Discourse information element can be divided into three categories, i.e. process, entity and condition. Each category contains several values. For detailed information, please see the following table.

 

Discourse Information Element
Process	Entity	Condition
State (S)	Agent (A)	Instrument (I)
Quality (Q)	Dative (D)	Location (L)
Relation (R)	Patient (P)	Source (S)
Affect (A)	Factive (F)	Goal (G)
Behave (B)	Attribute (A)	Commitive (C)
Cause (C)		Time (T)
Turn (T)		Affected (A)
Negation (N)		With (W)
		Manner (M)
		Elaboration (E)
		Situation (S)

 

Explanation of Discourse Information Elements

I. Process

i. State: judgement of the existence or condition of an object

e.g. The work is finished.

ii. Quality: judgement of inherent characteristics of an object

e.g. This T-shirt is of good quality.

iii. Affect: the attitudes towards an object

e.g. I like that boy.

iv. Relation: the connection between objects

e.g. Peter has a piano.

v. Behave: process of doing something

e.g. Tom breaks the window.

vi. Cause: one object leads to the existence of another

e.g. The parliament formulates this law.

vii. Turn: change of existence, shape and characteristics

e.g. He changed as he matured.

viii. Negation: to negate a verb or other expressions with “not”

e.g. They believe me not.

 

II. Entity

i. Agent: the doer of a certain action

e.g. Tom breaks the window.

ii. Dative: the indirect recipient of an action

e.g. They give me the ball.

iii. Patient: the direct recipient of an action

e.g. She criticized him.

iv. Factive: something caused by an action

e.g. He initiates this theory.

v. Attribute: the attribute of something

e.g. I am a teacher.

 

III. Condition

i. instrument: something used as a tool

e.g. He repaired the car with this hammer.

ii. location: the position, direction or scope of something.

e.g. She lives in that city.

iii. source: the point at which something springs into being or from which it derives or is obtained

e.g. I get the idea from the book.

iv. goal: including destination, direction and

e.g. Compared with last year, this year has improved a lot.

v. commitive: something that is in company with a process

e.g. Li Lei and Han Meimei are learning English.

vi. time: the time involved in a process

e.g. During these 30 years, great changes have taken place.

vii. affected: directly or indirectly influence someone or something else

e.g. Due to the heavy fog, students were asked to stay at home.

viii. with: a method or device that makes a process possible

e.g. In accordance with the law, he is sentenced to death.

ix. manner: a way of doing something

e.g. He went to the seminar hastily.

x. elaboration: an explanation or description of something

e.g. The internal world is a great mystery.

xi. situation: the condition relevant to a process, including elements that cannot be attributed to the previous categories

e.g. He said, “the reform is quite difficult.”