The role of interclausal connectives in narrative structuring: Evidence from adults' interpretations of simple stories

Abstract

This study explores the role of interclausal connectives as a set of linguistic devices which help the reader interpret a narrative text. We show that: (a) even simple narrative texts have a range of interpretations; (b) the variability of the interpretations decreases with the presence of the interclausal connectives; (c) the role of two connectives, then and and, serve primarily to identify variations in continuity between information in the incoming clause and previously known events; (d) so, because, and but signal causality or adversity and do so primarily from a subjective perspective; and (e) the interpretation of a particular clause in the text may be affected by story events whether or not they are actually expressed in the text. We compare four possible views of how interclausal connectives function in narratives: an empty view, a local cohesion view, a global marker view, and a mental model‐deictic shift view. The data support the fourth view, in which readers use interclausal connectives to signal deictic continuity or discontinuity in their mental representation of the story.