A multi-method approach to estimating subjectivity of causal connectives: The case of ‘poetomu’ and ‘tak chto’ in Russian

Cross-linguistic evidence shows that languages often employ specialized causal connectives to express subjective versus objective relations. This mostly comes from corpus studies. However, the phenomenon of connective specialization can also be approached with experimental methods. The present study set out compare different methods investigating subjectivity profiles in a language, uncovering aspects they elucidate. A combination traditional analysis (Study 1), insertion experiment 2), and sentence continuation 3) was applied Russian forward poetomu ‘that’s why’ tak chto ‘so’, which have not been studied this respect. results all three show that, across discourse types, prefers relations more than poetomu, expresses is most pronounced due constraining nature task prototypicality stimuli. less strong because are sensitive other contextual factors. Our research illustrates importance combining contributes cross-linguistic field.