Functional link typing in hypertext

Though a fundamental component of hypertext, little research has been aimed at developing the link's ability to express specific qualities of the rela tionship that it establishes between nodes of information. A proposal is ma de for the development of a taxonomy of link types that describe the functi on (discursive quality) that characterize the formation of links. Furthermo re, it is argued that the taxonomy should be empirically derived and not es tablished a priori. A number of existing link typologies are reviewed, and it is suggested that there is sufficient breadth in these typologies to pro vide a test-bed of representative types for use in the empirical investigat ion.