A definition, indicated by the syntactic structure 'X consists of Y' (i.e 'has-as-parts') and no clear indication that this is not the first sentence of this passage; the 'in simple terms' suggests reference to an earlier text but the evidence is not conclusive.
5. This, clearly, is more than neutral reporting of the event.
'This', as in (2) is deictic anaphoric reference and, therefore, and for the same reasons, cannot be the first sentence of the text. Equally, without knowing what the 'this' refers to, its speech act status remains as an informative.
6. Each speech act is thought of as consisting of two elements (a) the propositional content – what is being referred to; what it is about – and (b) the illocutionary force; the meaning the act is intended to convey or the emphasis given to it by the speaker.
Like (4), a definition and a possible first sentence. The definition structure 'X is thought of as consisting of Y' is clearly a variant of that used in (4), though it still has the logical structure 'X has-as-parts Y'. If we accept that texts of this kind tend to begin with definitions, the question here is whether we start with a 'tough' definition (6) or a 'soft' one (4); a
matter of pedagogic taste.
7. However, I could take the same content and say 'I'm sorry I burned the toast this morning’.
The 'however' is concessive conceding an earlier position and moving on to a new one and therefore implicitly reference to an earlier part of the text. (7) is, therefore, not the first sentence nor can we yet decide what kind of a speech act it is other than the general 'informative'.
We have, at this point, an indication of the likely speech act being realized by four of the seven sentences (3, 4, 6, 7) and, given that we are accustomed to didactic texts (and we recognized this text as didactic rather quickly), we can suggest the function 'comment' for the remainder (1, 2, 5):
1. comment 2. comment 3. example
4. definition 5. comment 6. definition
7. example
Drawing on our expectations about the structuring of texts of this kind, we would think it likely that the text would have at least one definition (D) initially and that the definition(s) would be followed by example +comment sequences (En + Cn, i.e. one or more of each). All this suggests five plausible D + E + C configurations (definition + example + comment) which we can display in a branching flow-diagram (Figure 1).
FIGURE 1 Readings of text E
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