The Role of Connectives in the Comprehension of Spontaneous Spoken Discourse

Abstract

The role of connectives in the comprehension of spontaneous spoken discourse has been investigated by testing the effect of the connective ‘but’ in the realization of causal inferences and the integration of adjacent statements. The role of this connective in the realization of causal inferences has been tested through a judgment task. The role of ‘but’ in the integration of the adjacent statements has been tested through a word monitoring task. The presence of the connective resulted in shorter reaction times for the realization of causal inferences in the judgment task, but it did not result in shorter reaction times for the integration of adjacent statements, as measured by the word monitoring task. These results suggest that listeners are able to make use of connectives to help them create and decide on the existence of causal connections, but not to process and recognize the surface form of the second statement of the pair.