Millis, K. K., Golding, J. M., & Barker, G. (1995). Causal connectives increase inference generation. Discourse Processes, 20(1), 29-49.

Millis, K.; Golding, J.; Barker, G.

1995

Millis, K. K., Golding, J. M., & Barker, G. (1995). Causal connectives increase inference generation. Discourse Processes, 20(1), 29-49.

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This study examined the influence of interclause connectives on inference generation in 3 experiments. 200 undergraduates made lexical decisions after reading statement pairs which were either joined or not joined by the connectives because, and, or after. The pattern of results across the experiments indicate that readers incorporate causal knowledge-based inferences in the discourse representations for sentences containing a causal connective and support the hypothesis that connectives elicit inferences that are based on the connective's meaning. Findings are discussed in the context of previous research on connectives and the connective integration model.

The connective ‘because’ led participants to generate causal-based inferences when it was placed between two clauses. The connective ‘because’ apparently signaled participants to place a causal relation between the clauses, and in doing so, the participants constructed inferences which causally connective the events conveyed by each clause. However, the same causal-based inferences were not generated when the clauses were linked by the connective ‘and’. It is likely that the connective ‘and’ conveyed an additive interpretation of the clauses rather than a causal was. The connective ‘after’ also did not produce the causal-based inferences. This latter finding indicated that the effect of ‘because’ cannot be solely attributed to its implicit function of specifying the intended order of events within the discourse model.

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