Prolegomenon to a cognitive theory of content: alternatives to the proposition

Abstract

AbstractThis theoretical article is concerned with the types of meaning that make up the content of texts; it deals with meaning as a subjective process and the relationship between text content and lexical semantics. The article critically reappraises the classic proposition-based discourse processing model of Van Dijk and Kintsch (1983), provides a description of the micro and macro ideational units on which an alternative approach can be based, and shows finally how the role of these might be further understood from the point of view of recent developments in French linguistics.