People intuitively recognize passages of the Discourse Modes, although they are probably unaware of the linguistic basis for the differences between them. Each mode – Narrative, Description, Report, Information, Argument – introduces certain entities into the universe of discourse, with a related principle of discourse progression. The features have linguistic correlates of a temporal nature. In fact temporality in the larger sense is the key to the discourse modes. Temporal factors are woven into the fabric of a language and are part of our tacit knowledge of language structure.

I use the term “passage” for text segments that realize a discourse mode. Passages must be long enough to establish the linguistic features that determine a mode. Two sentences suffice to do this. Intuitions are particularly strong when there is a shift of mode. As an example, consider (1), the beginning of an article from the National Geographic. The discourse mode shifts twice: from Information to Narrative and back to Information. The title and paragraphing follow the original.