The Acceptability of Linguistic Connectives as a Function of the Relationship Between the Referent Events

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Abstract
An investigation of the effects of experiential and linguistic variables on the preference for within sentence connectives. 8 items were constructed, each consisting of 2 clauses describing sequential events which varied in the perceived frequency of relationship and perceived temporal order (determined by subject ratings). There were 4 conditions: the clause order was either congruent with the perceived temporal order (A-B order) or opposite to it (B-A order), and the clauses were either in the Past or the Present Tense. Subjects in each condition (n = 13) ranked connectives in order of preference for each item. Results showed that frequency of relationship between described events was most likely to be a determining factor in connective preference when the clauses were in the A-B order or they were in the Past Tense. These results were substantiated by an independent absolute judgment procedure in which each sentence was rated for acceptability. Different groups (n = 29) rated the sentences in the A-B order and the B-A order. Generally the results were in agreement with the preference task, although an adaption level effect was apparent in the judgments. These results are discussed in terms of the degrees of freedom of interpretation allowed by the various linguistic connectives.

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