On the pragmatic nature of causal and contrastive connectives

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the meaning and use of causal and contrastive connectives. Generally, the connectives are categorized as being either semantic or pragmatic (in use). Three Dutch connectives are analyzed with respect to these concepts. The main question is: What does it mean for a connective to be interpreted pragmatically? Starting from the assumption that there is a principal difference between the pragmatic nature of causal and contrastive connectives, it is argued that the crucial distinction should be made on an underlying level, the so‐called Basic Scheme, and its relation to the surface utterance. Subsequently, a relation is established between semantic and pragmatic use of a connective, and the ideational and interpersonal metafunction of the coherence relation expressed. This ties in with the view that connectives are the lexico‐grammatical realizations of coherence relations.