In the last chapter the focus was on how words are put together to form
sentences. Presumably the product of this understanding is something we
might term "the meaning of the sentence." We now move ahead to the
question of how sentences (or their components) are put together to form
"the meaning of the text" that is being read.

Most discussions of this topic emphasize that the meaning of the text is
more than the sum of the meaning of the individual sentences. First,
consider the following pair of sentences.

John went into the jewelry store. Mary enjoyed the present. (8.1)

The sentences are clear, but the reader has to "fill in" the information that
John bought a present and gave it to Mary to make the ideas connect. This
kind of filling in is common in normal discourse.

Second, consider the following passage ( Bransford and Johnson 1972):

The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into different
groups. Of course, one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is
to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities, that is the next
step, otherwise you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things.

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