I want to check my own understanding of a few things. This message might meander, but it goes somewhere, promise! First, is this a very common punctuation standard? * A conjunctive adverb, when used to join two independent clauses, is preceded by a semicolon and followed by a comma unless the conjunctive adverb is one syllable, in which case the comma is not necessary. *Following this rule, we would write: "The first freeze of winter arrived; however, the plants were saved due to the gardener's efforts." "The first freeze of winter arrived; then the gardener wept over his dead plants." Is this a punctuation convention that list members use? Second, I'd like to ask about the word "then". It seems like a prototypical conjunction, functioning to join a concept with a temporal modifier. The example above would qualify as would this one, which uses the conjunction as an adverbial NOT between two independent clauses: "You are late. You go, then, to the back of the line. But what about this: "He turned the ignition then slammed his foot on the gas pedal." "Then" is not functioning as a conjunctive adverb. It's neither adverbial nor conjunctival (conjunction-like?). In this case is it functioning as a preposition? If so, is the verb phrase "slammed his foot on the gas pedal" serving as object of that preposition? Am I on the right track here? I'm trying to answer a student question about why our native instinct is to say: Speaker A: "Who should go first?" Speaker B: "You then me." (Instead of "You [go] then I [go].) Is it "me" because it is serving as object of a preposition ("then")? Thanks for weighing in on this! To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/