Models for Text Grammars

Analyzing trauma narratives: Introducing the Narrative Form Index and Matrix.

“…Although textuality refers to the attributes that distinguish a particular text, narratology involves the study of how attributes, or story elements, are arranged and combined to constitute a whole (Bal, 1985;Pennebaker, 1997;Prince, 2003;van Dijk, 1972). Thus, the researcher confronted by narrative text, as an object of study, needs an understanding of both textuality and narratology and, further, requires tools for both analyzing and conveying information (Rumelhart, 1975).…”

Towards a Formal Theory of Dialogues

“…One could argue that the main issue to be resolved first, before one attempts to build a theory of dialogues, is a construction of an adequate formalism for semantics of simpler units, such as words, sentences, texts, etc., along the lines envisaged by Petöfi (1974) or van Dijk (1973;1975), since a complete theory of dialogues obviously presupposes a complete theory of text semantics. However, even before such a theory is constructed, one may analyse fruitfully some classes of dialogues, which can be expected to have easily identifiable and formalizable issues.…”

Plainer Legal Language-Untangling Complex Subordination and Restrictives in Acts

“…Complex noun phrases can be perceived as containing condensed (or "rank-shifted") clauses as restrictive -ed, -ing, relative orverbless clauses Gordan, 1995b). We can use this understanding to "expand" them into separate clauses or sentences (see van Dijk, 1973) to slowdown the information rate of the communication and thus make the statement easier to understand. Example 15 is made more readable by creating a sentence for the restrictive -ing clause: Subject to subsection (14), after a landlord has filed a notice ofintent and a rent officer has made the determination under subsection (3), the rent officer shall issue a notice ofcarry forward to the landlord and to all tenants.…”