Why the English Easiest Type Became the Hardest in Russian, or Russian Adults' Comprehension of before and after sentences

Thirty four Russian speaking adults were tested for their comprehension of four complex adverbial sentence types expressing the temporal order of events. Three hypotheses put forward in the literature and tested in English state respectively that: (i) adverbial clause placement, (ii) conjunction choice, and (iii) order of mention effect on participants’ adverbial sentences comprehension. The results of the study demonstrated that none of the three hypotheses were relevant for Russian material. A new explanation was proposed.