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Abstract
Clinically, patients with schizophrenia show prominent abnormalities at the discourse
level, with production characterized by tangential and illogical relationships between
ideas and unclear references. Despite these clinical manifestations, most studies
of language in schizophrenia have focused on semantic relationships between single
words and the build-up of meaning within single-clause sentences. The present paper
discusses the few studies that have gone beyond clause boundaries to fully understand
language impairments in schizophrenia. We also give an overview of a relevant literature
that considers the neurocognitive mechanisms by which coherence links are established
across clauses in healthy adults, providing a framework that may guide future research
in this area.