Framing adverbials and their role in discourse cohesion, from connection to forward labelling

In this synthetic presentation, I will briefly mention general findings on the cohesive function of some preposed IP adjuncts and focus on the fact that these adverbials, which we call "framing adverbials", support forward-looking cohesive links that contrast with the well-known backward-looking ties expressed by connectives and anaphora. 1. Preposed adverbials as Topics In a seminal paper on infinitive purpose clauses, Thompson (1985) shows that, at discourse level, "initial and final purpose clauses in English are doing radically different jobs" (p. 57). While the "role of the final purpose clause can be seen to be a much more local one" consisting in stating " the purpose for which the action named in the preceding clause is/was undertaken", initial purpose infinitive clauses contribute to the cohesion of discourse. This contribution results from the fact that:- they are topical (i.e. anchored in the preceding context)- they can include in their scope several following sentences, whereas "the scope of a final purpose clause is restricted to its immediately preceding main clause. " (p. 67) This observation (for a detailed presentation and discussion, cf. Charolles & Lamiroy, 2002; Charolles, 2003) has been extended to preposed if (Ford & Thompson, 1986; Ramsay, 1984), when clauses (Virtanen, 1992), and spatio-temporal prepositional phrases (Hasselgard, 2004)1