COHERENCE

BEAUGRANDE
COHESION /
COHERENCE
 I had a cup of tea. I got up. I woke up.

 He found her an efficient typist.

The purchasing power of the proposed fifteen
hundred shop outlets would have meant
excellent price reductions to customers
across Britain and the United States. The
flagship, Harrods, had never been integrated
with the rest and would emerge to retain its
particular character and choice.
It’s offen written, as a handy journalist’s tag,
that I suffered from obsession to control the
splendid Knightsbridge store.
 ‫و كانت القدرة الشرائية المتجمعة لدى ‪ 1500‬متجر معناها‬
‫تخفيضات ممتازة في األسعار بالنسبة للمشترين في جميع أنحاء‬
‫بريطانيا و الواليات المتحدة‪ .‬أما المتجر الرئيسي هارودز فلم يضم‬
‫إلى بقية المتاجر و احتفظ به منفصال عن المجموعة لإلبقاء على‬
‫طابعه المتميز و مجاالت االختيار المتوفرة فيه‪.‬‬
‫و كثيرا كتب عني في الدوائر الصحفية أنني أعاني من إلحاح‬
‫مرضي يدفعني دفعا إلى محاولة السيطرة على متجر نايتسبريدج‬
‫الفاخر ‪...‬‬
 KEYWORDS
 COHERENCE
 SENSE – CONTINUITY OF SENSES
 CONCEPTS (PRIMARY – SECONDARY)
 RELATIONS
 KNOWLEDGE SPACE
 KNOWLEDGE : DECLARATIVE/PROCEDURAL.
 SEMANTIC/EPISODIC MEMORY
 GLOBAL PATTERNS: FRAMES / SCHEMAS/
SCRIPTS / PLANS
 SPREADING ACTIVATION
 INHERITANCE
 INFERENCE
 Background
knowledge
World
knowledge…

Textual world
 COHERENCE:
TEXT MODEL
BACKGROUND - COMMONSENSE
KNOWLEDGE
WORLD

TOP DOWN BOTTOM UP

REPRESENTED KNOWLEDGE
TEXTUAL WORLD
 COHERENCE

The ways in which components of the

textual world -configurations of concepts
and relations- which underlie the surface
text are mutually accessible and relevant.
 COHERENCE

The outcome of actualizing meanings in

order to make sense
 MEANINGS - SENSE
MEANING -VIRTUAL
potential of a language expression for
conveying meaning)

SENSE – ACTUAL
Knowledge actually conveyed by
expressions
 SENSE CONTINUITY
SENSE

TEXT
Textual
Continuity of senses world

Senseless TEXT: no continuity of senses

 CONCEPTS -DEFINITION

A configuration of knowledge (a cognitive

content) that can be recovered or activated with
more or less consistency and unity.
 CONCEPTS -FUZZINESS

Concepts are adaptable to different

environments and are fuzzy as regards
their components and boundaries
 CONCEPTS -
DECOMPOSITION

1. Essential components (DETERMINATE

KNOWLEDGE)
2. Non-essential components (true for most
but not all instances (TYPICAL
KNOWLEDGE)
3. Unstable/variable components
(ACCIDENTAL KNOWLEDGE)
 CONCEPTS
DECOMPOSITION

1. All humans are mortal

2. Humans usually live in communities
3. Some humans happend to appear
blond
 CONCEPTS
BUILDING THE TEXTUAL WORLD
PROCEDURAL SEMANTICS

NOT: How can concepts be decomposed?

BUT: How are expressions assigned
conceptual senses?
How are senses put together into
larger configurations of a textual world?
 CONCEPTS
BUILDING THE TEXTUAL WORLD

The content of a concept (the sense of an

expression) in a text is an ordered set of
hypotheses about accessing and activating
cognitive elements within a current pattern.
 TEXTUAL PROCESSING
PROCEDURES

 SPREADING ACTIVATION
 INHERITANCE
 INFERENCE
 SPREADING ACTIVATION

When some item of knowledge is activated,

other items closely associated with it in
mental storage also become active
 SPREADING ACTIVATION

PRODUCTION RECEPTION

OUTWARD INWARD
From concepts/relations From expressions
To preferred expressions To concepts
(associations/predictions/
hypotheses/mental images)
 SPREADING ACTIVATION

Control center

Paths
(spreading
Routes)
SPREADING ACTIVATION
Spreading activation

Utlization of knowledge
(Declarative/procedural
Episodic semantic memory)
 SPREADING ACTIVATION

DECLARATIVE KNOWLEDGE: Stored factual

knowledge about the organization of events and situations in
real-world

PROCEDURAL KNOWLEDGE: stored facts or

beliefs in formats intended for specific use (know how)
 SPREADING ACTIVATION
 EPISODIC MEMORY: storage of specific
incidents in one’s own experience

 CONCEPTUAL MEMORY: systemized

knowledge about the world
GLOBAL PATTERNS
TOP DOWN PERSPECTIVE
KNOWLEDGE PATERNS
GLOBAL PATTERNS

 FRAMES
 SCHEMAS
 PLANS
 SCRIPTS
 GLOBAL PATTERNS
 Frames: contain commonsense knowledge
about some central concepts.
eg. house, marriage, …

 SCHEMAS: global patterns of events and

states in ordered sequences linked by time
proximity and causality.

eg. How to build a house, marriage ceremony

 GLOBAL PATTERNS
 PLANS: global patterns of events and states
leading up to an intended goal

 SCRIPTS: stabilized called-up plans very

frequently to specify the roles of participants
and their actions
 GLOBAL PATTERNS
 FRAMES: How a topic might be developed in a
text

 SCHEMAS: How an event will progress in a

sequence

 PLANS: How text users or characters in textual

worlds will pursue their goals

 SCRIPTS: how situations are set up so that

certain texts can be presented at the opportune
moment.
 INHERITANCE
ECONOMY

 A chicken is an animal
 A chicken is a bird
 A robin is a bird
 INHERITANCE

 The transfer of knowledge among items of

the same or similar types
 INHERITANCE
 Mammals/animals

 Elephants do not play piano

 Napoleon was a human being, he
presumably had toes
 INHERITANCE
 TYPES
1. An instance inherits all the
characteristics of its class unless
expressely cancelled
2. Subclass inherits from superclass only
those characteristics that the narrower
specification of the subclasses allows
3. Entities can inherit from those with
which they stand in analogy
 INHERITANCE
TYPES

1. Napoleon had toes

2. Ostriches / birds
3. Human mind / computer
 INFERENCE

Supplying reasonable concepts and

relations to fill in a gap or discontinuity in
a textual world
 COHERENCE MODEL
BUILDING THE TEXTUAL WORLD

COHERENCE is envisioned as the

outcome of combining CONCEPTS and
RELATIONS into a network composed of
KNOWLEDGE SPACES centred around
main TOPICS
 CONCEPTS

PRIMARY CONCEPTS
 OBJECTS
 SITUATIONS
 EVENTS
 ACTIONS
 CONCEPTS
SECONDARY CONCEPTS

DEFINING EVENTS, ACTIONS, AOBJECTS AND SITUATIONS

(state, agent, affected, relation, attribute, location, time, motion, instrument,
form, part, substance, …)
DEFINING HUMAN EXPERIENCE (reason, purpose, apperception,
cognition, emotion, volition, …)
DEFINING CLASS INCLUSION (instance, specification, superclass,
metaclass, …)
DEFINING RELATIONS (initiation, termination, entry exit, proximity, …)
 RELATIONS
 STATE OF
 AGENT OF
 AFFECTED RELATION OF
 ATTRIBUTE OF
 LOCATION OF
 TIME OF
 MOTION OF
 INSTRUMENT OF …