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In this paper we present experimental evidence on how the Spanish consecutive connective por tanto (en. “furthermore”) rearranges inferential routes in comprehension processes and guides the reader towards amental representation. Por tanto does not generate an argumentative relation between the discourse segments it combines. Rather, under normal circumstances, it simply makes such a relation explicit, since the segments are already argumentatively co-oriented due to their lexical content. In an eye-tracking reading experiment we compared the processing patterns of utterances in which discourse segments were connected by means of por tanto versus utterances with juxtaposed segments. A speed-up effect of por tanto on the second segment was found for the total reading time, thus confirming that, due to their procedural meaning, discourse particles add information to utterances, while, at the same time, they guide, facilitate and rearrange processing.

Images can serve as vehicles of all powers and of all forms of resistance. ?Serge Gruzinski, La guerre des images The decline of a metropolis The end of Teotihuacan was "fiery and cataclysmic," in the words of Ren? Mill?n (1988:149) in his classic study on the last years of this archetypal city.1 The metropolis perished in flames and never again managed to rise from its ashes. However, it was not a fateful urban blaze that spread wildly and randomly, consuming everything in its path. Quite the contrary, the catastrophe was unequivocally the consequence of a premeditated, highly selective group action. Today we know that the targets focused on the city's palaces, temples, and administrative buildings. At Teotihuacan, the remains of destruction are the expression of a tremendous collective effort in which the architectural monuments that served as seats of the state's political, religious, and economic power were destroyed, dismantled, and torched with uncommon fury. One by one, the pyramids succumbed to blazes lit on their summits as well as in front and on the sides of their stairways, the sculptures of their facades were pulled down and scattered with violence, and the cult images were reduced to fragments. The archaeological evidence seems conclusive. Between 1974 and 1979, Mill?n (1988:149-156) and his team examined the city anew in pursuit of material testimony of the catastrophe. On the Street of the Dead, they recorded 147 buildings with clear traces of incineration and another 31 that also seemed to have been burned. In fact, the only constructions lacking any burn marks were those severely altered by the passage of time or by the hand of the archaeologist. In the rest of the city, roughly 53 percent of the temples examined were victims of fire, compared to only 14 percent in apartment compounds.2 Every time new excavations are undertaken in the monumental zone, these surface data are confirmed and reinforced. Further testimony from those apocalyptic days has been reported by archaeologists working at the Ciudadela (Jarquin and

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In discourse comprehension, if all goes well, people tend to create a rich and coherent mental representation of the events described in the text. To do so, referential and relational coherence must be established in order to construct a connected discourse. The objective of this follow-up eye-tracking study (N = 72) is to explore the existence of an interaction effect between two factors: (a) the extension of the referent (short and long antecedent), and (b) the semantic relation (counter-argumentativea pesar de, and causalpor), when processing the neuter pronounelloin texts written in Spanish. No previous study has systematically compared the on-line processing of texts in which different extensions of the encapsulated anaphoric antecedent by the neuter pronounello(‘this’ or ‘it’ in English) are presented in diverse marked semantic relations (causal and counter-argumentative). Based on three eye-tracking measures, we found distinctive patterns of reading behavior when anaphoric neuter reference and semantic relations must be processed conjointly in order to construct a coherent mental representation. The main findings show that reading longer and more complex antecedents encapsulated by the neutral pronounselloexerts more cognitive effort in late processing (Look Back measure), particularly when simultaneously and in the same discourse construction there is an explicitly marked counter-argumentative semantic relation. Implications for theories of referential and relational coherence are discussed.

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