[Function of connectives in text-understanding]

This experiment was conducted to investigate the function of connectives in text comprehension. Twenty six subjects were instructed to read six texts, each containing several target sentences. Eighteen target sentences were provided, and each of the subjects was presented half of the target sentences in their original form, i.e., with a connective (Connective condition, C), and the other half, without a connective (No-connective condition, NC). After reading, subjects were asked to recall all the target sentences. In recall, all the sentences preceding the target sentence were presented as a cue. Recall rate was higher for the C condition than for the NC condition. The result indicated that connectives facilitate text comprehension. This effect was seen most clearly in three connective categories called jyunsetsu (e. g., causality), gyakusetsu (i.e., adversative), hosoku (i.e., supplement) in Japanese.