Cause-Effect Relation
Pattern
Cause segment→Effect segment — reason-consequence link
Definition
A discourse relation where one segment presents the cause or reason and another presents the resulting effect or consequence. Can be explicitly marked or left for the reader to infer.
Examples
Example 1
'The dam broke. The valley flooded within hours.' — the first sentence presents the cause, the second the effect, with no explicit marker needed.
AI Detection Note
AI tends to explicitly mark every cause-effect relation ('as a result', 'consequently', 'this led to'), even when the relationship is obvious from context. Human writers more often leave obvious causal links implicit.
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