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<Paper uid="W93-0205">
  <Title>l)iMarco, Chrysanne; Hirst, Graeme; and Stede, Manfred. &amp;quot;The semantic and stylistic differentiation of synonyms and near-synonyms.&amp;quot; Proceedings, AAA I Spring Symposium on Building</Title>
  <Section position="2" start_page="15" end_page="15" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
2 A multi-level grammar of rhetoric
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> ()ur grammar of rhetoric allows us to recognize, at the top level, how the overall structure of a text works to achieve a certain communicative goal, and, at the lower level, how the individual pieces of text fit, together to produce subtle stylistic effects. Thus, through multiple levels of abstraction, we tie together rhetorical forms characteristic of high-level intentions and syntactic relationships associated with stylistically significant effects. Thus, we have four levels, the pr, gm~ttir, the rht'loric~d, the stylistic, and the syntttetic.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> In DiMarco and Hirst (1993), DiMarco et al (1992), Green (1992), and tloyt (forthcoming), we describe the construction of a syntactic stylistic grammar that relates stylistic goals to abstract stylistic properties, and then relates these abstract properties to low-level syntax. The foundations of the grammar draw on the work of Halliday (1985) and Halliday and Hasan (1976); we consider the primitive stylistic effects of a sentence to be correlated with its underlying cohesive and hierarchical syntactic structure. We assign each type of sentence component a primitive-element cl;L~sitication on the basis of the nature of these fundamental structures.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> We then compose these primitive stylistic elements into higher-level, abstract stylistic propertit.s,or, elements. In I)iMarco and Hirst (1993), we proposed a set of stylistic terms that made C/~xplicit these kinds of abstract properties. Here are three examples: Het(C/ropoise: A sentence in which one or more parenthetical components are syntactically 'detached' and dissimilar from the other components at the same level in the parse tree.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> C(,,ntroschematic: A sentence with a central, dominant clause with one or more of the following optional features: coml)lex phrasal subordination, initial dependent clauses, terminal (lel)etl(lent clauses.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> R.(~.s.hation: A shift in stylistic effect that occurs at the end of a sentence and is a move front a relative discord (an incongruity) to stylistic concord (normal usage).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> Each abstract stylistic element is defined as a composition of primitive stylistic elements.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> Next, the abstract stylistic elements are composed into stylistic goals. Stylistic goals, such as clarity and concreteness, are elusive qualities that were traditionally defined by stylists only I)y means of examples and informal rules. However, with our grammar, we can abstract from a plethora of low-level syntactic rules that stylists have used and can define formal rules for specitic stylistic goals.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> For example, the goal of concreteness is associated with heteropoise, a stylistic element that char;u:terizes the kinds of cohesive (and non-cohesive) syntactic interruptions that create forms of stylistic emphasis. In the grammar, concreteness is defined as various forms of stylistic highlighting, either emphasis (heteropoise, dissolution) or deviation from established usage (discord).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="8"> An example of a concrete sentence that is a stylistic heteropoise, beginning with a canonical structure, but then emphatically interrupted, is this: Your writing, if I may say so without offence, is immatu~v.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="3" start_page="15" end_page="16" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
3 The level of rhetorical goals
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Ill Makuta-(~iluk (1991) and Makuta-Giluk and DiMarco (1993), we describe the development of a rhetorical grammar that is built upon our stylistic grammar and composes rhetorical goals from combinations of stylistic goals. Where goal-directed style accounts for the stylistic choices that will express a certain effect, goal-directed rhetoric considers the higher-level linguistic choices  associated with specific rhetorical effects that also express the communicative goals of a text. Thus, we have formalized some of the syntactic aspects of the rhetorical structure of texts. There rnay be many reasons why an author writes a text and why she chooses to express it in a particular form. These reasons are pragmatic goals (of. Hovy (1988)). Informing or persuading are examples of such goals. Once a writer commits herself to a specific pragmatic goal, she must determine apl)ropriate content and linguistic realization. Both these issues involve a number of rhetorical options. A possible mechanism for achieving tile desired pragmatic effect is using a set of rhetorical goals. Once the writer knows which rhetorical effects she wants in tim text., she now needs to make the choices that realize these goals. We decompose complex rhetorical goals into simpler entities, the stylistic goals described above, such as simplicity or clarity. In Makuta-(~iluk (1991) and Makuta-(iHluk and DiMarco (1993), we pointed out that a stylistic goal can be used to realize more than one rhetorical goal, and a rhetorical goal can be achieved in several different ways. The author must choose a set of interrelated stylistic goals to realize her particular set of rhetorical goals. The stylistic goals taken separately do not determine the rhetorical effect of the text; it is their interplay that makes it possible to express a wide range of rhetorical goals.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> In our gramrnar, we have defined goals such as force/ineffectiveness, formality/informality, and amity/distauce. For example, we define force to be characteristic of sentences that display one ()f tile following combinations of stylistic goals: force directness and conciseness and concreteness dynamism and simplicity An example of the first kind of forceful sentence is: Frankly, my dear, I do)l't give a da)lt)t. We associate ineffectiveness, the dual of force, with diffusive and garrulous communication: ineffectiveness complexity obscurity and verbosity obscurity and obliqueness Tile following example of ineffectiveness is from a textbook of rhetoric: The sequence of developme)tt is fortuitous and even implausible, for the treatment of rhetoric becomes more perfunctory as eruditiou in the works of rhetoriciaus increases, and rhetoric disappears abruptly when knowledge of it is at a maximum, particularly from the works of the authors who acknowledge the influe)~cc of Cicero and Quintilian. We define other rhetorical goals in an analogous manner.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="4" start_page="16" end_page="17" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
4 Multiple levels of rhetorical relations
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> The notion of multiple levels of rhetorical analysis is intrinsic to our formalization: communicative goals are represented at several levels of abstraction, and each level is composed of elements from the level below. We believe that this idea of stratified levels is applicable not only to syntactic aspects of rhetoric, but to lexical and semantic aspects as well, and have begun to apply our approach to studying \]tow lexical choices realize particular intentional goals (DiMarco, Hirst, and Sl,c(lc 1993).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1">  Eventually, we see lexis, syntax, and semantics being represented by separate primitive-level r(q)resentations that act together to determine the realization of communicative goals at the stylistic, rhetorical, and pragmatic levels; our formalism is therefore both stratified and branching. Thus, the ways in which intentional relations interact with ideational, or informational, relations (Moore and Pollack 1992) can be accounted for nicely by our model of rhetoric, which integrates the ell~cl,s of lexis, syntax, and semantics on rhetorical strncture within a single cohesive framework.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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