[Rstlist] Restatement and Summary

[Eduard Hovy]

Hi Andrew and Gisela, 

> On Sep 1, 2017, at 11:31 AM, Potter, Andrew Nelson <apotter1 at una.edu> wrote:
>  Presentational relations are relations whose intended effect is to increase some inclination in the reader.   …  Restatement and Summary, as defined in RST, do not indicate an increase in some inclination in the reader.  

Well, then, there it is.  Summary clearly does not belong, and even Restatement (unless it is restated with the addition of an evaluative component or focus, causing inclination) also does not.  There is simply a mistake in the classification, and end of story.  

Why it is that “creating an inclination in the Reader” is the most salient differentiating characteristics of discourse relations is an interesting question.  One can imagine (as I wrote) that Halliday’s so-called metafunctional division between ideational, interpersonal, and textual is more important.  Or one could divide hypotactic and paratactic ones.  Etc.  

To continue the geriatric theme, the older I become the less I believe in single-root taxonomies and single-class taxonomizations.  In a world full of multifaceted objects, one can almost always create a task or scenario in which some different facet is the salient one and hence the primary distinguishing criterion.  

E


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