The separators express discourse relations between discourse units. By and large, the ideas put forward in SDRT (Asher, Lascaridas, Vieu) are followed in the PMB, but there are notable differences: there are no (explicit) recursive discourse units; a discourse unit can be attached to at most one other discourse unit; there is no attribution relation. There are logical and rhetorical discourse relations. Rhetorical relations can be coordinating or subordinating.
| Separator | Identifier | Char | Meaning | Document |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NEGATION | 600000009 | ¬ | logical, negation | 00/1593 |
| CONJUNCTION | 600000014 | logical, conjunction | 03/0850 | |
| CONTINUATION | 600000005 | rhetorical, coordinating: expressing events occurring in the sequence as described | ||
| RESULT | 600000007 | rhetorical, coordinating: connects a cause to its effect | 12/0346 | |
| ELABORATION | 600000015 | rhetorical, subordinating: expresses more (detailed) information about the same event | 51/0285 | |
| EXPLANATION | 600000007 | rhetorical, subordinating: exresses the cause of an effect | 00/2599 | |
| PRECONDITION | 600000011 |