A cognitive account of subjectivity put to the test: using an insertion task to investigate Mandarin result connectives

Abstract This article aims to further test the cognitive claims of so-called subjectivity account causal events and their linguistic markers, connectives. We took Mandarin Chinese, a language that is typologically completely different from usual western languages, as case provide evidence for this account. Complementary commonly used corpora analyses, we employed crowdsourcing tap native speakers’ intuitions about coherence, focusing on four result connectives k?jiàn ‘therefore’, su?y? ‘so’, y?nc? ‘so/for reason’ yúshì ‘thereupon/as result’. The analysis shows systematic differences regarding use in relations differ terms subjectivity, demonstrating speakers make encode decode types discourse. Moreover, our study evidences comprehensive model should include epistemic dimension certainty scale might be indicated by other elements. In-depth analyses items revealed presence/absence modality words segments are related preferential patterns There trade-off between expression involved.