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!

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