DISCOURS Digest - 15 Oct 1999 to 19 Oct 1999

[Luuk Lagerwerf]

Hi Holger,

In reply to your RST problem, I would say that the text is incoherent.
This is not an option in RST analyses, but the topic that is treated as
known to the reader in (2): "the result of six months of negotiations",
seems to be introduced afterwards in  (5) "When finally ... is
announced".  But maybe I'm missing context before (1), or some
stylistic trope has been used that I don't recognize in the English
translation.

Kind regards,

Luuk Lagerwerf


>
> (1) What else but shame should one feel
> (2) in face of the result of six months of negotiations,
> (3) which started with a nice gesture
> (4) only to end soon in woeful horse trading.
>
> (5) When finally in the next few days at the negotiations in Washington
>     the sum of 6,9 billions DM is announced, =
>
> (6) this means: it's sink or swim.
> (7) Because, for the former forced labourers every week counts.
>
>
> (6) is "Vogel, friss oder stirb" in German, which means "bird, eat it
> or die".
>
>
> Okay, now here's the problem: decide to which unit (5-6) relates, and
> with which relation. I tend to say (1-4) and "Joint" (or in D. Marcus
> terms "Topic Shift"), although one could argue that in (5) the
> "result" from (2) is ELABORAT-ed ("finally"). This however would
> imply that (5-7) are sub-ordinate to "feeling shame" (1) and I am
> not sure about this reading (i.e. I am not sure whether the author
> wanted to convey it, my own feelings are not an issue here).
>
> Apart from this, I would say, 1 is related to 2-4 via a CIRCUMSTANCE
> relation, so the conditional in (5-6) would also be a part of this
> CIRCUMSTANCE which does not look too convining to me.
>
> Any comments anybody ?
>
>  Holger
> -- =
>
> ---          http://www.coling.uni-freiburg.de/~schauer/            ---
> "Kann mir jemand kurz das Anliegen der newsgroup erkl=E4ren?"
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>                   -- C. Karl und Bernd Sluka in de.rec.fahrrad
>
Luuk Lagerwerf
Language and Communication
University of Twente
+31 53 489 35 67 (office)
+31 34 351 38 81 (home)