ABSTRACT
This chapter explains some further issues pertaining to I-markers. A production model makes explicit the processes by which the speaker expresses his intentions by utterances, and the structures involved in these processes. The I-marker is a theoretical construct which can be meaningfully conceived of only as a component of the production model, that component which mediates between cognitive structures and the utterance. The formulation of I-markers must make sense. In principle, it is possible that a certain formulation of I-markers and realization rules may account for the production of utterances in a given language but will nevertheless have to be rejected on the grounds that it involves an incongruous picture of the world. The I-markers are mapped into utterances by realization rules. For a given I-marker there will often be more than one mapping. The studies cited below are of sentence comprehension rather than production, but since I-markers must also be retrieved by the listener, these studies are pertinent here.
