ABSTRACT
Giventhefollowingtwopassages,allpartsof whichhavebeentakenfromthefrontpageofa BritishSundaynewspaper,thenativespeakerof Englishandeventheminimallyfluentnon-native speakercaneasilydecidethatoneiscontinuousand theothernot.<Forre,Jortsonsimilarexperiments intherecognitionandproductionofdiscourse,see Hoey1983):
Taking (2) first, then, the reader will immediately notice, perhaps unconsciously, that there is a clear thread of meaning running through the whole piece. Each sentence has an obvious topic, and the topics have a reasonably clear connection with each other. Further examination enables us to break the passage down into two sections (which we will call 1 and 2>, the first consisting of a complex sentence with an interpolated appositional parenthesis, the second consisting of a quotation-introducing clause plus three sentences, two of them non-simple. (We shall number the section-parts 1-1 etc., and the thematically important items within these will be 1-1a etc.>.
