While this volume is based on an earlier work, An Anatomy of Speech
Notions (1976), the overall orientation of the present volume is
distinctive enough to make it a new work. The former volume was
essentially a half-way house to discourse. While including a chapter on
discourse struc- ture, it was not as a whole explicitly oriented towards
con- siderations of context. The present volume, however, strives to
achieve a more consistently contextual approach to lan- guage. A great
deal of research and theorizing concerning discourse grammar or
textlinguistics has characterized the past decade of linguistic studies.
This recent work has, of course, influenced the present volume. In
addition, my personal research in several areas has led to increased
insistence on the indispensability of discourse studies. Crucial here
was my direction of field workshops involving personnel of the Summer
Institute of Linguistics, first in relation to languages of Colombia,
Panama, and Ecuador (1974- 1975), and later in relation to languages of
Mexico (1978). Of further relevance have been my own studies of
narrative structure in Biblical Hebrew. Last but not least, is the
stimulus and feedback which I have received from my graduate students
(whose research is embodied in several theses and dissertations),
especially Keith Beavon, Shin Ja Joo Huang, Larry Jones, Mildred Larson,
Linda Lloyd, and Mike Walrod.
