346 Dik Bakker and Anna Siewierska
- The FDG model and expression
We will now try and fit the FDG model and our expression module to-
gether. We will do this on the basis of example (9), repeated here in a
slightly simplified form under (11):
(11) a... A-nd .. he would come into cláss
b.... a-t .. uh- three or f
c. ... precísely one minute after the hóur,
d.... or something like thát
These four intonation units are part of a longer fragment, which comprises
40 units in all. In its turn, this is part of a tape-recorded conversation during
an informal dinner party. The participants are telling each other stories
about the university teachers they had. In the 8 units that precede (11a) the
speaker has introduced a certain (male) teacher she particularly remembers.
We will assume that the information in that introduction is represented in
the speaker’s semantic memory in an activated, readily accessible form. In
that stretch of text, the teacher has been introduced as a topic; he has been
referred to several times pronominally. Furthermore a typical ‘school’
script has probably been activated, from which all kinds of default aspects
can be derived, such as the article-less use of ‘class’ in (11a). Finally, the
speaker will assume that her audience is in the same ‘frame of mind’. Let
us now try to trace the possible flow of information within the FDG model
as sketched above, with special attention to the expression of the respective
utterances.
The whole story of 40 intonational units, which is not interrupted by
anything other than assertive noises and laughter, consists of a series of
Moves. All of them express the communicative intention of the speaker to
inform the audience about this special teacher. We shall interpret stretch
(11a) – (11d) as one Move, which we will call M 6. It consists of a central
Act, A 6. M 6 is about the fact that the teacher in question always manages to
arrive shortly after the moment at which the class should start. We will as-
sume that this specific piece of recollection is represented in the semantic
memory of the speaker in an abstract, non-linguistic way, as an inference
made over a set of observations over time concerning the behaviour of this
teacher. M 6 starts with a pause, prolonged by the lengthened discourse con-
tinuity marker And and another short pause. During this pause the contents
of M 6 are planned, and part of its expression form is calculated in working
memory. This will give rise to the first intonation unit, which is part of A 6.