Intersentence

Intersentence is a term used in linguistics and discourse analysis to refer to the boundary, relationship, or transitions that occur between consecutive sentences in a text or discourse. It is concerned with how meaning, coherence, and structure are carried from one sentence to the next, and how different cues signal that a new sentence has begun.

In written language, intersentence boundaries are typically marked by punctuation marks such as periods, question marks, and exclamation points, along with spacing and capitalization conventions. Some styles also rely on quotation marks, dashes, or line breaks to indicate the transition. In informal writing, cues like ellipses or abrupt line breaks may function as deliberate or stylistic intersentence signals. In languages with different punctuation systems, the markers of intersentence boundaries may vary.

In spoken language, intersentence transitions involve prosodic features such as pauses, a reset of intonation, and changes in rhythm or volume. Discourse markers like well, so, however, and therefore often frame or connect sentences across boundaries, guiding the listener’s interpretation of subsequent information and relations such as contrast, addition, or sequencing.

In computational linguistics, intersentence concepts are central to tasks such as sentence boundary detection, discourse parsing, and cross-sentence coherence analysis. Proper handling of intersentence relations improves text segmentation, machine translation, summarization, and information extraction.

Etymology: from inter- meaning between and sentence. The term highlights the formal and functional connections that link sentences within a larger discourse.