Tests D. Schiffrin's hypothesis that the choice between "CAUSE so RESULT" sequences and "RESULT because CAUSE" sequences is determined by topic continuity against British conversational data from the London-Lund Corpus of Spoken English. Produces results similar to Schiffrin's. Concludes that these studies reveal a cohesive…

Explores the importance of grammatical morphemes for constructing spatially organized situation models, especially how readers infer location in spatial models from prepositions and verb-aspect markers. Shows that grammatical units are as important as lexical units for guiding the construction of situation models during comprehension. (SR)

Presents a framework for expressing how choices are made in systemic grammars. Framework represents grammar as combination of systemic syntactic description and explicit choice processes called "choice experts." (DF)

Examines whether specific characteristics of American Sign Language (ASL) syntax affect perceptual processing of the language. Findings support the psychological reality of sentence embedding processes in ASL, further supporting the claim that visually based languages achieve the same functional goals as speech, although with different means. (FL)

Proposes a top-down procedural model for the dynamic extraction and use of context structure to resolve references. (FL)

Explores how agoraphobia is realized through the activity of storytelling. Analyzes one agoraphobic woman's narrative to articulate the narrative structuring of a panic episode, the grammatical resources systematically recruited to portray panic as unaccountable and the protagonist as irrational and helpless, and a recurrent communicative dilemma…