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For instance, is there an implied difference between saying

"Jack and Jill came home."

and

"Jill and Jack came home."

Could the first one imply that Jack came before Jill, and that Jill came before Jack in the second?

This would be similar to using "then", but in a more subtle way.

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  • There's no necessary implication; someone might well say one of those with that presupposition, but a listener might not share it. Generally, though, if you put two NPs together as joint subject of a verb of motion, you get an invited inference that the motion was performed jointly.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Jun 25, 2018 at 19:40

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"Jack and Jill" is the subject noun phrase, and there is no implied sequence or order. There might be implied sequence if you split the subjects into two different independent clauses, i.e., "Jack came home and Jill came home," but again, there is no necessarily implied sequence in this case, either.

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