often accompany segments with a first-person protagonist than do other connectives. Keywords: coherence relations; connectives; categorization; causality;.
Scaling causal relations and connectives in terms of speaker involvement HENK PANDER MAAT and LIESBETH DEGAND*
Abstract This article presents a scalar approach to the semantics and distribution of causal connectives in Dutch and French. The proposed scale is called the speaker-involvement scale, and is de®ned in terms of the degree of implicit involvement of the speaker in the construction of the causal relation. First, a number of causal coherence relations identi®ed in the literature are reanalyzed in terms of increasing speaker involvement, yielding the following order: nonvolitional, volitional, causal epistemic, noncausal epistemic, speech-act relations. Subsequently, a number of frequent causal connectives in Dutch and French are investigated in terms of speaker involvement. Initially, we examine the distribution of these connectives in terms of the ®ve relational interpretations. These distributions are taken as ®rst indications of the speaker-involvement levels encoded by the dierent connectives. The speaker-involvement pro®les thus developed are further supported by observations regarding the semantic eects of substituting a connective with a dierent speaker-involvement level. It is found that connectives are not necessarily tied to the expression of a particular coherence relation. The relative independence pertaining between connective meanings and categories of relational interpretation yields expressive possibilities for speakers who want to introduce assumptions to, or remove them from, the interpretation of a certain relation. Finally, more ®ne-grained dierences in speaker involvement were revealed by analyzing the utterance containing the connective for linguistic features having to do with subjectivity. One of the results of this kind of analysis is that, in all relations, high speaker-involvement connectives more often accompany segments with a ®rst-person protagonist than do other connectives. Keywords:
coherence relations; connectives; categorization; causality; subjectivity; speaker involvement.
Cognitive Linguistics 12±3 (2001), 211±245
0936±5907/01/0012±0211 # Walter de Gruyter
212 H. Pander Maat and L. Degand 1. Introduction It has often been noted that causal connectives come in (at least) two kinds. On the one hand, we have connectives like French de ce fait, English as a result, and Dutch daardoor, which seem to specialize in relations between states of aairs: (1)
a. Le soleil se leva. De ce fait la tempeÂrature grimpa. b. The sun came up. As a result, the temperature went up. c. De zon kwam op. Daardoor steeg de temperatuur.
On the other hand, connectives like French donc, English so, and Dutch dus may occur in so-called nonassertive speech acts (see example [2]) and speaker conclusions (see example [3]), while de ce fait, as a result, and daardoor are inappropriate in such environments. (2)
a. Tu as eÂte treÁs impoli. Donc /*de ce fait sors immeÂdiatement de cette pieÁce! b. You have been very impolite. So /*as a result leave the room immediately! c. Je bent erg onbeleefd geweest. Dus /*daardoor verlaat de kamer onmiddelijk! (3) a. La neige fond, donc /*de ce fait la tempeÂrature est au-dessus de zeÂro. b. The snow is melting, so /*as a result the temperature is above zero. c. De sneeuw smelt, dus /*daardoor de temperatuur ligt boven nul.
The dierence between the two sets of connectives has mainly been accounted for in terms of dichotomies (such as external vs. internal [Halliday and Hasan 1976; Martin 1992], or semantic vs. pragmatic [van Dijk 1977; Moeschler 1989]). Roughly, the dierence is seen as one between relating the contents of utterances and relating the utterances themselves. A similar dichotomy has been proposed to classify coherence relations as such, that is, apart from their linguistic realization (e.g., subject matter vs. presentational [Mann and Thompson 1988], semantic vs. pragmatic [Sanders et al. 1992; Sanders 1997], or propositional vs. intentional relation [Knott 2001]). A somewhat dierent account is provided by Sweetser (1990), who has proposed distinguishing not two, but three domains of use of use for connectives: the content domain, relevant for (1), the speech-act domain, exempli®ed in (2), and the epistemic domain, illustrated in (3). In this article, our objective is to propose an alternative account of the distribution of connectives. Going beyond dichotomous and
Scaling causal relations and connectives 213 trichotomous classi®cations, we want to propose a scale of speaker involvement, on which the inherent expressive power of connectives can be represented. Two observations lay at the basis of this proposal. First, most connectives that allows epistemic and speech-act uses may also express so-called ``volitional'' causal relations, while as a result and daardoor may not, and de ce fait is at least marked here: (4)
a. J'eÂtais fatigueÂ, donc /? de ce fait je suis parti. b. I felt tired, so /*as a result I left. c. Ik was moe, dus /*daardoor ik ging weg.
However, all the publications mentioned thus far unanimously state that volitional causality falls within the content domain, since it is concerned with states of aairs in the real world, external to the discourse. But note that dus, donc, and so cannot express non-volitional real-world relations (see example 4'). (4')
a. Il y a eu beaucoup de vent, #donc trois tuiles sont tombeÂes du toit. b. There was a strong wind, #so three tiles fell o the roof. c. Er stond een harde wind, #dus er zijn drie pannen van het dak gevallen.
In these examples, the connectives do not express a nonvolitional content relation; rather, they suggest that the consequence is entirely predictable from the cause. This is what makes these examples decidedly odd. In other words these epistemic and speech-act connectives encroach upon the content domain, but only on the volitional part of it. The second observation concerns the behavior of some connectives that seem to speci®cally express volitional causality, like c'est pourquoi, that's why, and daarom. While these connectives are not acceptable in epistemic and speech-act contexts (examples [5] and [6]), they become sxxx as soon as speech-act or modal operators are inserted1 (see [5' ] and [6' ]).1 At the same time, nonvolitional connectives are excluded, with the possible exception of de ce fait: (5)
a. La neige fond. *C'est pourquoi /*De ce fait, la tempeÂrature est au-dessus de zeÂro. b. The snow is melting. *That's why /*As a result, the temperature is above zero. c. De sneeuw smelt. *Daarom /*Daardoor ligt de temperatuur boven nul. (5') a. La neige fond. C'est pourquoi /?De ce fait, je pense que la tempeÂrature est au-dessus de zeÂro. b. The snow is melting. That's why /*As a result, I think the temperature is above zero.
214 H. Pander Maat and L. Degand c.
De sneeuw smelt. Daarom /*Daardoor denk ik dat de temperatuur boven nul ligt. (6) a. Tu as eÂte treÁs impoli. *C'est pourquoi / ? De ce fait, sors de cette pieÁce immeÂdiatement! b. You have been very impolite. *That's why /*As a result, leave the room immediately! c. Je bent erg onbeleefd geweest. *Daarom /*Daardoor verlaat de kamer onmiddelijk! (6') a. Tu as eÂte treÁs impoli. C'est pourquoi / De ce fait, je te demande de sortir de cettte pieÁce immeÂdiatement! b. You have been very impolite. That's why /*As a result, I demand that you leave the room immediately! c. Je bent erg onbeleefd geweest. Daarom /*Daardoor vraag ik je de kamer onmiddelijk te verlaten! Hence, these volitional connectives seem to take an intermediate position between the content and epistemic relations. On the one hand, they may express a certain type of relation in the content domain, on the other hand, they lend themselves to use in epistemic and speech-act contexts as long as the speech acts and conclusions are an explicit part of the proposition. In our opinion, this situation is an indication of the need to apply a scalar perspective to the spectrum reaching from nonvolitional causality in the content domain to epistemic and speech-act causality. Our hypothesis is that the dierent relational interpretations can be ordered along a scale from minimal to maximal speaker involvement. Speaker involvement (SI) refers to the degree to which the present speaker is implicitly involved in the construal of the causal relation. More speci®cally, speaker involvement increases with the degree to which both the causal relation and the related units are constituted by the assumptions and actions of the present speaker. That is, the maximal degree of speaker involvement represents the situation in which the causal event is identical to the speech event. Four aspects of coherence relations may enhance the prominence of speaker assumptions in the relation and hence enhance its level of speaker involvement. First, causal coherence relations may be characterized in terms of the degree to which they necessarily imply the subjective involvement of a conscious participant, which may, but need not be the speaker (see also Pit 1997). For instance, a volitional relation (see example [4]) involves such a participant, while a nonvolitional relation (as in example [1]) does not. Normally, both nonvolitional and volitional relations are seen as relations in the content domain. However, since conscious participants may entertain assumptions
Scaling causal relations and connectives 215 which the speaker may share, volitional relations carry a higher degree of speaker involvement than nonvolitional ones. See section 2.2 for details. Second, a given causal relation may be more or less isomorphic with a causal relation in the real world, that is, a causal relation in which the present speaker has no role. For instance, the volitional relation in (7) represents a real-world causal relation, while the relation in (8) does not; it is made up of speaker assumptions. That is, in (8) the reason±consequence relation in the real world is transposed to the mental domain of speaker knowledge and inference. Hence the epistemic relation in (8) carries a higher degree of speaker involvement. In example (9) this process is taken one step further. Here the causal relation in the real world is turned around to yield a pattern of abductive inference. In this situation the epistemic relation is detached from the real-world one. (7) (8) (9)
John loved her, so he came back. John loved her, so he probably came back. John came back, so he probably loved her.
Third, a given relation may be placed a dierent distances from the present speaker, and at dierent distances from the moment of speaking. The closer a given relation is to the present speaker, the more it constitutes a vehicle for the expression of assumptions made by the speaker. After all, the speaker is more likely to accept the general assumptions underlying his own decisions than those underlying the decisions of others. Hence, the ®rst-person relation in (10) exhibits a higher degree of speaker involvement than the third-person relation in (11), and (12) is even higher in speaker involvement because it is in the present tense. (10) (11) (12)
I felt tired. I left. He felt tired. He left. I feel tired. I'm going home.
Fourth, the involvement of a conscious participant may vary in explicitness. The more implicit it is, the more subjectively this participant is construed, to use the term coined by Langacker (1990); that is, it functions as an implicit reference point for the conceptualization of the causal relation. We will illustrate this dimension with reference to the presence of the speaker in an epistemic relation (examples [13] to [15]). Taken in isolation, (13) expresses a factual statement, originating outside the domain of the speaker's conceptualizing activity. That is, it presents itself as carrying a minimal degree of speaker involvement, because the speaker is only minimally involved in the production of the reported cognition. In contrast, (14) and (15) contain some explicit elements referring to the
216 H. Pander Maat and L. Degand speaker's perspective (comparable to Langacker's [1990] notion of ground ). In example (14), the modal adverb probably invokes the present speaker as the source of the probability judgement. This is made even more explicit in (15), where the speaker's perspective (I think) is more or less ``objecti®ed'', that is, is made part of the situation referred to in the utterance. This can be seen by the fact that it may be referred to by demonstrative pronouns in subsequent utterances (following [15], that is not true could refer to the I think clause, not just to its complement). In terms of speaker involvement, (14) ranks higher than (15), while (15) is still higher than (13). (13) (14) (15)
He is Hungarian. He is probably Hungarian. I think he is Hungarian.
However, such factual statements as (13) can occur in a discourse context that heavily suggests they be interpreted as a speaker conclusion. This would be the case, for instance, if (13) were preceded by He can only be Czech or Hungarian and I am sure he is not Czech. In this case, the speaker's inferential activity is part of the interpretation, but at the same time maximally implicit. Hence, on this occasion, (13), and the epistemic relation it entertains with the preceding utterances, exhibit a maximal degree of speaker involvement higher than in (14) and consequently also higher than (15). In the remainder of this article, we ®rst analyze ®ve prototypical relational interpretations exemplifying increasing degrees of speaker involvement, thus elucidating the speaker-involvement scale. In the second part of article, we study the interaction between a number of Dutch and French causal connectives and these ®ve relational environments. We will report on corpus studies empirically supporting a number of claims concerning the speaker-involvement scale. 2. From nonvolitional to speech-act relations 2.1. Nonvolitional causal relations Instances of nonvolitional causality appear as entirely objective phenomena (in the real world), that is, as phenomena in which no observer has any part. The causality is presented as concerning states of aairs, which are simply taken as fact; the same goes for the causal relation, which is also presented as a fact in which the speaker is not involved. Of course, we might also say that reporting something as a fact constitutes a minimal degree of subjective involvement, in which the speaker assumes no role other than that of being the reporter.
Scaling causal relations and connectives 217 Apart from the speaker (who reports on the relation), no conscious participant is involved in the nonvolitional relation. In example (16), a potentially conscious participant is involved in the segments but not in the relation, since the cause±eect relation falls outside the domain of his intentions. The situation referred to in the ®rst segment need not be known by the protagonist. Actually, this ignorance may be the prime cause of the event taking place. (16)
Monday his train to Amsterdam arrived at another platform. He got on the train to The Hague. (Stukker et al. 1999: 72)
Nonvolitional causal relations obey certain temporal constraints. Given that the state of aairs p is valid at time point or interval t1 and the state of aairs q is valid at t2, t2 cannot precede or start earlier than t1; and, in the case that t1 and t2 are not identical, the causal event itself takes place somewhere between t1 and t2. Oversteegen (1997) and Lagerwerf (1998) have suggested that connectives like because presuppose a general underlying causal relation, de®ned in terms of a defeasible implication. More speci®cally, they claim that because p, q presupposes p'wq', where p and q are clauses and p' and q' are propositions associated with p and q respectively, andwis a defeasible implication.2 It is interesting to explore whether this idea of underlying general implications can also be applied to causal coherence relations as such, that is, aside from their being either marked or not by connectives. In our opinion, this is indeed the case for volitional and epistemic causal relations. But for nonvolitional relations, a (defeasible) implication cannot be assumed: in interpreting (17) we do not assume that landslides normally cause the loss of electricity supplies in four neighborhoods. In order to understand this relation, the only assumption one needs to make is that causes like the one presented may have eects like the one presented, that is, natural disasters may cause a loss of electricity. (17)
There were landslides in Malibu last week. Four neighborhoods lost their electricity. (Mann and Thompson 1986: 65)
The degree of generalization to which the underlying relation has been subjected can only be determined by invoking knowledge of the world. In some cases it will be dicult to generalize both p and q. However, in the absence of any general relation the causal relation will remain incomprehensible or even undetected. For instance, in (18a) a causal relation can be identi®ed on the basis of a general relation between noise and the inability to concentrate; such a relation cannot be constructed for (18b).
218 H. Pander Maat and L. Degand (18)
a. The neighbor is playing the trumpet. I cannot concentrate on my book. b. The neighbor is working in the garden. I cannot concentrate on my book.
We will now summarize this analysis in more formal terms.3 Nonvolitional causality relational segments: pt1; qt2 ; p and q stand for states of aairs causal relation: [p ? q]t1±t2 time constraint: t1¦t2 Additional assumption General possibility of the relation: ^(P ? Q) 2.2. Volitional causal relations In contrast to nonvolitional causality, volitional causality (in the real world) involves decision making by some protagonist, in this case an actor; and decision making implies reasoning. Reasoning in turn implies awareness of premises: what is causally eective in example (19) is not the state of aairs p (the fact that it was 12 p.m.) but its representation by the protagonist. In example (20), the situation is even more complex. It is hard to consider the guests' being boring as a simple state of aairs. Rather, it is an evaluative predication, which the actor believes to be valid, i.e., the protagonist judges the guests to be boring and this is a reason for her to leave the party. (19) (20)
It was 12 p.m. She/I went home. The guests were boring. She/I left the party early.
The fact that p falls within the mental domain of the actor (compare Fauconnier's [1994] idea of mental spaces), is the ®rst dierence between volitional and nonvolitional relations. This may be made explicit in the ®rst segment, as in She thought the guests were boring. She left, but most often it is not. In the latter case, it is part of the assumptions inherent to the volitional interpretation. This assumption can only be conveyed by a speaker who, at least temporarily, adopts the viewpoint of the actor. In other words, in reporting a volitional causal relation, the speaker implicitly becomes involved in the construal of the causal relation. Hence we claim that volitional relations presuppose a certain degree of speaker involvement. The temporal constraints in volitional causal relations are more complex than those in nonvolitional relations. For instance, the segment
Scaling causal relations and connectives 219 containing the reason for a certain action can refer to a state of aairs in the future: (21)
Her/my plane takes o tomorrow at 6 a.m. She/I left the party early.
In this example, the state of aairs designated by p takes place at a time point succeeding that of the state of aairs designated by q. This again indicates that volitional relations do not related the states of aairs as such; instead, they relate the representation of a state of aairs to the performance of a certain action. So far we have shown that the cause segment of the volitional relation is not a state of aairs in the real world. How about the consequence segment of this relation? Can we consider a volitional action as merely a simple event in the external world? Partly, because such actions are, in principle, observable for other participants. On the other hand, every (volitional) action involves the particular mental state of an actor, which we could call actor awareness: one cannot perform an action without being aware of performing precisely this action. In Fauconnier's (1994) mental-space terminology, we might say that action predicates automatically set up actor spaces. In reporting a volitional action, the speaker also conveys the actor awareness assumption. Again, most of the time this assumption tends to be unnoticed, presumably because the speaker normally shares the assumption that this action is indeed the one performed. A divergence between the actors' and the speakers' perspective need to be marked. For instance, (22) is acceptable whilst (23) is not. (22) (23)
She thought she took the train to The Hague, but she took the train to Amsterdam. *She took the train to The Hague, but she took the train to Amsterdam.
Thus, both the cause and the consequence segment of a volitional causal relation are (at least partially) situated in the mental domain of the actor, which is implicitly shared by the speaker when conveying the situation. The same goes for the causal relation itself: ®rst, causation is a mental phenomenon since it constitutes a process of reasoning; second, the protagonist herself is aware of this process, in which believing p leads to knowingly performing action q. Again, in unmarked cases the speaker shares this assumption with the actor. When the speaker disagrees with this assumption, that is, when the speaker thinks the action was not performed for this reason, he must indicate this explicitly, as in (24b). (24)
a. *It rained all afternoon. That's why she didn't go walking. However, the real reason was that she had a paper to ®nish.
220 H. Pander Maat and L. Degand b.
It rained all afternoon. That's why she said she didn't go walking. However, the real reason was that she had a paper to ®nish.
Thus far, we have said that believing p is what led to the action in the second segment. However, this account is still insucient. Intentional participants are endowed with a certain minimum of consistency. Hence, it is natural to infer a general pattern of cause and eect underlying the speci®c sequence that is reported. That is, the protagonist of (20) is presented as a person who generally considers boring guests a reason for leaving a party early, though boring guests will not always be sucient to actually make her leave. The same goes for the protagonist in example (19) who generally accepts midnight to be an adequate time to go home. Moreover, in volitional relations the protagonist is always aware of this general motivational relation. Further, she also accepts this relation in a normative sense. An essential feature of volitional causation is that the acceptance of the normative principle is part of the reason for acting: the protagonist does not go home merely because it is 12 p.m., but because she thinks it is 12 p.m. and she accepts this to be a good reason for leaving a party. In other words, from the protagonist's point of view a reason is always a good reason. As with nonvolitional relations, the level of generality of the relation must be determined contextually. In this example, it is doubtful whether party may be generalized to social gatherings, since the protagonist may not consider the time (midnight) or the level of entertainment (boring guests) relevant at all when it comes to leaving or not leaving birthday parties of family members. In the same way, the situation of Cinderella leaving at midnight cannot be generalized to a situation in which her leaving a party at midnight is always conditioned by the nearing end of an enchantment; rather, the general underlying principle could be something like obedience, or her wish not to be ridiculed. In other words, the principle underlying a volitional relation cannot always be derived immediately from the segments. However, some general principle must be at work. (See also Itkonen [1983] for a conceptual analysis of actions and their rationality.) This underlying principle need not always be accepted by the speaker. One may describe actions that follow a ``logic'' of which one does not approve. For instance, the speaker himself may regard it as bizarre to leave a party at 12 o'clock. Nevertheless, in reporting the relation, the speaker at least temporarily adopts the perspective of the protagonist, especially when, as is often the case, the ®rst segment is not marked for (speaker) perspective.
Scaling causal relations and connectives 221 Moreover, in some cases the relation may apply to actors in general, not just to the protagonist in question. As well will see later, the choice of a connective may aect this aspect of the volitional interpretation. In sum, volitional relations can only be understood by constructing a number of assumptions concerning the knowledge and attitudes of the protagonist, assumptions that are usually left unstated, and are hence temporarily adopted by the speaker. Our analysis is summarized as follows: Volitional relations relational segments: causal relation: time constraint:
Bt1(a, ps/pe), possibly realized in unmarked form as ps/pe PFt2(a, qa), possibly realized in unmarked form as qa [Bt1(a, ps/pe) ? PFt2(a, qa)]t1±t2 t1¦t2
Additional assumptions 1. Awareness of the causal relation: Bt1±t2(a, [Bt1(a, ps/pe)?PFt2 (a, qa)]t1±t2) 2. Generality of the relation: B(a, P) ? PF(a, Q) Generally, actor a performs PF an action like q when he believes something like p. 3. Actor acceptability of the relation: ACCt1±t2 (a, n2o) At the time of causal event, a considers the general assumption as an acceptable way of doing things. 2.3. Causality-based epistemic relations In causality-based epistemic relations, a segment describing a real-world cause constitutes a reason for drawing a certain conclusion regarding its (real-world) consequence. Like reasons for actions, premises in arguments are known or accepted by the concluder. It is the propositional attitude that is causally eective, not its content. Unlike volitional relations, however, in epistemic relations the consequence is not some state of aairs in the spatiotemporal world, but a mental state of the protagonist, i.e., the concluder (c). By default, this concluder is the speaker him or herself. So when an epistemic relation does not refer to the protagonist, the speaker generally conveys a conclusion of his own. When this is not the case, this must be explicitly mentioned in the second segment as in (25), or in earlier utterances as in (26).4 (25)
It had rained continuously for two days. Peter thought the tennis court would be unplayable.
222 H. Pander Maat and L. Degand (26)
Peter looked out of the window. It had rained continuously for two days now. The tennis court would probably be unplayable.
Since epistemic relations have no spatiotemporal real-world segments, they are not observable. Hence a speaker presenting such a relation must entirely adopt the internal perspective of the protagonist, even when he or she is not the protagonist. Therefore, speaker involvement in epistemic relations is higher than in volitional ones, where the second segment is at least partially a spatiotemporal phenomenon. In causality-based epistemic relations, the reasoning is based on an assumption concerning a real-world causal relation. Concluding q from p is based here on the belief that p generally causes q in the real world, or that knowing p will generally lead an actor to opt for a certain action. That is, the causality upon which the inference is based may be of a nonvolitional (see example [27]) or a volitional (example [28]) kind. In both cases, the causation takes place in a (real-world or mental) domain dierent from the mental domain of reasoning. With regards to time constraints, this means that one has to consider two layers: the reasoning process and the underlying causal process. The epistemic relation as a reasoning process relates two mental states, the second which cannot precede the ®rst. The two states may be temporally coextensive or the ®rst state may have an earlier onset than the second. As regards the real-world causal event, the time constraint is identical to the ones discussed earlier with regard to nonvolitional and volitional relations. (27) (28)
It has rained continuously for two days. The tennis court will probably be unplayable. It has rained continuously for two days. Peter will probably not go to the tennis court today.
Like the protagonists in volitional relations, epistemic protagonists are also thought to be consistent. As a result, epistemic relations are understood against the background of assumptions relating premises and conclusions. In this case, the generality assumption not only concerns the relation between two beliefs, but rather the relation between knowing about a certain real-world causal pattern and a pattern of reasoning modeled on this real-world pattern. In contrast to volitional relations, this assumption is taken to apply to persons in general, not solely to the protagonist. This dierence between volitional and epistemic relations with regard to the general validity of the underlying assumption is also manifest in the way we talk about conclusions and actions, respectively. Conclusions are often described as (in)correct, strong, weak, faulty, and the like; actions
Scaling causal relations and connectives 223 are not. According to the reasoning protagonist, there is a community of concluders who will accept it has rained for two days as an argument for the conclusion that the tennis court will be unplayable, since continuous rainfall often causes it to be unplayable. There is a smaller group of concluders that also accepts the argument as a decisive one, as the speaker/concluder does. However, the speaker does not necessarily assume that the present hearer is a member of this smaller group. He assumes only that the hearer belongs to the larger group for whom the acceptance of his argument increases the probability of his conclusion being correct. In sum, epistemic causality is not necessarily tied to the protagonist speci®ed in the propositions themselves; typically it relates to a ``contextually salient'' protagonist: the speaker c and a group of concluders C to which he belongs. Causality-based epistemic relations relational segments: Bt1(c, p), possibly realized as p; Bt2(c, q), possibly realized as q causal relation: [Bt1(c, p) ? Bt2(c, q)]t1±t2 time constraint: t1¦t2 Additional assumptions 1. Awareness of the epistemic causal relation: Bt1±t2(c, [Bt1(c, p) ? Bt2 (c, q)]t1±t2) 2. Underlying ``external'' causal relation: Bt1±t2[c, ( p ? q)] 3. ``External'' relation leads to the epistemic relation: n2o ? [Bt1(c, p) ? Bt2(c, q)]t1±t2 4. Generality of the external relation: {B[C, (P ? Q)]} Generally, a concluder C believes that P causes Q. 5. Generality of the epistemic relation: {B[C, (P ? Q)]} ? {[B(C, P)? DB(C, Q)]} Generally, when a concluder C believes that P causes Q, believing P leads him to increased belief in conclusion Q. 6. Concluder acceptability of the relation: ACCt1±t2(c, n5o) At the time of the causal event, c considers it acceptable for every concluder C to reason in this very same way. 2.4. Noncausal epistemic relations In causality-based epistemic relations, the real-world cause is taken as the argument supporting a conclusion concerning the real-world eect. That is, the causal relations in the real world and the epistemic domain have the
224 H. Pander Maat and L. Degand same direction. In noncausal reasoning, either the real-world causality has a dierent direction to the epistemic one, or real-world causality is not relevant at all. The ®rst case concerns abductive reasoning: the real-world eect is taken as an argument supporting a conclusion concerning the real-world cause. In (29), the observation of melting snow is used to infer its cause, namely a temperature above zero degrees. These kinds of examples have become prototypical of epistemic coherence relations (Sweetser 1990; Sanders et al. 1992). This is unfortunate for two reasons. First, the majority of epistemic relations encountered in discourse are causality based (see the following); second, besides abduction there are other kinds of reasoning not modeled on real-world causality. What underlie the arguments in (30) and (31) are not any kind of causal relation between the situations referred to in the relational segments, but rather other kinds of assumptions: most people leave for work well before 10 a.m. (the fact that it is 10 a.m. does not cause them to have left), and twin brothers are usually the same height (one of them being tall does not cause the other to be tall). (29) (30) (31)
The snow is melting. The temperature must be above zero. It's 10 o'clock. Everyone has probably left for work. His twin brother is very tall. He will probably be tall too.
These are only some examples taken from a larger set of inferences, some of which have been analyzed and categorized, while others have not. Some of the better known members of this set include reasoning from a dilemma ( p or q; not p; hence, q) and from an analogy (for p, A is the case; q is comparable to p; hence, for q, A is the case too). In our view, noncausal inferences exhibit a larger degree of speaker involvement than causality-based epistemic relations. The dierence here lies not in the number or the strength of the assumptions being conveyed, but in their nature. Causality-based inferences simply transpose a real-world link into the inferential domain. By contrast, the assumption behind abductive and other types of noncausal inference in no longer modeled on real-world causal links, although it may sometimes be based on real-world regularities. With regard to real-world causality, however, the assumption is non-iconic, and springs entirely from mental activity by the speaker. Noncausal epistemic relations relational segments: Bt1(c, p); Bt2(c, q) causal relation: [Bt1(c, p) ? Bt2(c, q)]t1±t2 time constraint: t1¦t2
Scaling causal relations and connectives 225 Additional assumptions 1. Awareness of the epistemic causal relation: Bt1±t2(c, [Bt1(c, p) ? Bt2(c, q)]t1±t2) 2. The acceptance of some inversely causal or noncausal relation Rp, q between p and q, e.g., a disjunction or similarity: Bt1±t2(c, nRp, qo) 3. The acceptance of Rp, q leads to epistemic relation: Bt1±t2 (c, nRp, qo)?[Bt1(c, p)?DBt2(c, q)]t1±t2 4. Generality of the relation: {B(C, nRp, qo)}?{[B(C, P)?DB(C, Q)]} Generally, when a concluder C believes that Rp, q, believing P leads him to increased acceptance of conclusion Q. 5. Concluder acceptability of the relation: ACCt1±t2(c, n4o) At the time of the causal event, c considers it acceptable for every concluder C to reason in this very same way. 2.5. Speech-act relations type 1: Motivate a speech act So far we discussed relations which concern the way a speaker conceptualizes a reality that is external to the speech situation. This includes causal and noncausal reasoning, since reasoning patterns exist independently of their expression in discourse (thinking is not saying). By contrast, speech-act relations concern the structure of the present discourseÐand nothing else. They appear in discourse in response to the interactional needs of a speci®c/potential interlocutor, not to present facts or draw conclusions concerning the real world. In these kinds of relations, the speaker is not involved as a thinking being, but solely in his role as a speaker. In (32) and (33), two speech-act relations are illustrated in which one of the segments prepares the ground for an upcoming speech act. (32) (33)
I want to pay you for your work. How long have you been cleaning? There is a good movie on. Did you already have plans for tonight?
Like epistemic relations, speech-act relations are based on assumptions that need to be shared between speaker and hearer. In example (32), the speaker wants the hearer to consider his question to be an appropriate speech act, he appeals to an assumption that is acceptable to the hearer: when you want to pay somebody for (simple) work, it is appropriate to ask how much time he or she spent on it (assuming you do not already know). Likewise, in (33) the hearer needs to consider the request for information on his plans for tonight as an appropriate speech act, given the fact that there is a good movie on. Of course, not just any hearer can be approached
226 H. Pander Maat and L. Degand with such a request and the motivation behind it; the complex speech act sa presupposes a certain view of the social relationship between speaker s and hearer h. In this regard, the speech-act relation is more speci®cally hearer-oriented than the epistemic relation, in which the hearer is only addressed indirectly as a member of the community sharing certain assumptions. The epistemic relation in turn is more hearer-oriented than the volitional relation, which does not assume anything with regard to the hearer's views concerning the appropriateness of the ensuing action. Other characteristics of the speech-act relation are that the actor is always identical to the speaker and that both segments take place at the time of speaking. Finally, the fact that the second segment of the relation consists of the performance of some speech act is necessarily implicit. Speech-act relations type 1 relational segments: Bts(s, ps/pe), possibly realized as ps/pe; PFts(s, h, saq), realized as q causal relation: [Bts(s, ps/pe) ? PFts(s, h, q)]t1±ts time constraint: t1¦ts Additional assumptions 1. Awareness of the action performed: Bts(s, PFts[s, h, saq]) 2. Awareness of the causal relation: Btl±ts(s, [Bt1(s, ps/pe) ? PFts(s, h, saq)]t1±ts) 3. Generality of the relation: B(s, P) ? PF (s, h, SAQ) Generally, when he believes something like p, speaker s performs an action like saq with regard to h. 4. Speaker acceptability of the relation: ACCt1±ts(s, n3o) At the time of the causal event, s considers the general assumption as an acceptable way of doing things. 5. Hearer acceptability of the relation: ACCts(h, n3o) At the time of the speech act, h considers the general assumption as an acceptable way of doing things. 2.6. Speech act relations type 2: Paraphrasing and summarizing (34)
To win the elections an absolute majority (more than half of the votes) is required.
In example (34), a certain discourse segment, sap an absolute majority, is re-expressed in segment saq more than half of the votes. The assumption is that in this context the interpretation of speech act sap licences an inference identical to the interpretation of saq. This identity is unknown to
Scaling causal relations and connectives 227 the hearer at the point of processing sap, otherwise saq would not be relevant. However, after processing saq the hearer is intended to be aware of the licensing relation. A second assumption is that saq will present less comprehension problems for the hearer than sap does. Again, the present hearer needs to share this assumption. When he does not, he may feel underestimated or he might still be puzzled by the second speech act. As in the ®rst kind of speech-act relations, the speaker and the hearer are heavily involved in the relational segments without being mentioned as such. A dierence, however, lies in the generality of the relation. The interpretative relation between the two speech acts need not be general, since interpretations of utterances are by their nature context dependent (as opposed to meanings of linguistic items). For instance, in (35) the ®rst segment receives an entirely context-speci®c interpretation. (35)
Par contre, 38% des sondeÂs ... preÂfeÁrent que la situation actuelle reste inchangeÂe, donc que le droit de vote reste reÂserve aux Belges. On the contrary, 38% of the respondents ... prefer the present situation to remain unchanged, that is, the right to vote remains reserved to Belgians.
At present, we do not postulate a dierence in speaker involvement between speech-act relations of the ®rst and second type. Our characterization of these two relations shows that both of them embody a speci®c hearer-directness, which distinguishes them from epistemic relations in our hierarchy. Speech-act relations type 2 relational segments: It1(s, h, sap), realized as p; Its(s, h, saq), realized as q causal relation: It1(s, h, sap) ? Its(s, h, saq) time constraint: t1¦ts Additional assumptions 1. Awareness of the interpretations involved: Bts[s, (It1[s, h, sap])] and Bts[s, (Its[s, h, saq])] 2. Awareness of the causal relation: Bts[s, (It1[s, h, sap] ? Its[s, h, saq])] 3. Speaker acceptability of the relation: ACCt1±ts(s, n2o) At the time of the causal event, s considers the causal relation an acceptable interpretation process. 4. Hearer acceptability of the relation: ACCts(h, n2o) At the time of the speech act, h considers the causal relation an acceptable interpretation process.
228 H. Pander Maat and L. Degand 2.7. Summary The discussion so far may be summarized in terms of the four aspects of speaker involvement mentioned in the introduction (see Table 1): i. Causal coherence relations may be characterized in terms of the degree to which they necessarily imply the active involvement of a subject of consciousness, which may be the speaker himself. When segments change from states of aairs into actions, beliefs, or speech acts, and when the role of the protagonist changes from none at all into actor, concluder, and speaker, respectively, speaker involvement clearly increases. Our discussion has also revealed dierent degrees of hearer involvement, which increases from no hearer involvement at all to indirect involvement in the case of epistemics to direct involvement in the case of speech-act relations. ii. The second aspect concerns the connection between the discourse relation on the one hand and real-world causality on the other. In nonvolitional and volitional relations, a type of real-world causality is represented. In epistemic causal relations a real-world causal relation is transposed to the mental domain of inference making. In this kind of relation, real-world causality is not represented, but it continues to impose constraints on the propositional content of the related segments. This is no longer the case for noncausal epistemic relations and speech-act relations, which show maximal detachment from real-world causality. iii. Third, a given relation may be placed at dierent distances from the present speaker and at dierent distances from the moment of speaking. The ®rst kind of distance progressively decreases as the identity of the protagonist changes from none at all into ``any person'' and then into the speaker. In epistemic relations, the speaker is the unmarked protagonist, and in speech-act relations he or she is the only conceivable protagonist. The time distance to the moment of speaking decreases from no temporal constraint at all for nonvolitional and volitional relations to an obligatory coincidence of t2 and ts for speech-act relations. iv. The involvement of a protagonist may be more or less implicitly realized in the discourse. As we proceed on the scale, explicit realization gradually changes into obligatory implicit realization. Table 1 recapitulates the dimensions that characterize the dierent causal relations. As already mentioned, some of these dimensions are interdependent. For instance, the dimension ``Identity of the protagonist'' constrains the dimension ``Realization of the protagonist''. The direction
Segments
states of aairs belief; action beliefs beliefs belief; speech act interpretations of speech acts
Type of relation
Nonvolitional Volitional Causal epistemic Noncausal epistemic Speech act type 1 Speech act type 2
none actor concluder concluder speaker
Role of protagonist
none none indirect indirect direct
Hearer involvement
Table 1. Summary of speaker-involvement dimensions of causal relations
representation representation transposition detachment detachment
Connection to real-world causality no protagonist any person speaker speaker speaker
Identity of unmarked protagonist
none none often t2~ts often t2~ts t2~ts
Time constraint on t2
± rarely implicit often implicit often implicit implicit
Realization of the protagonist
Scaling causal relations and connectives 229
230 H. Pander Maat and L. Degand of development in each dimension is clear, and most upward transitions on the scale are marked by more than one corresponding transition in one of the dimensions. Hence Table 1 shows how the dimensions work together in making a relation into more or less a vehicle for the expression of speakers' assumptions and activities. 3. The speaker-involvement scale Speaker involvement (SI) is a characteristic of relational interpretations. Hence it can be used for analyzing i. the interpretational options in a stretch of discourse; ii. the semantic pro®le of a connective (at least a central component of it); and iii. the interaction between these two. Up until now we have been concentrating on the ®rst topic; the rest of the article will be devoted to the other two issues. A ®rst impression of the interaction between connectives and their discourse environments can be gained by considering inappropriate combinations of connective and discourse contexts, i.e., ``starred'' fragments. In our proposal, these are due to discrepancies in speaker-involvement pro®les. That is, the connective encodes a higher or lower degree of speaker involvement than is allowed for by the discourse context. The ®rst case was illustrated by example (4'), in which the connective dus/so introduces rather strong assumptions (see assumptions 5 and 6 in section 2.3) that appear implausible in view of the discourse segments. The second case was illustrated by examples (5) and (6), in which the relational interpretations suggested by the segments carry a degree of speaker involvement which apparently cannot be expressed by the connectives daarom, c'est pourquoi, and that's why. When the protagonist's mental activity is made explicit in the second segment, however, the speaker-involvement level of the discourse segments decreases, with the result that these connectives can be used. More generally, we want to make the following claims concerning the relationship between connectives and speaker involvement: 1.
2.
A connective encodes a certain speaker-involvement level, which it contributes to the interpretation of its discourse environment. When this level is too low or too high to be combined with the level allowed for by the discourse environment, the use of the connective is inappropriate. The set of relational environments of a connective can be represented as an area on the speaker-involvement scale. Our expectation is that the distribution of each connective occupies a contiguous area on the
Scaling causal relations and connectives 231 scale. That is, we do not expect to ®nd a single connective that may express, e.g., volitional and noncausal epistemic relations but not causal epistemic relations. In order to see why this should be so we need to realize that a connective contributes a certain level of speaker involvement to the interpretation of its relational environment. Hence, a connective that may be used in volitional and noncausal epistemic relations apparently carries a level of speaker involvement compatible with these relations. However, these two relations themselves also cover a certain area on the speaker-involvement scale. This area happens to include the speaker-involvement location of causal epistemic relations. Therefore the speaker-involvement level encoded by the connective in question must also be compatible with the speaker-involvement levels allowed for by causal epistemic relations. 3. The most frequent causal connectives in a given language should dier signi®cantly from each other on the scale. That is, the prime reason for a language to have more than one causal connective is to be able to express several levels of speaker involvement. 4. These claims are cross-linguistically valid (starting with Dutch and French). In our view, analyses of the speaker-involvement potential inherent to connectives cannot do without systematic corpus analyses. Hence, we carried out corpus analyses of forward causal connectives in (written) Dutch and French. 4. Empirical support for the speaker-involvement scale 4.1. A contrastive speaker-involvement analysis of causal connectives We selected the three, for French four, most frequent connectives expressing forward causation in the two languages: dus, daarom, and daardoor for Dutch; donc, deÁs lors, c'est pourquoi, and de ce fait for French. For each of these connectives, we assembled 50 occurrences from a newspaper corpus.5 First, we identi®ed the coherence relation of each fragment by means of a paraphrase test.6 The results for Dutch and French are given in Tables 2 and 3, respectively. In both languages, the contiguity hypothesis (the second claim in section 3) is con®rmed. For Dutch, dus-fragments are clearly highest on the speaker-involvement scale in terms of relational interpretations, daardoor-fragments clearly lowest, and daarom-fragments occupy an intermediate position. All connectives signi®cantly dier from one another (dus±daarom: w2~25.90,
232 H. Pander Maat and L. Degand Table 2. Relational interpretations co-occurring with forward causal connectives in a Dutch newspaper corpus Relation
Connective dus
(%)
daarom
(%)
daardoor
(%)
Nonvolitional causal Volitional causal Causal epistemic Noncausal epistemic Speech act, type 2
± 6 21 19 4
± 12 42 36 8
1 26 18 5 ±
2 52 36 10 ±
50 ± ± ± ±
100 ± ± ± ±
Total
50
50
50
Table 3. Relational interpretations co-occurring with forward causal connectives in a French newspaper corpus Relation
Connective donc
(%)
deÁs lors
(%)
c'est pourquoi
(%)
de ce fait
(%)
Nonvolitional causal Volitional causal Causal epistemic Noncausal epistemic Speech act
± 8 26 12 4
± 16 52 24 8
1 8 32 7 2
2 16 64 14 4
2 33 15 ± ±
4 66 30 ± ±
33 7 10 ± ±
66 14 20 ± ±
Total
50
50
50
50
df~4, and p
