The Spanish Por ello construction merges both a causal connective and an anaphoric neuter pronoun. The expansion of anaphorically encapsulated antecedents influences university students' reading conduct in the context of a causal coherence relation. It requires longer processing times to read the antecedent of the neutral pronoun ello, when it is compiled of two independent causal clauses (long condition: textual referent). The reading of the neutral pronoun ello is not affeced by the expansion of the encapsulated antecedent in any of the conditions under study (short or long).