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<Paper uid="W01-1307">
  <Title>Temporal Information and Discourse Relations in Narratives: the role of French connectives puis and un peu plus tard</Title>
  <Section position="7" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="evalu">
    <SectionTitle>
4 Connectives and Discourse Structure
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> In this section, we want to compare the behaviour of connectives puis and un peu plus tard7 in combination with Passe 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 speakers may have about their interpretation. Let us first compare the examples in (4): (4) a. L'acide tomba dans le melange. Une explosion se produisit. (The acid fell into the mixture. An explosion happened.) null b. L'acide tomba dans le melange. Puis une explosion se produisit.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> c. L'acide tomba dans le melange. Un peu plus tard une explosion se produisit. null The three examples are good. They all express 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 interpreted 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 external, 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 a pleuvoir. (The little girl fell asleep. It began to rain.) b. La petite fille s'endormit. Puis il se mit a pleuvoir.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> c. La petite fille s'endormit. Un peu  plus tard, il se mit a pleuvoir.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> 7Un peu plus tard is to be considered as representing a class of adverbials which have the same syntactic schema NP plus tard/apres and the same semantic function, i.e. adverbials 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 piece. Cinq minutes plus tard, Marie pleurait. (Paul entered the room. Five minutes later, Mary was crying.). Notice that puis cannot be coerced this way: Paul entra dans la piece. *Puis Marie pleurait. We here compare a whole class of adverbials to the single adverb puis.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> 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 &amp;quot;the story of a little girl lost in the woods&amp;quot;, 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.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> The difference is less important when there is already a link between the events, as in (6):  (6) a. Marie ecrivit une longue lettre a 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 ecrivit une longue lettre a son cousin. Puis elle alla la poster au village voisin.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> c. Marie ecrivit une longue lettre a son  cousin. Un peu plus tard, elle alla la poster au village voisin.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> Here we do not need a particular context to interpret (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.</Paragraph>
    <Section position="1" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
4.1 Puis and un peu plus tard with Narration
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> 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 inferred, by default with (A4) for (5-a), thanks to puis with (A12) for (5-b). Our hypothesis to account 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 temporal effect of Narration described in (A2), setting that the intersection of the poststate of a18 a19 and the prestate of a18a27a34 exists and fills the interval between the two events. Again, this means that the events must fit consistently and without significant spatio-temporal gaps. A way to test the possibility of a relevant spatio-temporal gap between the two events is to try to insert a third event between 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 a pleuvoir. *Elle venait juste de se reveiller. (She had just woken up.) / *Entretemps elle s'etait reveillee.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> (Meanwhile she had woken up.) b. La petite fille s'endormit. Puis il se mit a pleuvoir.*Elle venait juste de se reveiller. / *Entretemps elle s'etait reveillee.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> c. La petite fille s'endormit. Un peu plus tard, il se mit a pleuvoir. Elle venait juste de se reveiller. / Entretemps elle s'etait reveillee.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="3"> 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 appears to be very difficult. Let us insist that our examples are built in such a way that the intermediate 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 a pleuvoir. Entretemps la nuit etait tombee.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="4"> (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 introducing the third event with something like Ajoutons/precisons que, entretemps, la petite fille s'etait reveillee (Let's add / point out that, meanwhile, the little girl had woken up). In such a case, however, there is an explicit phenomenon of correction (of the way the events have been narrated), and so it is not surprising that the temporal effects of Narration should be revised.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="5"> 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 interpret (5-c). On the contrary, a link seems to be required 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.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="6"> 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.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="7"> This leads us to claim that with the temporal indication contributed by un peu plus tard, the relation of Narration does not hold. Now, (7-c) being a coherent discourse, what discourse relation holds? We hypothesize that it should be a relation 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:  This change implies updating the axioms given in the previous sections: Narration has to be substituted by Strong-Narration in the axioms (A2), (A3), (A5) and (A12). In (A4), the general Narration relation remains. Weak-Narration has no requirement on topic nor does it have the &amp;quot;no gap constraint&amp;quot;. 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.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="8"> Unlike puis, syntactically they do not behave as conjuncts. Moreover, their main semantic contribution 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.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="9"> 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 Occasion holds and (A5) is triggered for (6-a), by (A12) for (6-b). Unlike for example (5) just analysed, 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 interpretation: 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 ecrivit une longue lettre a son cousin. Elle alla la poster au village voisin. *Entretemps, elle l'avait retouchee a plusieurs reprises.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="10"> (Meanwhile she had altered it several times.) b. Marie ecrivit une longue lettre a son cousin. Puis elle alla la poster au village voisin. *Entretemps, elle l'avait retouchee a plusieurs reprises.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="11"> c. Marie ecrivit une longue lettre a son cousin. Un peu plus tard, elle alla la poster au village voisin.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="12"> Entretemps, elle l'avait retouchee a plusieurs reprises.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="13"> Therefore, un peu plus tard blocks Strong-Narration not only when it could have been inferred by default, but also when Occasion holds. In order to account for this blocking, we introduce the following axioms:  (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 Diamond schema between (A5) and (A16) that precludes the inference of any relation at all9.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="14"> 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 intended 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 a 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 a l'oreille qu'elle voulait partir.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="15"> 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 (Sandstrom, 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 investigated in the literature.</Paragraph>
    </Section>
    <Section position="2" start_page="0" end_page="0" type="sub_section">
      <SectionTitle>
4.2 Puis and un peu plus tard with Result
</SectionTitle>
      <Paragraph position="0"> 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.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="1"> Assuming that there is most probably some piece of shared knowledge on chemicals implying that  10Or, for that matter, another adverbial indicating an even shorter temporal separation like immediatement apres D-Permissible-Cause holds between the two constituents 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.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="2"> 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 &amp;quot;delayed&amp;quot; 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 trebucha. Il tomba et se cassa la jambe. (Max stumbled. He fell and broke his leg.) b. Max trebucha. Puis il tomba et se cassa la jambe.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="3"> c. Max trebucha. Un peu plus tard, il tomba et se cassa la jambe.</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="4"> 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 separated, 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 between them. This stronger temporal relation corresponds to the a76a78a77 relation, and is clearly incompatible 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 .</Paragraph>
      <Paragraph position="5"> We here again see the usefulness of theoretically separating the rhetorical level of the discourse relations from the level of the description of the facts, to which the temporal relations belong. null</Paragraph>
    </Section>
  </Section>
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