Temporal Information and Discourse Relations in Narratives:
the role of French connectives puis and un peu plus tard
Myriam Bras
IRIT Univ. Toulouse 3
118 route de Narbonne
31062 Toulouse Cedex 4
bras@irit.fr
Anne Le Draoulec
ERSS CNRS
5, Allées Antonio-Machado
31058 Toulouse Cedex 1
draoulec@univ-tlse2.fr
Laure Vieu
IRIT CNRS
118 route de Narbonne
31062 Toulouse Cedex 4
vieu@irit.fr
Abstract
This paper deals with the way temporal
connectives affect Temporal Structure
as well as Discourse Structure in Nar-
ratives. It presents a contrastive study
of French connectives puis (then, after-
wards) and un peu plus tard (a bit later)
within the framework of Segmented
Discourse Representation Theory. It
shows that puis is a marker of the Narra-
tion discourse relation, whereas un peu
plus tard blocks Narration and licenses
only a weaker discourse relation, that
can be considered as a “weak Narra-
tion” involving only temporal succes-
sion. In addition, puis blocks Result,
while un peu plus tard does not.
1 Introduction
It is well known that tense, grammatical and pred-
icational aspect are very important clues in the
process of temporal interpretation of sentences,
and of texts (see (Kamp and Rohrer, 1983) among
others). As far as discourse level is concerned, it
has been shown that world knowledge and knowl-
edge about discourse structure play a role in de-
termining the text global temporal structure (Las-
carides and Asher, 1993; Caenepeel and Moens,
1994). In this paper we want to focus on the role
of connectives and their intersentential semantics.
We want to give an account of the way some
temporal connectives in French interact with dis-
course relations. We will examine differences
in the behavior of two connectives, namely puis
(then, afterwards) and un peu plus tard (a bit
later), when different discourse relations hold. At
first sight, the temporal contribution of these two
connectives should show little or no difference.
We will see that matters are not so simple.
This direction of work is inspired by a study
of puis showing differences in behaviour accord-
ing to the discourse relation at stake (Bras et al.,
2001). It is also grounded on previous studies
of adverbials of temporal location and adverbials
of spatial location and of their role to build the
spatio-temporal structure of discourse (Asher et
al., 1994; Asher et al., 1995a; Asher et al., 1995b;
Asher et al., 2001). We showed that, in the con-
text of trajectories, relational adverbials like un
peu plus tard and its spatial counterpart un peu
plus loin (a bit further) had symetric roles in the
process of locating the eventualities in space and
time, and could both be given the same spatio-
temporal interpretation.
We will tackle a comparative analysis of con-
nectives within the framework of a theory of
discourse structure and discourse relations. We
have chosen Segmented Discourse Representa-
tion Theory (SDRT) for its effective methodology
in investigating and formalizing how different lin-
guistic clues interact at the semantic/pragmatic in-
terface to recover the discourse structure of a text.
We will first briefly present SDRT (section 2),
and the Discourse Relations (section 3) that we
will use for our contrastive analysis of puis and un
peu plus tard with respect to Discourse Structure
(section 4).
2 SDRT
We first present the theorical framework that
we chose to account for this interaction, namely
SDRT. SDRT is a non trivial extension of DRT that
takes discourse structure into account and offers a
theory of the semantics/pragmatics interface. We
give a brief outline of SDRT (see (Asher, 1993;
Lascarides and Asher, 1993; Asher, 1996; Bus-
quets et al., 2001) for a thorough presentation).
In SDRT a discourse is represented by an SDRS.
An SDRS is a recursive structure consisting of el-
ementary DRSs (i.e., DRSs representing a single
clause) and sub-SDRSs linked together by Dis-
course Relations, such as Narration, Elaboration,
Background, Continuation, Result, Contrast, Ex-
planation. . . These elementary DRSs and the sub-
SDRSs corresponding to complex discourse seg-
ments are the constituents of the SDRS represent-
ing the discourse. We use Greek letters as vari-
ables for constituents, and a0a2a1 as constants.
SDRSs are built up incrementally. SDRT defines
a “Glue Logic" and an “Update Function" that to-
gether determine a new SDRS for a given SDRS
a3 representing the context (the discourse already
processed), and a new constituent a4 representing
the information to be integrated into that context.
The Glue Logic is embedded in the framework
of “Commonsense Entailment" (Asher and Mor-
reau, 1991), a logic that exploits both monotonic
(a5 ) and non-monotonic (a6 )1 conditionals. The
Glue Logic is specified by:
a7 definitions characterizing which constituents
in a3 are open for attaching a4 ,
a7 axioms detailing what discourse relations
may be inferred, on the basis of a variety
of linguistic and common knowledge clues,
in order to actualize the attachment of a4 to
some open constituent of a3 ,
a7 axioms specifying the semantic effects of
those discourse relations.
We will see some of these two kinds of axioms
below. The Update Function is in charge of the
1a8a10a9a12a11 means “if a8 then normally a11 ". From a8a13a9a14a11 and
a8 , Commonsense Entailment entails a11 “by default", that is,
defeasibly, in the absence of further information regarding
the truth value of a11 . From a8a15a9a12a11 , a8 and a16 a11 , Commonsense
Entailment no longer entails a11 , but a16 a11 .
proper hierachization of the structure and of the
resolution of the possibly existing underspecifica-
tions (e.g., anaphora and ellipses).
3 Discourse Relations
In the following, we only present the discourse re-
lations used in SDRT that will be helpful to anal-
yse our data: Narration and Result. One impor-
tant aspect of SDRT that is worth emphasizing at
this point is that several discourse relations may
simultaneously link the same two constituents.
3.1 Narration
Narration is a relation which is based on
the Gricean pragmatic constraint of orderliness.
When two clauses are linked by Narration, they
describe in sequence two successive events “of
the same story".
Let us first see more precisely what the seman-
tics effects of Narration on discourse content are.
Building on the previous analyses of (Lascarides
and Asher, 1993), we showed in (Asher et al.,
1995a) that a relation of Narration between two
constituents a4 and a17 entails a temporal overlap
between the resulting state of the main eventual-
ity of a4 (noted a18a20a19 2), a21a23a22a25a24a27a26a29a28a30a18a31a19a33a32 , and the preceding
state of a18a35a34 , a21a23a36a25a18a37a28a38a18a35a34a37a32 , in the absence of locating
adverbials. This is what axiom (A1) expresses:
A 1 Narrationa28a30a4a40a39a41a17a42a32a43a5 posta28a38a18 a19 a32a45a44 prea28a30a18a35a34a33a32
(A1) aims at capturing the fact that narratives
must cohere in the sense that the events linked
together by Narration must fit consistently and
without significant spatio-temporal gaps as ex-
pressed in (Asher, 1996) and observed in earlier
work on temporal order in narratives (see for ex-
ample (Caenepeel, 1989)). This doesn’t mean
that there should be no interval of time between
the two events a18 a19 and a18a27a34 , but rather that no rele-
vant event can occur during this interval. From
(A1) and uncontroversial ordering assumptions
on events and their pre- and post-states3, we can
deduce a relation of temporal precedence between
2As regards the ontology of eventualities, SDRT keeps
building on DRT, and assumes the same Davidsonian ap-
proach. Two basic aspectual classes are distinguished among
eventualities: events and states.
3a46a48a47a50a49a52a51a54a53a38a55a56a49a52a57a59a58 a60a54a61a62a49a35a55a56a49a52a57a64a63a66a65a67a49a68a63a66a65a69a60a25a70a29a71a72a53a30a55a56a49a52a57 , where a63a54a65
denotes temporal abutment, as used in DRT, or the “meets”
relation as used in Allen’s theory (Allen, ).
the events a18 a19 and a18a27a34 : a18 a19a74a73 a18a27a34 . Actually, to
fully capture the “no-significant-gap” constraint,
a temporal overlap is too weak. As we will see
in Section 4.1, we should guarantee that a21a23a22a25a24a27a26a29a28a30a18 a19 a32
persists (at least) up to the beginning of a18 a34 , and,
conversely, that a21a23a36a25a18a37a28a38a18a35a34a33a32 starts when (or before)
a18 a19 ends. So we propose here an improved ver-
sion of (A1), where a75 denotes the “intersection”
operator4:
A 2 Narrationa28a30a4a40a39a41a17a43a32a48a5
a18 a19a69a76a78a77 a28 posta28a30a18 a19 a32a79a75 prea28a30a18a27a34a37a32a41a32 a76a78a77 a18a35a34
Narration has another semantic effect. It is
motivated by the intuition that the elements of a
Narration must belong to the “same story", i.e.,
they must have some common subject matter. To
this effect, axiom (A3) expresses that the con-
stituents connected together by Narration must
have a common Topic. A topic is a simple con-
stituent which is contingent (i.e., not vacuous,
not contradictory, not tautologic), and subsumes
the constituents of a sub-SDRS, in this case, the
constituents linked by Narration. If not already
present in the context, it has to be added to the
SDRS during the update. (A3) and the rules of
the underlying logic actually imply that Narration
can be non-monotonically inferred only if such a
topic exists or can be built.
A 3 a28a62a80 a3 a39a50a4a81a39a72a17a42a82 a83 Narrationa28a30a4a40a39a41a17a42a32a41a32 a5
a84a86a85
a28 Contingenta28
a85
a32a64a83
a85a59a87
a4a88a83
a85a89a87
a17a42a32
where a80 a3 a39a52a4a40a39a41a17a43a82 means that a17 is to be attached to
a4 in the SDRS
a3 , and
a87 is a subordinating dis-
course relation whose semantics essentially in-
volves subsumption between the topic and the el-
ements of the narrative it summarizes.
Now, how do we infer Narration? Since (Las-
carides and Asher, 1993), the triggering axioms
for Narration have changed to reflect the fact that
Narration is not always a default in narratives
(Asher, 1996). It is only a default if no other re-
lation can be inferred, that is, if in the discourse
there are no clues that other axioms could exploit
to infer other discourse relations:
A 4 a28a62a80 a3 a39a50a4a81a39a72a17a42a82 a83 a90 Clues_ a91a13a92a20a28 a3 a39a52a4a40a39a41a17a43a32 a83
a90 Clues_ a91a10a93a94a28
a3
a39a52a4a40a39a41a17a42a32a95a83a97a96a20a96a20a96a98a83
4We assume that a71a50a99a101a100a10a71a103a102 , when applicable, yields a new
state lasting the maximum interval of time during which both
a71a50a99 and a71a103a102 hold, and whose propositional contents is the con-
junction of a71 a99 and a71 a102 ’s propositional contents.
a90 Clues_ a91a64a104a105a28
a3
a39a50a4a81a39a72a17a42a32a41a32a48a6 Narrationa28a30a4a40a39a41a17a42a32
where a91a13a92a45a96a20a96a20a96a106a91a64a104 are all the discourse re-
lations used in SDRT5 but Narration, and
Clues_ a91 a1 a28 a3 a39a50a4a81a39a72a17a42a32 holds whenever the proposi-
tional content of a4 and a17 and the discourse struc-
ture of a3 contain clues that could be exploited for
inferring a91 a1 a28a30a4a40a39a41a17a42a32 .
In addition, Narration can be non-
monotonically inferred if the predicate Occasion
holds between the clauses to be related:
A 5 a28a103a80 a3 a39a52a4a40a39a41a17a43a82a95a83 Occasiona28a38a4a81a39a72a17a42a32a41a32a40a6
Narrationa28a30a4a81a39a72a17a42a32
Occasion holds if the two clauses contain clues
indicating that their main eventualities are of
types that may belong to “the same story". In
other words, Occasion exploits lexical semantics
and shared knowledge in terms of scripts connect-
ing certain event types in sequences in which one
event “naturally" leads to the next. For instance,
(1) is an example of Narration where Occasion
holds, since there is clearly in the shared knowl-
edge a script in which, before entering, people
knock at the door.
(1) Paul frappa à la porte. Il entra. (Paul
knocked at the door. He entered.)
We can assume this kind of script to be encoded
in the following axiom:
A 6 a28a103a107 knocka28a38a18 a19 a39a52a108a109a39a52a110a86a32 a83 door-ofa28a30a110a23a39a50a111a54a32a106a112a113a4 6 a83
a107 entera28a30a18a35a34a23a39a50a108a45a39a50a111a54a32a106a112a114a17a42a32a43a5 Occasiona28a30a4a81a39a72a17a42a32
In this case, the sequence of events is only typ-
ical, i.e., “natural": knocking isn’t a necessary
precondition to enter, and it doesn’t cause the
entering. Obviously, stronger dependence links
between event types like precondition and cause
also give rise to Occasion (and by non-monotonic
inference, Narration), but some of them are also
exploited to infer more specific discourse rela-
tions, like the next one to be presented here, Re-
sult.
5SDRT explicit states that there should be a finite number
of discourse relations, even though what these are precisely
is not a settled matter yet. For the purposes of the present
work, we will consider that these relations are: Narration,
Background, Elaboration, Continuation, a115 (i.e., “Topic"),
Result, Explanation, Contrast and Parallel, for which an
SDRT account can be found in the literature.
6a116a8a118a117a120a119 means that the condition a8 appears in the con-
stituent a119 .
3.2 Result
The Result relation has the semantic effect of im-
plying a causal link between the main eventuali-
ties of the constituents it relates:
A 7 Resulta28a38a4a81a39a72a17a42a32a42a5 Causea28a30a18a31a19a98a39a52a18 a34 a32
The predicate Causea28a30a18a25a92a35a39a52a18a31a93a52a32 implies, among
other things, that if a18 a92 and a18 a93 are events, the first
temporally precedes the second:
A 8 a28 Causea28a30a18 a92 a39a52a18 a93 a32a95a83 eventa28a30a18 a92 a32a121a83 eventa28a30a18 a93 a32a41a32a48a5
a18a25a92 a73 a18a31a93
Result may be monotonically inferred on the
basis of the presence in a17 of an explicit marker of
causation as e.g., the conjunct donc (therefore) or
the verb to result:
A 9 a28a62a80 a3 a39a50a4a81a39a72a17a42a82a95a83a122a107 donca112a114a17a42a32a48a5 Resulta28a30a4a40a39a41a17a42a32
Result can also be non-monotonically inferred
on the basis of lexical semantics or of some shared
knowledge on the types of eventualities in a4 and
a17 , as in the following two famous examples:
(2) Max poussa John. Il tomba. (Max pushed
John. He fell.)
(3) Paul éteignit la lumière. Il faisait nuit
noire autour de lui. (Paul turned off the
light. It was pitch dark around him.)
In (2) and (3), it is again generic script-like
information on pushing and falling event types,
and on switching off the light event types and be-
ing dark state types that enables the reader to re-
cover the causal links that the narrator most likely
wanted to express. The presence of such clues in-
dicating a possible causal link is expressed by the
predicate D-Permissible-Cause. For instance, we
assume that the following axiom encodes a plau-
sible piece of shared knowledge:
A 10 a28a62a107 pusha28a38a18 a19 a39a52a108a109a39a52a110a86a32a106a112a113a4a123a83 a107 falla28a30a18a27a34a23a39a52a110a86a32a106a112a114a17a43a32 a5
D-Permissible-Causea28a30a4a40a39a41a17a42a32
which is in turn exploited by (A11) to infer Re-
sult:
A 11 a28a62a80
a3
a39a52a4a40a39a41a17a42a82a86a83 D-Permissible-Causea28a30a4a81a39a72a17a42a32a41a32a40a6
Resulta28a30a4a40a39a41a17a43a32
4 Connectives and Discourse Structure
In this section, we want to compare the behaviour
of connectives puis and un peu plus tard7 in com-
bination with Passé Simple sentences in order
to find out to what extent they affect Discourse
Structure. We are first going to present series of
examples and give the intuitions that native speak-
ers may have about their interpretation. Let us
first compare the examples in (4):
(4) a. L’acide tomba dans le mélange. Une
explosion se produisit. (The acid fell
into the mixture. An explosion hap-
pened.)
b. L’acide tomba dans le mélange. Puis
une explosion se produisit.
c. L’acide tomba dans le mélange. Un
peu plus tard une explosion se pro-
duisit.
The three examples are good. They all ex-
press a relation of temporal sucession between
the events. But we feel that another issue is at
stake. In (4-a), the explosion event is not only in-
terpreted as posterior to, but also as a result of,
the acid falling event. This interpretation is still
valid for (4-c), but it is lost in (4-b). With puis, it
seems that the events are presented from an exter-
nal, objective, point of view, as if the speaker did
not intend to express any kind of resultative link.
Let us now look at (5):
(5) a. La petite fille s’endormit. Il se mit à
pleuvoir. (The little girl fell asleep. It
began to rain.)
b. La petite fille s’endormit. Puis il se
mit à pleuvoir.
c. La petite fille s’endormit. Un peu
plus tard, il se mit à pleuvoir.
7Un peu plus tard is to be considered as representing a
class of adverbials which have the same syntactic schema
NP plus tard/après and the same semantic function, i.e. ad-
verbials setting a temporal relation between two temporal
referents. Such relational adverbials introduce themselves a
new time referent by coercion only in contexts requiring a
temporal anchorage as in: Paul entra dans la pièce. Cinq
minutes plus tard, Marie pleurait. (Paul entered the room.
Five minutes later, Mary was crying.). Notice that puis can-
not be coerced this way: Paul entra dans la pièce. *Puis
Marie pleurait. We here compare a whole class of adver-
bials to the single adverb puis.
We feel that the use of puis in (5-b) is not as
straightforward as the use of un peu plus tard in
(5-c). In order to interpret (5-b) —and (5-a) to a
lesser extent— it seems that we have to imagine a
specific context, for example “the story of a little
girl lost in the woods", in which the contribution
of each sentence to the coherence of the discourse
is obvious. Un peu plus tard does not require this
kind of constraint.
The difference is less important when there is
already a link between the events, as in (6):
(6) a. Marie écrivit une longue lettre à son
cousin. Elle alla la poster au village
voisin. (Marie wrote a letter to her
cousin. She went and post it to the
next village.)
b. Marie écrivit une longue lettre à son
cousin. Puis elle alla la poster au vil-
lage voisin.
c. Marie écrivit une longue lettre à son
cousin. Un peu plus tard, elle alla la
poster au village voisin.
Here we do not need a particular context to in-
terpret (6-b) —nor (6-a). Nevertheless, the events
seem to be more disconnected in (6-c) than in
(6-b) or (6-a). Now we want to examine how the
intuitions described above may be accounted for
in the SDRT framework.
4.1 Puis and un peu plus tard with Narration
In (Bras et al., 2001), we argue that puis is a
rhetorical marker which introduces a relation of
Narration:
A 12 a28a62a80 a3 a39a52a4a40a39a41a17a42a82a95a83a97a107 puisa112a114a17a42a32a48a5 Narrationa28a30a4a40a39a41a17a42a32
In both (5-a) and (5-b), Narration will be in-
ferred, by default with (A4) for (5-a), thanks to
puis with (A12) for (5-b). Our hypothesis to ac-
count for the different interpretation in (5-c), is
that un peu plus tard blocks Narration. But let
us explain further. Let us first consider the tem-
poral effect of Narration described in (A2), set-
ting that the intersection of the poststate of a18 a19 and
the prestate of a18a27a34 exists and fills the interval be-
tween the two events. Again, this means that the
events must fit consistently and without signifi-
cant spatio-temporal gaps. A way to test the pos-
sibility of a relevant spatio-temporal gap between
the two events is to try to insert a third event be-
tween a18 a19 and a18a35a34 such that it terminatesa21a23a22a25a24a35a26a35a28a30a18 a19 a32 ,
i.e, an event whose poststate is incompatible with
a21a23a22a25a24a27a26a29a28a30a18 a19 a32 , for instance the event of the little girl’s
waking up: 8
(7) a. La petite fille s’endormit. Il se mit
à pleuvoir. *Elle venait juste de se
réveiller. (She had just woken up.)
/ *Entretemps elle s’était réveillée.
(Meanwhile she had woken up.)
b. La petite fille s’endormit. Puis il se
mit à pleuvoir.*Elle venait juste de se
réveiller. / *Entretemps elle s’était
réveillée.
c. La petite fille s’endormit. Un peu
plus tard, il se mit à pleuvoir. Elle
venait juste de se réveiller. / En-
tretemps elle s’était réveillée.
The test on the temporal effect of Narration
only fails in (7-c). It is successful in (7-a) and
(7-b), as the insertion of an intermediate event ap-
pears to be very difficult. Let us insist that our
examples are built in such a way that the interme-
diate events actually implies the end of posta28a30a18 a19 a32 ,
hence a temporal gap between a18 a19 and a18a35a34 . If not
so, the adding of another event with entretemps
poses no problem. For instance:
(8) La petite fille s’endormit. Puis il se mit à
pleuvoir. Entretemps la nuit était tombée.
(Meanwhile the night had fallen.)
is perfectly acceptable, since the falling of the
night does not imply that the little girl is no
longer asleep. Let us also note that it might
be possible to improve (7-a) and (7-b), by in-
troducing the third event with something like
Ajoutons/précisons que, entretemps, la petite fille
s’était réveillée (Let’s add / point out that, mean-
while, the little girl had woken up). In such a case,
however, there is an explicit phenomenon of cor-
rection (of the way the events have been narrated),
and so it is not surprising that the temporal effects
of Narration should be revised.
We come now to the second semantic effet of
Narration, topic requirement (A3). As we said
8See (Caenepeel, 1995) that investigates the conditions
for the insertion intermediate events in a narrative sequence.
above, we do not need any special context to inter-
pret (5-c). On the contrary, a link seems to be re-
quired between the two events in (5-a) and (5-b),
which corresponds to (A3) topic requirement. Let
us note that this requirement seems to be stronger
in (5-b). This is an indication that puis is more
demanding on topic than a simple Narration. We
leave this apart for now, and turn to the difference
between puis and un peu plus tard.
At this point, we need to address the issue of
the relation between the sentence a17 introduced by
un peu plus tard and the sentence a4 . Of course,
un peu plus tard contributes a temporal relation
of succession between the events. But apart from
this contribution, the relation between a4 and a17
does not match the semantic effects of Narration.
This leads us to claim that with the temporal in-
dication contributed by un peu plus tard, the re-
lation of Narration does not hold. Now, (7-c) be-
ing a coherent discourse, what discourse relation
holds? We hypothesize that it should be a rela-
tion that only supports temporal precedence, that
could be viewed as a kind of weak Narration. To
account for this, we propose to view Narration as
a gradual relation that normally occurs under its
strong form, and always at least under its weak
form:
A 13 Narrationa28a38a4a81a39a72a17a42a32a59a6 Strong-Narrationa28a30a4a40a39a41a17a42a32
A 14 Narrationa28a38a4a81a39a72a17a42a32a48a5 Weak-Narrationa28a30a4a40a39a41a17a43a32
This change implies updating the axioms given
in the previous sections: Narration has to be sub-
stituted by Strong-Narration in the axioms (A2),
(A3), (A5) and (A12). In (A4), the general Nar-
ration relation remains. Weak-Narration has no
requirement on topic nor does it have the “no gap
constraint”. The only semantic effects of Weak-
Narration is temporal precedence:
A 15 Weak-Narrationa28a30a4a40a39a41a17a43a32a42a5a124a18 a19a125a73 a18a27a34
With such limited semantic effects, un peu
plus tard is obviously compatible with Weak-
Narration. It must be noted though, that here we
do not claim that adverbials of this kind should be
considered as rhetorical markers of this relation.
Unlike puis, syntactically they do not behave as
conjuncts. Moreover, their main semantic con-
tribution materializes compositionally within the
constituent itself, specifying not only temporal
succession between two temporal referents, but
also the length of the temporal interval between
these referents.
Let us now come back to example (6) in the
light of these considerations on the role of un
peu plus tard. In both (6-a) and (6-b), a Strong-
Narration relation will be inferred, because Oc-
casion holds and (A5) is triggered for (6-a), by
(A12) for (6-b). Unlike for example (5) just anal-
ysed, Occasion holds in both cases, and thus we
can assume it is easy to buid a common topic to
both sentences. The example in (6-c) is perfectly
all right, but bears a slightly different interpreta-
tion: here the strong link between the two events
is lost. It is indeed quite possible to introduce an
intervening event, as (9-c) shows, while this is not
possible for the two other examples, viz. (9-a) and
(9-b):
(9) a. Marie écrivit une longue lettre à
son cousin. Elle alla la poster au
village voisin. *Entretemps, elle
l’avait retouchée à plusieurs reprises.
(Meanwhile she had altered it several
times.)
b. Marie écrivit une longue lettre à son
cousin. Puis elle alla la poster au vil-
lage voisin. *Entretemps, elle l’avait
retouchée à plusieurs reprises.
c. Marie écrivit une longue lettre à
son cousin. Un peu plus tard,
elle alla la poster au village voisin.
Entretemps, elle l’avait retouchée à
plusieurs reprises.
Therefore, un peu plus tard blocks Strong-
Narration not only when it could have been in-
ferred by default, but also when Occasion holds.
In order to account for this blocking, we introduce
the following axioms:
A 16 a28a62a80 a3 a39a52a4a40a39a41a17a42a82 a83 a107 un peu plus tarda112a114a17a42a32 a6
a90 Strong-Narrationa28a30a4a81a39a72a17a42a32
A 17 a28a62a80
a3
a39a52a4a40a39a41a17a42a82 a83 Occasiona28a30a4a40a39a41a17a43a32 a83
a107 un peu plus tarda112a126a17a42a32a59a6a88a90 Strong-Narrationa28a30a4a40a39a41a17a42a32
(A16) will block the inference of Strong-
Narration in absence of other relations (i.e., a
Strong-Narration that could have been inferred
with (A4) and (A13)). (A17) is needed as well
for the cases in which Occasion holds. Applying
the Penguin Principle, it circumvents a Nixon Di-
amond schema between (A5) and (A16) that pre-
cludes the inference of any relation at all9.
Let us come back again to (6) to add that the
perception of difference between (6-a) and (6-b)
on the one hand, and (6-c) on the other hand,
is certainly also due to a particularity of un peu
plus tard concerning plans. As a matter of fact, it
seems that the presence of un peu plus tard has the
effect of blocking the interpretation that events a18a31a19
and a18a27a34 are part of a plan (a plan in which a18 a19 is in-
tended to lead to a18a35a34 ). The difference in terms of
planning is more obvious on examples like (10):
(10) Marie rejoignit son ami, puis lui glissa
à l’oreille qu’elle voulait partir. (Marie
rejoined her friend, then she dropped in
his ear that she wanted to leave.)
This example lends itself to an interpretation
in which Marie reaches her friend in order to tell
him something. But the plan interpretation seems
to be suspended when puis is replaced with un peu
plus tard10:
(11) Marie rejoignit son ami ; un peu plus
tard, elle lui glissa à l’oreille qu’elle
voulait partir.
It seems to us that the difference in behaviour
evidenced here should be explained once more at
the rhetorical level. It would probably require in
some contexts the use of a relation of Enablement
(Sandström, 1993), allowed by puis, and again,
blocked by un peu plus tard. We leave this for
further research since how exactly Enablement is
to be accounted for in SDRT has not yet been in-
vestigated in the literature.
4.2 Puis and un peu plus tard with Result
Let us now come back to (4). We want to account
for the different interpretations of (4-a) and (4-c)
on the one hand, and of (4-b) on the other hand.
Assuming that there is most probably some piece
of shared knowledge on chemicals implying that
9From a8a13a9a14a11 ,
a127
a9
a16
a11 , a8 a58
a127 ,
a8 and
a127 ,
a11 (and not
a16
a11 )
is inferred (Penguin principle). From a8a10a9a128a11 , a127 a9 a16 a11 , a8 and
a127 , if a8 and a127 are logically independent, CE cannot conclude
a11 nor
a16
a11 (Nixon Diamond).
10Or, for that matter, another adverbial indicating an even
shorter temporal separation like immédiatement après
D-Permissible-Cause holds between the two con-
stituents representing the two clauses, SDRT non-
monotonically concludes Result with (A11). As
was shown in (Bras et al., 2001), puis blocks the
non-monotonic inference to Result. Notice that
(4-b) remains neutral regarding the truth value of
a129a131a130a37a132
a24a20a18a37a28a38a18 a19 a39a52a18a27a34a37a32 and it could still be that the two
events described are actually causally connected.
Simply, the narrator doesn’t commit himself. Puis
directly blocks the rhetorical relation of Result,
and not the factual relation of Cause. Hence we
need as an additional axiom:
A 18 a28a62a80 a3 a39a52a4a40a39a41a17a42a82a121a83a122a107 puisa112a126a17a42a32a48a5a133a90 Resulta28a30a4a81a39a72a17a42a32
For its part, un peu plus tard doesn’t seem to
directly interfere with the Result relation. In (4-c)
we get the reading of a mere “delayed” result,
which the theory accounts for by inferring Result
just like for (4-a). However, in some contexts, un
peu plus tard also appears to block Result:
(12) a. Max trébucha. Il tomba et se cassa
la jambe. (Max stumbled. He fell
and broke his leg.)
b. Max trébucha. Puis il tomba et se
cassa la jambe.
c. Max trébucha. Un peu plus tard, il
tomba et se cassa la jambe.
In both (12-b) and (12-c), the causal reading
of (12-a) is lost. The preferred reading is not
that the narrator doesn’t want to commit himself
regarding the causal connection, but rather that
he is describing two unrelated, temporally sepa-
rated, occasions on which Max lost his balance.
A Cause relation between two events may entail
a more precise temporal relation than temporal
succession. Shared knowledge may stipulate that
some kinds of events causally related occur in a
single flow, without any temporal gap at all be-
tween them. This stronger temporal relation cor-
responds to the a76a78a77 relation, and is clearly in-
compatible with any indication that there exists
a (non-null) temporal interval between the two
events. In (12-a), it seems indeed that as soon as
the stumbling ends, the falling has started. With
this piece of knowledge, both puis and un peu plus
tard prevent a129a134a130a86a132 a24a31a18a37a28a30a18 a19 a39a52a18a27a34a37a32 to hold, since they
both specify the existence of a temporal interval
between a18 a19 and a18a35a34 .
We here again see the usefulness of theoret-
ically separating the rhetorical level of the dis-
course relations from the level of the description
of the facts, to which the temporal relations be-
long.
5 Conclusion
We wanted to compare two connectives and the
way they affect Temporal Structure and Discourse
Structure. From the temporal point of view, we
have observed that both puis and un peu plus
tard express temporal succession, but that puis
has a stronger temporal semantics contents (a18 a19a69a76
a77 a28 posta28a30a18 a19 a32a40a75 prea28a30a18a35a34a86a32a41a32 a76a78a77 a18a35a34 ). From the Dis-
course Structure point of view, we have shown
that puis is a marker of Strong-Narration, involv-
ing the notion of telling the “same story” (topic),
whereas un peu plus tard blocks Strong-Narration
and licences Weak-Narration, involving no more
semantic effects than temporal succession. In ad-
dition, puis blocks Result, while un peu plus tard
doesn’t. We believe it particularly interesting to
notice that a priori temporally equivalent adver-
bials may have so different effects on Discourse
Structure. On the one hand, puis has an impor-
tant role at the rhetorical level, which is no sur-
prise given its conjunct character. On the other
hand, un peu plus tard is not the purely temporal
adverbial that one could expect, since it is capa-
ble of blocking some discourse relations, among
which Strong-Narration, the usual case of Narra-
tion. And this is certainly not an obvious fact for
an adverbial primarily indicating temporal suc-
cession.
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