Table 15 Examples of imperative and permissive sentences as discourse structures.

From: The principle of anticipation in language use

Example number

Example (structural type)

Anticipation; Markers

(27)

(a) A: You take care of that, you hear me?

 B: Sir, yes sir.

(b) A: You take care of that, you hear me?

 B: Sir, no sir.

 (Multi-clausal discourse)

(a) Pro-anticipation; No markers

(a) Counter-anticipation; No markers

(28)

A: Please give me the number.

 B: Well, okay. Okay, I’ll give it, Il’ll give it to you.

 (Multi-clausal discourse)

Pro-anticipation; Please, Well

(Woods, 2021; Defour, 2010)

  1. Evidence supporting prediction #1 (e.g. the presence of Discourse Markes) is scanter in these examples. See the main text regarding prediction #2, again.
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