Bill,
    PLEASE. Find the source of this research. I'm very
interested in it. Thanks,
Ed V.
 
>>> BILL MURDICK <[log in to unmask]>
11/11/97 10:13am >>>
I join this discussion late. I have read research that
observes
where pauses occur in speech and writing (sorry, this
was years
ago and I don't have citations; just remeberance). The
pause
breaks between clauses, interestingly, take place
AFTER the
subordinating conjuntion, not before, suggesting that
the brain can
plan only a clause plus a direction (the direction
comes from the
conjunction) at one time. This constitutes a limitation
on
consciousness or on the unconscious sentence
planning process
(I can't remember which). The point is, when a student
puts a comma
after "but" instead of before, that student is perhaps
influenced
by this psycholinguistic processing--the student is
marking the
pause in his/her own processing.
        --Bill Murdick