Abstract
The aim of this study is to clarify the usages of DE, which is the contracted form of the conjunction SOREDE, through the analysis of a corpus consisting of presentations at scientific meetings. The findings were : (1) DE appeared much more frequently than SOREDE. (2) Various usages of DE were found. In addition to reason, cumulative increase, parataxis and conversion, these included supplementation, explanation and rhythm as new functions of DE. (3) DE often appeared in the part of the presentation explaining methods and results of experiments.
