Ed,

Doesn't the conjunctive adverb in your sample behave more like a
coordinating conjunction rather than subordinating conjunction ('however' =
'but'?)? Aren't there two main clauses of equal weight there?

Paul

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Edward Vavra" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 1:29 PM
Subject: MIMC?


   I know that there are members of this list who do not believe that the
main idea in a sentence is generally located in the main clause (MIMC), but
there are also members of this list who do believe so. My question is for
the latter, and it is not a trick question.
     Some people I am working with have been trying to develop exercises
similar to the "Alicia" passage that Wanda Van Goor presented at an ATEG
conference. See:
http://home.pct.edu/~evavra/kiss/wb/G08/Mar/index.htm
These exercises are not easy to create, and the question has arisen ― Does a
conjunctive adverb have the same subordinating effect as a subordinate
conjunction. MIMCer's would probably say that in a sentence such as

Although we were late, we wanted to go to the ball game.

the main idea is "we wanted to go to the ball game," because the "although"
subordinates the "we were late." The KISS psycholinguistic model supports
this in that the subordinate clause is, theoretically, held in working
memory and chunked to the main clause.

But is the same effect achieved in

We wanted to go to the ball game; however, we were late.

Thanks,
Ed

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