Pragmatic representations and online comprehension: Lessons from direct discourse and causal adjuncts

Studies on the reading of appositive relative clauses (ARCs) have found that ARCs seem to exhibit less influence in later parsing and decision-making than similar constructions (Dillon et al. 2014, 2017), a pattern we call discounting. Existing accounts often link discounting to the status of ARCs as independent segments in systems of pragmatic representation. This would predict discounting for other constructions as well. In this study, we test that prediction by investigating the reading of direct discourse speech reports and causal adjuncts in English. Diagnostics supplied by the theoretical literature show that these constructions contribute the same independent segments as ARCs in two different systems of pragmatic organization: direct discourse reports contribute an independent speech act, and causal adjuncts contribute their own discourse units. Nevertheless, in a series of five experiments, we find no evidence of ARC-like discounting for either. We conclude that discounting should not be linked to either of these pragmatic representations, and discuss the outlook for other approaches to the phenomenon.