Encadrement temporel et relations de discours

Abstract

In this study of temporal framing, we examine the interaction between "indexing" via temporal discourse frames and another mode of discourse organisation: connection via discourse relations. This interaction is shown to be problematic in the case of the Narration relation, as Narration implies a temporal progression which conflicts with the static nature of temporal frames, often making it difficult to determine the scope of a frame introducing expression. We suggest that two separate dimensions ought to be taken into account in the framing hypothesis: the ideational dimension (whereby the frame introducer plays an indexing role in the strict sense) and the textual dimension (whereby the introducer is characterised by its ability to delimit a text segment). We show that in contact with the Narration relation, temporal framing loses its ideational dimension, but maintains its role in discourse organisation (textual dimension). We also suggest that this dual nature of framing should be studied through the interaction between temporal frames and other discourse relations such as Commentary or Background. Our approach to these questions relies mostly on corpus analysis, but also uses made-up examples.