E-encyclopedia of Discourse Structures (EDS)

[Celso Alvarez Caccamo]

Teun & All,

The E-Encyclopedia of Discourse Structures is of course a
great idea. You ask,

> My request to the subscribers to this list is to let me (or the whole
> list) know whether
> - they think this is a good idea,
> - what would make the idea even better,
> - they have other suggestions or critique,

I'm going to say some obvious things. Perhaps some of
these issues have been raised already:

Entries in what language?
Examples/Structures from which language(s)?

I think these are important questions, as I don't think
everybody would agree that notions such as "conversational
opening" or "pre-sequence" are transparent or 'universal'
enough that illustrations from any given language-culture
would suffice. Telephone openings are a good case. Or,
summons, for example. Not to speak of illocutionary
acts, conversational maxims, the meaning of indirectness,
the turn-construction role of "pauses" vs. "silences",
positive/negative politeness, "overlap" vs. "interruption",
etc. etc.

So, what's your feeling about this?

-celso

--
Celso Alvarez Cáccamo              Tel. +34 981 167000 ext. 1888
Linguística Geral, Faculdade de Filologia     FAX +34 981 167151
Universidade da Corunha                          lxalvarz at udc.es
15071 A Corunha, Galiza (Espanha)  http://www.udc.es/dep/lx/cac/