Causality, iconicity and continuity: the effects of prior world knowledge on the understanding of causal relations

Abstract

This paper studies the involvement of world knowledge and its interaction with linguistic (semantic) knowledge in the understanding of causal relations. We will attempt to determine to what extent the iconicity principle and the continuity hypothesis – see especially Murray (1997) – apply in Spanish and whether they are subject to restrictions attributable to the type of information processed. We also discuss Sanders’ (2005) causality-by-default hypothesis and provide relevant evidence for assessing its correctness. To test our hypotheses, we investigate the comprehension of two-sentence texts of two types (in “everyday” and in “technical” language) under four conditions: normal and inverted order (cause–effect vs. effect–cause); with and without connective. We predict that our “type of information” variable, one of the core elements of this study, will condition causal relations processing and modify to some extent the classical claims of iconicity and continuity hypothesis. The results show that lack of prior knowledge, indeed, can affect the predictions and assumptions of the iconicity principle and the continuity hypothesis and that, if there is no prior knowledge, the introduction of linguistic clues (connectives) facilitates and even becomes indispensable for understanding.