100 John Connolly
The formulation of structure at the expression level is carried out along
the following lines, where Para stands for Paragraph, S for Sentence, Cl for
Clause, PrP for Predicate Phrase, RP for referential Phrase and Lex for
Lexeme:
(8) (Para 1 : [(S 1 : [(Cl 1 : [(PrP 1 : [(Lex 1 )] (PrP 1 )) (RP 1 : [(Lex 2 )] (RP 1 ))] (Cl 1 ))]
(S 1 ))] (Para 1 ))
Once more, allowance is also made for higher layers, for example Sec-
tion and Chapter in books.
3.2. Discourse Representation Structures
Outside of FG there have also been various attempts to develop methods of
representing discourse. Perhaps the best known of these have emerged
from Discourse Representation Theory (DRT); see Kamp and Reyle
(1993). Espousing from the very outset a communicative (or functional)
view of language, Kamp and Reyle develop a detailed theory of discourse
interpretation, based upon concepts drawn from model-theoretic semantics.
In their exposition they make extensive use of a type of semantic represen-
tation called a Discourse Representation Structure (DRS). A DRS, in its
most basic form, contains (i) a list of symbols, such as x or y, each of
which represents a discourse referent, (ii) a list of predicates, such as Jay(x)
or Kay(y), indicating the respective individuals for which the aforemen-
tioned symbols stand, and (iii) an indication of the relationship among the
individuals designated by the symbols (for instance, ‘x likes y’). The rela-
tionship concerned is derived from a syntactic analysis of the sentence
concerned.
x y
Jay(x)
Kay(y)
x likes yFigure 4. DRS-style representation of the sentence Jay likes Kay
By way of notation, Kamp and Reyle combine the contents of a DRS
into a list enclosed inside a box, as shown in Figure 4. Discourses contain-
ing more than one sentence can, of course, be accommodated, as for