader. Subordinators may be better suited to this role 
as they allow the writer to differentiate between the main argument and the conceded 
one. An area for further research would be to investigate whether it is always possible to 
use a weak marker for CONCESSION or whether, in cases where the writer could be 
understood to be contradicting themselves, a stronger marker, particularly a subordinator 
may be preferable. This would have an effect on multiple markers too. For example, if 
the writer did not want to start a new sentence, but the coordinators available for the 
relation they were cuing were too weak, it may be necessary to employ more than one 
marker. This thesis does not account for when discourse markers can or should be used, 
only the order in which they occur when they are needed. Areas, such as this, for further 
research are discussed in section 6.4. 
Referring back to Figure 18, there are 3 coordinators in the hierarchy. As expected, 
coordinators tend to be weak discourse markers. Both but and yet are in the weakest 
sections of the hierarchy. But can be used for all relations and yet can be used for all but 
EXCEPTION. However, and constitutes a strong discourse marker. It can only cue one of 
the four contrastive relations (CONTRAST). Thus, it is not necessarily the case that all 
  141
coordinators will be weak discourse markers. However, as discussed earlier, although and 
is a strong marker in the contrastive family hierarchy, when taking account of the use of 
and  for other relations, we find this marker is, in fact, very weak . examples from the 
British National Corpus showed that it can cue 11 different relations in all. We do not 
investigate here whether merging the different families of relations into a single hierarchy 
would enhance or decrease the usefulness of strength in governing the placement of 
multiple markers. The occurrence of and shows, however, that the results certainly would 
be affected in some way.  
Alongside yet in the weaker part of the hierarchy is the conjunctive adverb however. 
Originally, it was hypothesised that conjunctive adverbs would constitute strong 
discourse markers. Instead, we find that they are scattered throughout the hierarchy, the 
only place in which they do not occur being at the very weakest level. To summarise, as a 
general rule, coordinators tend to be weak and conjunctive adverbs, stronger. Overall, it 
seems that strength is not a necessary factor for planning the order of co-occurrence of a 
single conjunctive adverb with a single coordinator. Instead, grammatical category can be 
used, the rule being that coordinators should always precede conjunctive adverbs. 
Likewise for the co-occurrence of subordinators and conjunctive adverbs, we find that in 
6 of the 7 co-occurrences, subordinators occur first.  
Ignoring the fact that coordinators tend to be weak and conjunctive adverbs, strong, it is 
possible to show that grammatical category affects the type and order of occurrence in 
other ways. As already discussed, the majority of simple multiple markers in the corpus 
were of the following pattern (A and B are text units): 
[A]  [MARKER_1 MARKER_2 B] 
Coordinators and conjunctive adverbs must occur in the linearly second unit. However, 
coordinators must occur initially, while conjunctive adverbs are more free in their 
placement. If both coordinators and conjunctive adverbs must occur in the second unit, 
then conjunctive adverbs should follow coordinators since they can be placed more freely 
within this shared unit. In this way we can govern the order of multiple markers by using 
the rule above that coordinators should always occur before conjunctive adverbs when 
  142
both markers occur initially in the text unit. Since subordinators also often occur initially 
in the linearly second text unit (Quirk et al 1985) and conjunctive adverbs are more free 
in their placement than subordinators, the rule above that subordinators should, generally, 
precede conjunctive adverbs can also be used to govern the placement of discourse 
markers. Here, both rules have been established without reference to the strength of the 
discourse markers.  
Thus, both grammatical category and strength can account well for occurrences of more 
than one marker in a single text unit. Neither hypothesis can account thoroughly for 
correlative markers of the more common type and of the type found in group 3. In this 
study grammatical category was shown to account for two further examples than could 
strength, the overall results being 78% correct when using strength and 84% correct when 
using grammatical category.  
The main advantage to using grammatical category is that the syntactic information for 
each marker will already be available to the generation system, the system would only 
need the rules for occurrence in order to produce multiple discourse markers in the 
correct order. When to produce these markers remains a question for further investigation.  
The advantages of using strength as a factor for controlling the order of occurrence is that 
the hierarchy provides information on the relations for which each marker can be used 
and further preferences for occurrence. Furthermore, as this section has shown, the 
hierarchy also inherits much of the information on the grammatical category of a marker: 
coordinators are weak since there are few in English, but many rhetorical relations. In 
contrast, conjunctive adverbs are stronger since there are many more available in English. 
As a result, the necessity to be able to mark a great number of relations with a single 
word or phrase is decreased for markers in this category. In sum, a coordinator must be 
able to cue many more relations than could a conjunctive adverb since there are so few of 
the former and so many of the latter. This also provides an explanation as to why multiple 
markers occur at all. Since coordinators can cue such a great number of relations, they 
could be considered as fairly ambiguous markers of discourse relations. If another, more 
specific, marker is employed in addition to a coordinator the ambiguity is reduced. As a 
  143
result, we find occurrences of multiple discourse markers. Multiple markers composed 
10% of all occurrences of markers in the written section of the ICE corpus. 
5.5. Strength and complex occurrences
Of all the 170 occurrences of multiple markers in the corpus, 57% were complex. From 
these occurrences, 61 different types were established. Browsing through the corpus, it 
seemed possible that strength would be a useful factor in accounting for complex 
multiple marker occurrence. The following examples taken from ICE are all in support of 
this factor:  
122. But even when things are going well in conditions like this the slightest event can spell big trouble.  
<ICE-GB:S2B-024 #88:1:A> 
123. However even though it was called the Royale, and Ettore Bugatti made sure that it got a great deal 
of advance publicity, it was almost unsaleable. <ICE-GB:W2B-037 #50:1> 
124. Instead, the world must cool to a point where ice begins to grow near the pole in spite of the dark 
ocean 's ability to absorb heat. <ICE-GB:W2B-025 #65:1> 
The complete results of this study are presented in the appendix (page 164). The same 
methodology was followed for complex occurrences as has been described for simple 
discourse marker occurrence. This time, only four patterns of occurrence were 
recognised.   
A study of the 96 occurrences showed that, despite initial appearances to the contrary, 
strength was not a useful factor in governing complex marker occurrence. The most 
common type of occurrence, for which there were 14 tokens, was however followed by 
but: 
125. However the rush pen was not held vertically in the typical Chinese fashion but at an angle. <ICE-
GB:S2A-048 #81:1:A> 
Strength did not account for this occurrence. Further, it could not account for 43% of all 
types of occurrence in the corpus. Given that in a purely random context, a generation 
system could be expected to get at least 50% of all occurrences correct, it is concluded 
  144
that the strength factor would not be of use in the placement of markers in complex 
occurrences.  
5.6. Summary of results for simple and complex multiple marker
occurrences
This study has examined the role of discourse marker strength and grammatical category 
on the selection and placement of markers. Using the ICE corpus, we identified 170 
examples of multiple markers, 74 of which were examples of simple multiple marker 
occurrence and 96 were complex. Simple multiple marker occurrence is characterised by 
a single relation being cued by more than one discourse marker. In contrast, complex 
multiple marker occurrence is characterised by many relations being marked by different 
discourse markers. The strength hypothesis was established to account for the former. 
The tests have shown that this is the only type of occurrence that can be accounted for by 
strength.  
In order to test the strength and grammatical category factors, discourse markers were 
organised into patterns of occurrence based on punctuation and the placement of the 
markers on and within a given text unit. Using these patterns, we searched the corpus for 
all occurrences of multiple markers. For every two markers that co-occurred, we recorded 
the number of occurrences, the category of occurrence (simple or complex) and the 
pattern of occurrence. Since there were few occurrences for some of the patterns 
established, smaller groups were created. These groups were built by ignoring 
punctuation and concentrating instead on the propositions to which the markers were 
attached. Having done this, better generalisations could be made about multiple marker 
occurrence.  
The results from the corpus show that both discourse marker strength and grammatical 
category are useful factors in accounting for simple multiple marker occurrence. In this 
study grammatical category was shown to account for two further examples than could 
strength, the overall results being 78% correct when using strength and 84% correct when 
using grammatical category. Neither factor can account for correlative markers: strength 
was 45% accurate and grammatical category 56 % accurate.  
  145
For simple multiple marker occurrence, there are different advantages to using each 
factor. The main advantage for grammatical category being that the syntactic information 
for each marker would already be available to a generation system, thus only the rules 
need be applied. The advantages of using strength as a factor for controlling the order of 
occurrence is that the hierarchy provides information on the relations for which each 
marker can be used and further preferences for occurrence. The hierarchy also inherits 
much of the grammatical information (coordinators are weak, conjunctive adverbs are 
stronger) and allows markers of the same grammatical category to co-occur. This, 
however, was a rare phenomenon (only 8 occurrences . 5 types), not all examples of 
which could be accounted for by strength either (see below): 
126. What a ridiculous letter. Still might as well send it anyway . <ICE-GB:W1B-010 #115:2> 
127. Michael insisted, his voice firmer and yet circumscribed with a threatening hysteria. <ICE-
GB:W2F-008 #127:1> 
Since the results for each factor were similar, it was necessary to investigate whether the 
two factors were distinct. In doing this, an explanation as to why multiple markers occur 
at all was discovered: some markers are weak, therefore further, more specific markers 
are used in order to make clear the underlying rhetorical relation. In other words, since 
coordinators can cue such a great number of relations, they could be considered as fairly 
ambiguous markers of discourse relations. If another, more specific, marker is employed 
in addition to a coordinator, the ambiguity is reduced. As a result, we find occurrences of 
multiple discourse markers.  
  146
6. Conclusions
6.1. A summary of this thesis
The aim of this thesis was to determine which factors affect the selection, placement and 
order of multiple discourse markers in text. The majority of studies to date have focussed 
on single markers cueing single relations and have based their observations on fabricated 
examples. This is the first empirically based study of discourse markers using large 
natural language corpora. 
The motivation behind this work was two-fold. First, we aimed to develop a theory of  
the ordering of multiple markers in text. Second, we wanted to formalise this theory so 
that it could be used to enable natural language generation systems to produce more 
complex texts than are possible at present. For the purposes of this study, we concentrate 
on written text. 
We then examined the existing work on discourse markers in sociolinguistics, discourse 
analysis, psycholinguistics and, finally, in computational linguistics. It was in the latter 
that we discovered the beginnings of work upon multiple discourse markers. We also 
found many other openings for further research, including the analysis of different levels 
of discourse and the need for further cross-linguistic research. The emphasis in this 
thesis, however, is on multiple discourse markers and how their order of occurrence may 
be governed. 
Based on informal observations of occurrences of multiple discourse markers in the 
British National Corpus (BNC), we hypothesised that one of the factors affecting the 
order of discourse markers is their specificity. In particular, we proposed that a constraint 
on multiple marker occurrence is that the more general (or weaker) markers precede the 
more specific (or stronger) ones. The specificity (or strength) of the marker is determined 
by the number of relations it may be used to signal; the stronger the marker, the less 
relations it may cue. We also examined grammatical category and its utility in governing 
  147
multiple marker occurrence. The grammatical category rules were established from 
information in Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik (1985). 
The methodology employed in this work is as follows. We established a list of all English 
discourse markers available in the literature. Then, using this list, the BNC and Mann and 
Thompson.s (1988) Rhetorical Relations, we classified each marker according to the 
number and type of relations each can cue20. The corpus study revealed that discourse 
markers vary greatly in the number and type of relations that they may signal. Of the 332 
discourse markers collected from the literature, 228 were found to mark a rhetorical 
relation in written text: 108 of these were used to mark only a single relation and 120 
were used to mark two or more rhetorical relations. It was not possible to assign a 
relation to all of the markers collected since the remainder were commonly used in 
spoken discourse and rhetorical relations do not account for the repairs, corrections, 
interjections and changes of belief that are prevalent in this mode. 
Using the information collected from the corpus, we were able to establish the strength of 
each marker used in written discourse. This information was used to create hierarchies of 
weak and strong discourse markers. For the testing phase, we concentrated on contrastive 
markers only. The contrastive hierarchy was divided into six sections ranging from very 
weak to very strong markers.  
Two types of multiple marker occurrence were identified: simple (two markers, one 
relation) and complex (two markers, two relations where one relation is embedded within 
the other). Further patterns in which these occurrences could be found were established 
for the testing phase of the research; 8 for simple, 3 for complex. For simple multiple 
marker occurrence, the majority of examples were supported by strength and grammatical 
category. However, markers occurring on separate text spans (for example, 
although..nevertheless) were found not to adhere to the same constraints as other 
markers following this pattern. Neither strength nor grammatical category could account 
for such occurrences. We have argued that all markers occurring in this pattern should be 
                                                 
20 See attached CD for database
  148
classed as correlative and that correlative markers should be classed as single occurrences 
- each word or phrase being part of a whole discourse marker as is the case with the more 
obvious correlative markers, for example, if.then and either...or.  
Despite initial tests suggesting otherwise, strength was not a useful factor in accounting 
for complex occurrences. Strength accounted for just over 50% of all occurrences of this 
type. Previous research by Power, Scott & Doran (1999) on embedded multiple markers 
(we refer to these as complex) suggests that grammatical category would be a more 
useful factor for such occurrences.  
Despite the success of both grammatical category and strength, neither could account for 
all occurrences of simple multiple markers in the corpus. An average of 19% of the 
different types of occurrence constituted counterexamples to these factors. Thus, there is 
still a need for further research in this area. Our study did not account for the distinction 
between informational and intentional discourse relations, for example. The suggestion 
that these different levels of relation may be important when selecting and ordering 
markers is one that has been made frequently within the literature on this subject (Moore 
& Pollack, 1992; Maier & Hovy, 1991; Hobbs, 1985; Halliday & Hasan,1976). 
It is also possible that Mann and Thompson.s (1988) relations are not entirely suitable for 
the analysis of discourse markers. Since their study did not take account of discourse 
markers when creating the relations, their division of relations may not be of a level of 
granularity fine enough to account for the differences in marker usage. This problem was 
discussed in detail in chapter 1. Our solution was to add further constraints to the 
hierarchy, for example, formality of the text, emphasis on other relations (e.g., 
ELABORATION, CONDITION, SEQUENCE) and emphasis on other factors (e.g., simultaneity, 
balanced argument). However, perhaps as Knott (1995) suggests, finer distinctions would 
allow us to draw a more accurate picture of discourse marker occurrence. We are yet to 
find a set of relations that can (1) be used simply by text analysts, but which (2) have a 
fine enough level of granularity to be useful for generation. In the absence of such a set, 
we chose to base our research on the relations in Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) since 
this is the set that comes closest to fulfilling both criteria.  
  149
6.2. The contributions of this thesis
The strength hypothesis 
The research described here is intended to contribute directly to the fields of natural 
language generation (NLG) and discourse analysis. We have achieved this by providing 
two factors that control the order of simple multiple discourse markers in text. Strength 
can further be used to constrain the selection of markers since the hierarchies provide 
further contextual and relational information on when a marker can be used. We have 
established the hypothesis that weak markers will always occur before strong markers 
when two markers are used to cue a single relation and confirmed that for 78% of all 
types of occurrence in the ICE corpus, bar correlative markers, this will be the case. The 
strength hypothesis is, therefore, the first (and main) contribution of the research 
described here. However, we have also shown that this factor is not useful for 
constraining complex marker occurrence. It performed only slightly better than random. 
As previous research has shown, grammatical category may be more suitable in 
accounting for this type of occurrence (Power et al, 1999).  
The first study on the different types of multiple marker occurrence 
Our second contribution is the provision of the first study to analyse all types of multiple 
discourse markers in text and to recognise these different types of occurrence. We found 
that multiple marker occurrence can be organised into two types: simple and complex. 
Each type can then be subdivided into groups based on the units to which the markers are 
attached and where in the units the markers are placed. We found three groups for both 
simple and complex occurrences.  
Until now, only two studies have been conducted on multiple markers. The first by 
Webber, Knott and Joshi (1999a) centred on text representation, in particular, how 
multiple levels of discourse can be mapped onto tree structures. The second, by Power, 
Scott & Doran (1999), concentrated on the generation of complex marker occurrences 
using grammatical category as a guide to their placement. This study, therefore, improves 
upon the existing work by categorising different types of occurrence using natural 
  150
language corpora. It provides data on the type of group to which every occurrence of 
multiple markers in the written section of the ICE corpus belongs. 
The first large-scale empirical study of multiple markers 
The aforementioned studies on multiple markers were relatively small compared to the 
work completed here. Another contribution therefore, and one of the major contributions, 
is that this research constitutes the first study of multiple discourse markers to employ 
large natural language corpora (it also constitutes one of the few studies of discourse 
markers, multiple or otherwise, to employ corpora at all). Two corpora were used: the 
BNC, comprising some 100 million words and the ICE corpus, a smaller corpus of 
500,000 words.  
A classification of discourse markers and their relations 
The database of discourse markers contributes to both text analysis and computational 
applications by containing the most extensive list of English discourse markers of which 
we are aware. For each marker, we state whether it is more common in spoken or written 
language, the part of speech to which it belongs, the number and type of RST relations 
the marker may cue and to which text unit the marker should be attached when cueing 
these relations. For most markers and relations we also provide an example of their usage 
taken from the BNC. Despite the array of work on discourse markers and relations and 
the commonplace of RST in natural language generation, a resource such as this has 
never been available. It has always been the case, until now, that each time a new piece of 
research begins on discourse markers and RST, the analyst must start from scratch 
determining for themselves which markers can be cued by which relations. The database 
provides discourse analysts with empirical data concerning the use of discourse markers, 
thus eliminating much of the time-consuming groundwork for future research. For the 
very same reason, it would also prove useful for those working in message understanding 
and dialogue processing. The classification of such a large number of markers is the most 
widely useful contribution of this thesis since it constitutes an valuable resource to all 
interested in discourse markers and relations.  
  151
Information on the specificity of markers 
We have shown that discourse markers vary widely in their specificity. Some markers 
can be used for a wide number of relations (e.g., so, and), while others apply to only one 
relation (e.g., actually, alternatively). The marker cueing the highest number of relations 
was so which cued 14 in all. This was followed by and (11), since (9), thus (9), which 
means (8) and because (8). Of those that cued only single relations, the highest number 
were for SEQUENCE (25) and CONCESSION (21). Most markers that could only cue single 
relations were phrases rather than single words, examples of these are for example, first 
of all, we might say that, at the moment when and despite the fact that. Some relations 
had no specific marker with which they could be signalled. These were BACKGROUND, 
INTERPRETATION, EVALUATION, SOLUTIONHOOD, ENABLEMENT, MOTIVATION, EVIDENCE, 
NON-VOLITIONAL CAUSE, VOLITIONAL CAUSE, NON-VOLITIONAL RESULT AND VOLITIONAL 
RESULT.  
A relationship between the grammatical category of a marker and its strength 
A further contribution of this study is the finding that a strong relationship exists between 
the grammatical category of a marker and its strength. This has not been noted before in 
the literature on discourse markers. We find that coordinators are the weakest of the 
different types of marker, subordinators have medium strength and that conjunctive 
adverbs are the strongest. This can be explained by the fact that English has very few 
coordinators (only 3 in the contrastive hierarchy) therefore these markers must be more 
flexible in their usage. In other words, coordinators should be available to signal a 
number of relations in any context. If this were not the case, conjunctions would be far 
less frequent in English, since the use of coordinators would be greatly restricted to a 
small number of relations. In the same way, there are relatively many conjunctive 
adverbs in English (55 in the contrastive hierarchy) therefore they may be used for a 
  152
single or only few relations and often in more specific contexts, for example, when the 
text is formal21.  
A reason for multiple marker occurrence  
Recognising this relationship between grammatical category and marker strength allows 
us to make an additional contribution . an explanation as to why multiple markers occur. 
Conjunctions are a necessary part of writing well-formed texts. Because coordinators are 
weak, they may not be sufficient to make the underlying relation explicit. In other words, 
since they can be used to cue so many relations, the reader may not be able to uncover the 
one that was intended. When this is the case, a second, more explicit marker is often 
employed. This argument is supported by the corpus study in which the majority of 
occurrences of multiple markers contain a coordinator followed by a conjunctive adverb. 
6.3. Evaluation of this thesis
Reliabilty of judgement 
The hierarchies were built from the database of discourse markers. The database was 
built by a single annotator using the British National Corpus. A possible objection that 
may be raised regarding the validity of the database, and therefore the hierarchies, is that 
both were constructed by a single annotator. As a result, we have no evidence that other 
annotators would produce the same results.  
Some markers cueing relations were more ambiguous than others. The following 
sentences taken from the ICE corpus show how the phrase at the same time can be used 
as a discourse marker to cue contrast (128) and as a temporal adverb to cue simultaneity 
(129), but in some cases (130) it may be difficult to distinguish its role:  
                                                 
21 The specificity of conjunctive adverbs may also explain why they are the most common type of
marker used to signal relations over long distances, for example between paragraphs and
chapters.
  153
128. marker of CONTRAST: our weather is greatly influenced by the seas around us, which keep 
summer temperatures relatively cool but at the same time prevent very cold weather in winter. 
<ICE-GB:W2B-026 #14:1>. 
129. temporal adverb: Next week the National Association of Head Teachers and the Secondary 
Heads' Association will meet and ask MacGregor to delay this stage of the curriculum to find a way 
of offering  pupils more choice. At the same time, the NCC will send its recommendations for 14 to 
16-year-olds to MacGregor for approval . <ICE-GB:W2C-002 #14:1>  
130. unsure: Work is hard, and at the same time interesting and worthwhile . <ICE-GB:W1B-001 
#150:4>  
The sentences above are taken from a test that was given to five experienced RST users. 
All analysts independently agreed that sentence 128 was a marker of CONTRAST and that 
sentence 129 was a temporal adverb. However, they were unable to decide on the role of 
at the same time in sentence 130; two analysts identified it as a discourse marker, two as 
a temporal adverb and one analyst was unable to identify its role.  
Not only are there problems distinguishing whether a word or phrase is being employed 
as a marker, it is also a problem determining which relation is being cued by a particular 
marker. This is particularly difficult when working with families of relations for the 
definitions of these relations tend to be similar. In the following examples, but is used as 
a marker of CONTRAST in 131 and a marker of CONCESSION in 132.  
131. At times the Breton leaders behaved like Frankish kings, but at other they pursued openly 
aggressive policies. <ICE-GB:W1A-003 #026> 
132. Thus, it is feasible to criticise the diagnostic process, but not the underlying model on this basis. 
<ICE-GB:W1A-007 #079>  
The following points are forwarded in defence of this study. Firstly, the annotator of the 
database was aware that different analysts may interpret the role of a marker differently, 
therefore, when ambiguity arose, informal tests were conducted similar to the type above 
to ensure that a consensus could be reached. Secondly, although, no formal inter-
judgement tests were conducted for this research, it is important that the relations used 
were RST relations. As mentioned before, this set of relations has been used widely in 
both text analysis and computational linguistics, therefore, should a validation be 
  154
undertaken in the future, it would not be too difficult a task to find suitable subjects as 
analysts. Nevertheless, in order that the database be used as a tool for further research, 
some form of validation would be desirable to ensure that the results could be 
reproduced.  
Efficiency 
Chapter 5 detailed the performance of the strength/weakness hypothesis compared to that 
of grammatical category. Both hypotheses accounted well for simple multiple markers. 
However, strength did not account for complex occurrences.  Ideally, the strength 
hypothesis would have accounted for both simple and complex types of occurrence since 
our goal is to provide the most efficient factor possible to enable the generation of 
multiple discourse markers. This was not the result of our research . we are still unable to 
account for complex multiple markers occurrences. However, it seems that grammatical 
category may be most suitable to this task.   
Since neither factor accounted fully for simple markers and both performed poorly with 
respect to correlative discourse markers, it is possible that there is no common factor that 
can govern all occurrences. Marker strength or grammatical category may be the most 
useful for generating simple markers, but further constraints are still needed to account 
for the average figure of 19% for all examples that did not support these factors. Perhaps 
the distinction between ideational and intentional relations could account for further types 
of occurrence.  
Thus, although we have not uncovered a single factor that can account for all 
occurrences, this study has contributed to the sparse literature available on multiple 
markers and has provided the information necessary for generation systems to produce 
more complex texts than are possible at present. The positive results we achieved for 
simple markers are the groundwork upon which further research can be built in order to 
uncover the one or many factors controlling all types of multiple marker occurrence.   
  155
6.4. Further research
As has been stated several times in this thesis, research into multiple discourse markers is 
only in its early stages. The work in this thesis is simply the beginning of many paths that 
could be followed if we are to understand fully how multiple markers can be used.  In this 
final section, we discuss several possible avenues for further study that have been 
highlighted by this study.   
Earlier we asked whether we can doubly mark one relation and use a single discourse 
marker for the other, thus using a total of three markers in one sentence? We have 
provided a partial solution to this question. Through corpus analysis of simple and 
complex markers, we have shown that two markers can be used to cue a single relation 
(simple) and that more than one relation may occur in a sentence (complex). Moreover, 
we have distinguished further types of occurrence based upon the position of the markers 
in sentences in order that this information be useful to generation systems. However, the 
work described here only focuses on the occurrence of two discourse markers in a 
sentence, while, in fact, sentences may contain more than two discourse markers (see 
example 133 below): 
133. Likewise, the planned use of Portland stone and the introduction of the colonnaded crescent, 
garden, courtyards and arcades faintly recalls something of the scheme drawn up in 1810 by 
Hawkesmoor, then Wren's assistant. On the other hand, and notwithstanding, an acknowledgement 
that 'any development must be subordinate and complementary to the presence of this great 
building' the design is unmistakeably Post-Modenist. <ICE-GBw2A-005#100>  
Future work should investigate the occurrence of more than two markers and the context 
in which these may occur. It is clear that at some point the number of markers would 
become so great that the reader would be unable to process the text. It is evident solely by 
glancing at a corpus that the rules are different for spoken and written mode. Spoken 
language allows many more markers than written text. Research in this area would also 
raise the question whether the strength/weakness hypothesis was still the most effective 
means of accounting for multiple markers.   
A further avenue for research is when discourse markers should (and should not) occur. 
The research described here assumes that multiple markers should always be used. We 
  156
justify this assumption with the observation of Scott & Souza (1990) that a generation 
system needs to be as explicit as possible. The corpus analysis showed that this was 
clearly not the case; of the 3273 contrastive discourse markers identified, only 340 (10%) 
markers co-occurred.  
Intuitively, it seems sensible that as a general rule for generation strong markers should 
be used, thus eliminating any possibility of misinterpretation. However, as has been 
shown, most coordinating markers are weak and it is sometimes necessary to coordinate 
clauses rather than sentences. In this case, for generation at least, it would be preferable 
to use a weak marker followed by a stronger marker. In this way we ensure that there is 
no misunderstanding while, at the same time, we are able to coordinate smaller units of 
text. Further research should investigate whether markers are employed in this way in 
human written texts. This could be done by examining the frequency of weak markers 
occurring alone compared with the frequency of strong markers occurring alone. If strong 
markers occurred alone more frequently than weak, this would support our intuition that 
strong markers should be used wherever possible, being supported by weaker markers 
only when coordination of clauses is necessary.     
Finally, there are questions about differences in language. It is well-known that it is 
difficult to translate discourse markers from one language to another. Only when second 
language speakers become fluent can they do this. A useful extension to this work could 
be to build similar hierarchies for other languages and to investigate the nature of their 
relationship. Section 2.2 discussed the cross-linguistic differences highlighted in the 
studies of Delin et al (1996) and Grote et al (1995). However, whether there are enough 
similarities to construct a basic set of cross-linguistic constraints for generation to which 
further language-specific constraints can be added is a question that remains to be 
answered.  
  157
7. Appendix
7.1. Further hierarchies
JUSTIFY
CONDITION
EVIDENCE
MOTIVATION
so
JUSTIFY
EVIDENCE
JUSTIFY
EVIDENCE
MOTIVATION
OTHERWISE
CONDITION
seeing as/that
because
since
CONDITION
JUSTIFY
EVIDENCE
CONDITION
MOTIVATION
CONDITION
OTHERWISE
MOTIVATION
JUSTIFY
given that
unless
else
if...then
when
and
therefore
as
it follows that
for
for a start
after all
for one thing...
for another thing
which is why
JUSTIFY
moreover
it may be concluded that
accordingly
failing that
either...or
otherwise
always assuming that
in the event of (that)
let us assume
in which case
suppose(ing) that
only after
provided that
on condition that
in case
the moment
only when
unless
next time
whenever
in order to
if only
only...if the instant
as soon as wherever
only before else
as long as
so that
MOTIVATION
or else
or
if so
granted that
ultimately
considering that
consequently
for example
for the reason that
largely because
for this reason
simply because
mainly because
only because
for instance
only because
now that
thus
hence
insofar as
in that
if
once
 
A hierarchy for conditional relations 
  158
ELABORATION
BACKGROUND
which means
RESTATEMENT
EVALUATION
INTERPRETATION
ELABORATION
INTERPRETATION
SUMMARY
INTERPRETATION
BACKGROUND
INTERPRETATION
RESTATEMENT
(to put it) in other words
EVALUATION
INTERPRETATION
EVALUATION
so
in sum
overall
in short
therefore
in conclusion
summing up
SUMMARY
EVALUATION
INTERPRETATION
EVALUATION
SUMMARY
BACKGROUND
EVALUATION
presumably because
to summarise
to sum up
for instance
for example
further(more)
to make matters worse
anyhow
at that
for that matter
what is more
as it happened
in the case of X
equally
also
too
indeed
as well
besides on top of this
moreover
to be precise
anyway in addition
SUMMARY
INTERPRETATION
RESTATEMENT RESTATEMENT
at any rate
we might say
what I mean to say
once more
BACKGROUND
previously
summarising
altogether
to conclude
then
thus
all in all
earlier
and from then on
until then
for the reason that
for this reason
originally
given that
put another way
that is (to say)
it may be concluded that
ELABORATION
BACKGROUND
INTERPRETATION
EVALUATION
RESTATEMENT
SUMMARY
 
A hierarchy for elaborative relations 
  159
7.2. Results from the ICE corpus for grammatical category: Patterns 1-8
Pattern 1 Subordinator  Coordinator  Conj-adverb 
Subordinator       
Coordinator      1(And instead) 
5(but actually) 
3(but this time) 
5(but at least) 
1(But in reality) 
3(but in fact) 
1(but in truth) 
3(but at the same time) 
2(but instead) 
3(And at the same time) 
1(and indeed) 
1(and in any case) 
1(yet despite this) 
6(but rather) 
3(and yet) 
Conj-adverb       
  160
Pattern 2 Subordinator  Coordinator  Conj-adverb 
Subordinator       
Coordinator      3(but anyway) 
1(but nonetheless) 
1(but nevertheless) 
1(but at least) 
1(but at the same time) 
Conj-adverb      2(However in fact) 
1(still anyway)
 
Pattern 3 Subordinator  Coordinator  Conj-adverb 
Subordinator       
Coordinator  1(but  despite 
this) 
  3(but while) 
1(and anyway) 
2(but this time) 
1(but at  any rate) 
2(but in any case) 
1(but instead) 
Conj-adverb  1(in  fact 
though) 
  1(however this time)
 
  161
 
Pattern 4 Subordinator  Coordinator  Conj-adverb 
Subordinator       
Coordinator       
Conj-adverb      3(Despite  the  fact  that  in 
any case)
 
Pattern 5 Subordinator  Coordinator  Conj-adverb 
Subordinator      1(Despite this/that.in 
any case) 
1(whilst still) 
1(although.nevertheless) 
1(although..at least) 
1(even though .still) 
Coordinator       
Conj-adverb     
 
Pattern 6 Subordinator  Coordinator  Conj-adverb 
Subordinator       
Coordinator       
Conj-adverb    1(admittedly 
but) 
1(it  might 
appear  that 
but)  
 
  162
 
Pattern 7 Subordinator  Coordinator  Conj-adverb 
Subordinator       
Coordinator       
Conj-adverb      1(actually whereas)
 
Pattern 8 Subordinator  Coordinator  Conj-adverb 
Subordinator      1(although anyway) 
Coordinator       
Conj-adverb     
 
7.3. The influence of strength on complex multiple marker occurrences
The strength hypothesis arose from the observation that more general markers tended to 
precede more specific markers in examples taken from the British National Corpus. From 
further corpus analysis, it became evident that there were two types of multiple marker: 
simple and complex. The strength hypothesis was established to account for the former 
type of marker since these were, originally, the most prominent (the majority of co-
occurrences being of group 1 category, the markers occurring immediately next to each 
other in a sentence and, therefore, being more easily identifiable). Section 5.2 has shown 
that the strength distinction is a useful one for the generation of simple multiple discourse 
markers, but that grammatical category, in this study, is slightly more comprehensive in 
its coverage. The utility of strength in controlling the order of markers in complex 
occurrences was also tested. The study showed that strength was not useful in accounting 
for this type of multiple marker occurrence. The following section outlines the results 
from these tests. 
  163
7.3.1. Methodology
Descriptions of complex multiple markers are more difficult than those of the simple 
markers. Simple multiple markers only consist of two propositions, whereas definitions 
of complex marker occurrence consist of three propositions in order to account for the 
embedded proposition also. For this reason, it is necessary to distinguish between the 
subordinate and superordinate relations. To do this the markers and the propositions to 
which they are attached are bordered by different sized brackets. The propositions 
contained within the medium sized brackets are joined by a subordinate relation, whilst 
those propositions contained within the larger brackets are joined by a superordinate 
relation. To give an example using the group 1 pattern from the different groups listed 
below, the propositions B and C in are linked by a subordinate relation, this is denoted by 
the use of smaller brackets: 
[<marker> B [ <marker> C ] ] 
whereas propositions A and B-C are linked by a superordinate relation. This time being 
bordered by larger brackets: 
[A [<marker> B [ <marker> C ] ] ] 
In each case, as with all of the groups of occurrence, both relations must be contrastive. 
We identified the following three groups of complex (or embedded)  multiple marker 
occurrence in the ICE corpus:  
Group
1:
Both markers precede the propositions to which they are attached. The 
first marker is attached to B, the second marker is attached to C.  
   [A [<marker> B [ <marker> C ] ] ]  
Example Soon science fiction authors started to write stories which included the 
potential uses for this proposed invention. However, it was too early to 
make any real developments even though the first step had already been 
taken. <ICE-GB:w2b-034-012> 
  164
 
Group
2:
The first marker immediately precedes the second. Both markers are 
attached to proposition B. 
  Types in group 2 are:  
[A <./,/:/;> [<marker> <marker> B [C] ] ] 
Example His account of the motif further disguises the village of Voisins in the 
middle distance, makes the landscape appear more wild than cultivated, 
and all but effaces the aqueduct. But whereas Pissarro.s figures are 
country people, Renoir juxtaposes his blue-clad peasant with a bourgeois 
family. <ICE-GB:w2b-002-084> 
Group
3:
The first marker precedes proposition A, the second precedes proposition 
C. 
  Types in group 3 are:  
[<marker> A [B [<marker> C] ] ]  
Example Although two emotions, such as fear and love, may produce an increase in 
breathing, fear reduced one.s temperature, while love caused an increase. 
<ICE-GB:w1a-017-038> 
 
7.3.2. Results: complex occurrences
The complete results from the corpus analysis using these types are shown on page 109. 
The following tables summarise the results from testing the complex occurrences of 
multiple markers on the ICE corpus. To repeat the hypothesis, we expect that when two 
markers of different strength co-occur, the first marker would always be weaker than the 
second. Once again, the white areas indicate support of the hypothesis while numbers in 
the light-grey areas contradict the hypothesis. The far left column is to be understood as 
the strength of the first marker to occur in the grouping and the top row is the strength of 
the second.  
There were 96 complex occurrences of multiple markers in the corpus for which there 
were 61 different types of occurrence. Group 1 contained 66 occurrences. These can be 
further subdivided into 38 different types. Both markers in group 1 precede the 
  165
propositions to which they are attached. The first marker is attached to B and the second 
is attached to C. This pattern of occurrence was the most common pattern for complex 
multiple marker occurrences in the entire corpus - around two thirds of all the complex 
marker occurrences followed this pattern. The strength hypothesis accounted for 23 
(61%) of the 38 types of occurrence, there were 13 (34%)  types of counterexample to 
strength and 2 (5%) types of occurrence in which markers of the same strength co-
occurred. The strength hypothesis was, therefore, unsuccessful in accounting for complex 
occurrences in this group, performing on slightly better than would a random factor. 
Furthermore, the strength hypothesis could not account for the most common type of 
occurrence in this group which was however followed by but. There were 14 occurrences 
of these markers occurring in this order in the corpus (see 134 below), the largest number 
of occurrence for two markers in a given order. As mentioned in earlier tests, it is 
important that these factors account, not only for a wide variety of types of occurrence, 
but also for the most common types of occurrence in the corpus.  
134. Thank you for your letter of 6 March and the time spent explaining the Mercury system. However, 
I have decided to stay with our current system for the present but will bear Solutions in mind 
should we wish to reconsider our position. <ICE-GB:W1B-018 #163:20> 
  166
 
Group 2 contained 20 occurrences of multiple markers. Again strength performed only 
slightly better than random, accounting for 8 (62%) of the 13 types of occurrence. There 
were 5 (48%) types of counterexample to strength in this group. 
Group1 Weak+  Weak  Strong  &preference  Strong+  &preference 
Weak+  4(but but)    2(but except) 
1(but  apart 
from) 
1(but 
although) 
2(but though) 
1(but while)  7(but 
and) 
1(but  if 
only) 

1(but albeit) 
1(but even after) 
2(but at least) 
1(but even when) 
1(but despite) 
1(but even though) 
Weak  14(however 
but) 
  2(however 
except) 
  2(howev
er and) 
1(yet despite) 
1(however even 
though) 
1(however despite) 
Strong  2(although 
but) 
1(apart from 
but) 
  1(whereas 
except) 
  1(except 
and) 
1(instead in  spite 
of) 
&preference             
Strong+   1(in contrast 
but) 
1(and but) 
  1(in  fact 
although) 
1(and except) 
1(and 
although) 
1(and 
though) 
    1(and despite) 
1(indeed even after) 
&preference  1(while but) 
1(similarly 
but) 
    1(despite this 
on  the  one 
hand.on the 
other) 
1(despite
this and) 
 
  167
 
The strength factor performed poorly for the patterns of occurrence in group 3. A random 
factor accounting for 50% of all occurrences would have performed better. There were 10 
occurrences, each of a different type. Strength could only account for 4 of these 
examples, the remaining 6 were all examples of a stronger marker occurring before a 
weaker one.   
Group2 Weak+  Weak  Strong  &preference  Strong+  &preference 
Weak+      1(but 
although) 
1(but 
whereas) 
     
Weak      3(however 
although) 
1(however 
while) 
 1(however  even 
when) 
2(however even 
though) 
Strong  1(although 
but) 
         
&preference             
Strong+   4(in  fact 
but) 
  1(in  fact 
although) 
    1(and even if) 
1(and despite) 
&preference        2(and  on  one 
hand.on the 
other hand) 
1(nevertheles
s while) 
   
  168
Overall, in comparison to simple multiple markers, for which the strength hypothesis 
could account for 78% of all occurrences, we find that the strength hypothesis does not 
account well for complex occurrences of multiple markers. Of the 61 types of complex 
occurrence in the ICE corpus, only 35  (57%) support our hypothesis. Given that in a 
purely random context, a generation system could be expected to get at least 50% of all 
occurrences correct, it is concluded that the strength/weakness distinction would not be of 
use in the placement of markers in complex structures.    

Group3 Weak+  Weak  Strong  &preference  Strong+  &preference 
Weak+             
Weak           1(however even 
when) 
Strong      1(although 
although) 
1(although 
while) 
1(although 
but for) 
1(although 
and) 
 
&preference      1(while 
although) 
     
Strong+              
&preference  1(despite 
this but) 
1(despite 
but) 
1(despite 
however) 
    1(despite 
and) 
 
  169
8. Bibliography
Blakemore, D. (1989) Denial and Contrast: A relevance theoretic analysis of but. 
Linguistics and Philosophy, 12:15-37 
Blakemore, D. (1996) Are Apposition Markers Discourse Markers? Journal of 
Linguistics, 32:325-347 
Bouayad-Agha, N. and Scott, D. R. (1998) Integrating Constraints of Layout and Style 
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