<?xml version="1.0" standalone="yes"?>
<Paper uid="E93-1030">
  <Title>A Semantics and Pragmatics for the Pluperfect</Title>
  <Section position="9" start_page="256" end_page="257" type="concl">
    <SectionTitle>
6 Conclusion
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> We have solved some critical problems about the way the pluperfect tense affects the temporal structure and rhetorical structure of narrative text. We have argued that contrary to the Reichenbachian approach, the discourse role of the pluperfect must take the reader's background knowledge into account. We have provided an anMysis in which the pluperfect is viewed as a syntactic discourse marker, which indicates that only a restricted set of discourse relations are permitted in order to attach the current clause to the preceding text. We viewed the simple past and pluperfect as sententiaily equivalent, although they play distinct discourse roles because of the different constraints they impose on coherent discourse.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> When attaching a pluperfect sentence to a simple past tensed one, the task is to infer which of the four discourse relations Ezplanation, Parallel, Contrast or Elaboration hold. Information about causation can be used to infer Ezplanation. Information about structural and semantic similarities and dissimilarities can be used to infer Parallel and Contrast. And information obtained from the lexicon can be used to infer Elaboration. For example, the  lexicon provides potential thematic roles which the pluperfect clause can identify: if it does, then this results in an Elaboration at the discourse level. In this sense, the pluperfect provides a forum in which to explore how information at the lexical level interacts with information at the discourse level.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> In the light of this, analysing the pluperfect requires an integrated account of lexical and discourse processing. But this is beyond the scope of this paper. Further research must be pursued in lexical semantics, that addresses the problem of how rhetorical information influences lexical processing. Likewise, the theory of discourse attachment must be augmented with a detailed account of how information flows from the lexicon to the textual level. Both of these issues are explored in (Asher and Lasearides 1993).</Paragraph>
  </Section>
class="xml-element"></Paper>