Exploring Substitutability through Discourse Adverbials and Multiple Judgments

In his systematic analysis of discourse connectives, Knott (1996) introduced the notion of substitutability and the conditions under which one connective (e.g., when) can substitute for another (e.g., if ) to express the same meaning. Knott only uses examples which he constructed and judged himself. This paper describes a new multi-judgment study on naturally occurring passages, on which substitutability claims can be tested. While some of our findings support Knott’s claims, other pairs of connectives that Knott predicts to be exclusive are in fact judged to substitute felicitously for one another. These findings show that discourse adverbials in the immediate context play a role in connective choice.