1932

Abstract

Adjective ordering preferences stand as perhaps one of the best candidates for a true linguistic universal: When multiple adjectives are strung together in service of modifying some noun, speakers of different languages—from English to Mandarin to Hebrew—exhibit robust and reliable preferences concerning the relative order of those adjectives. More importantly, despite the diversity of the languages investigated, the very same preferences surface over and over again. This tantalizing regularity has led to decades of research pursuing the source of these preferences. This article offers an overview of the findings and proposals that have resulted.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-030521-041835
2023-01-17
2024-12-09
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/linguistics/9/1/annurev-linguistics-030521-041835.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-030521-041835&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Anderson JR, Milson R. 1989. Human memory: an adaptive perspective. Psychol. Rev. 96:4703–19
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Annear SS. 1964. The ordering of pre-nominal modifiers in English Res. Found. Rep., Ohio State Univ. Columbus:
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Bar-Sever G, Lee R, Scontras G, Pearl L 2018. Little lexical learners: quantitatively assessing the development of adjective ordering preferences. Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development AB Bertolini, MJ Kaplan 58–71 Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Behaghel O. 1932. Deutsche Syntax IV: Wortstellung Heidelberg, Ger: Carl Winter
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Bever TG 1970. The cognitive basis for linguistic structures. Cognition and Language Development R Hayes 279–362 New York: Wiley & Sons
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Biber D, Johansson S, Leech G, Conrad S, Finegan E 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English London: Longman
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Bock JK. 1982. Toward a cognitive psychology of syntax: information processing contributions to sentence formation. Psychol. Rev. 89:11–47
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Bock K. 1987. An effect of the accessibility of word forms on sentence structures. J. Mem. Lang. 26:119–37
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Bouchard D. 2005. Sériation des adjectifs dans le SN et formation de concepts. Rech. Linguist. Vincennes 34:125–42
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Brown R. 1965. Social Psychology New York: Free Press
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Byrne B. 1979. Rules of prenominal adjective order and the interpretation of “incompatible” adjective pairs. J. Verbal Learn. Verbal Behav. 18:173–78
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Carlson G. 1977. Reference to kinds in English PhD Thesis, Univ. Mass. Amherst:
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Cinque G 1994. On the evidence for partial N-movement in the Romance DP. Paths Towards Universal Grammar: Studies in Honor of Richard S. Kayne RS Kayne, G Cinque, J Koster, JY Pollock, L Rizzi, R Zanuttini 85–110 Washington, DC: Georgetown Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Cinque G. 1999. Adverbs and Functional Heads: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Cinque G. 2010. The Syntax of Adjectives Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Cinque G. 2014. The semantic classification of adjectives: a view from syntax. Stud. Chin. Linguist. 35:11–30
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Cinque G, Rizzi L. 2008. The cartography of syntactic structures. Stud. Linguist. 2:42–58
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Cover TM, Thomas JA. 2006. Elements of Information Theory Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons. , 2nd ed..
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Danks JH, Glucksberg S. 1971. Psychological scaling of adjective orders. J. Verbal Learn. Verbal Behav. 10:63–67
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Danks JH, Schwenk MA. 1972. Prenominal adjective order and communicative context. J. Verbal Learn. Verbal Behav. 11:183–87
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Dixon RMW. 1977. Where have all the adjectives gone?. Stud. Lang. 1:119–80
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Dixon RMW. 1982. Where Have All the Adjectives Gone? And Other Essays in Semantics and Syntax Berlin: Mouton
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Dyer W. 2017. Integration complexity and the order of constituents. PhD Thesis, Univ. Calif. Davis:
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Dyer W 2018. Integration complexity and the order of constituents. Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Universal Dependencies M-C de Marneffe, T Lynn, S Schuster 55–65 Stroudsburg, PA: Assoc. Comput. Linguist.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Dyer W, Futrell R, Liu Z, Scontras G 2021. Predicting cross-linguistic adjective order with information gain. Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics C Zong, F Xia, W Li, R Navigli 957–67 Stroudsburg, PA: Assoc. Comput. Linguist.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Ferreira VS, Dell GS. 2000. Effect of ambiguity and lexical availability on syntactic and lexical production. Cogn. Psychol. 40:296–340
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Ford W, Olson D. 1975. The elaboration of the noun phrase in children's description of objects. J. Exp. Child Psychol. 19:3371–82
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Franke M, Scontras G, Simonič M. 2019. Subjectivity-based adjective ordering maximizes communicative success. Proceedings of the 41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society344–50 Seattle, WA: Cogn. Sci. Soc.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Fukumura K. 2018. Ordering adjectives in referential communication. J. Mem. Lang. 101:37–50
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Fukumura K, Santesteban M. 2017. Ordering adjectives for communicative efficiency in English and Basque Poster presented at the 2017 conference on Architectures and Mechanisms of Language Processing (AMLaP 17), Lancaster, UK, Sept 7–9
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Futrell R. 2017. Memory and locality in natural language PhD Thesis, Mass. Inst. Technol. Cambridge:
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Futrell R 2019. Information-theoretic locality properties of natural language. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Quantitative Syntax X Chen, R Ferrer-i-Cancho 2–15 Stroudsburg, PA: Assoc. Comput. Linguist.
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Futrell R, Dyer W, Scontras G 2020. What determines the order of adjectives in English? Comparing efficiency-based theories using dependency treebanks. Proceedings of the 58th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics D Jurafsky, J Chai, N Schluter, J Tetreault 2003–12 Stroudsburg, PA: Assoc. Comput. Linguist.
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Gibson E. 1998. Linguistic complexity: locality of syntactic dependencies. Cognition 68:11–76
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Hahn M, Degen J, Goodman ND, Jurafsky D, Futrell R. 2018. An information-theoretic explanation of adjective ordering preferences. Proceedings of the 40th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society Seattle, WA: Cogn. Sci. Soc.
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Hare VC, Otto W. 1978. Development of preferred adjective ordering in children, grades one through five. J. Educ. Res. 71:4190–93
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Hetzron R. 1978. On the relative order of adjectives. Language Universals H Seiler 165–84 Tübingen, Ger: Narr
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Hill AA. 1958. Introduction to Linguistic Structures New York: Harcourt Brace & Co.
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Hill F 2012. Beauty before age? Applying subjectivity to automatic English adjective ordering. Proceedings of the NAACL HLT 2012 Student Research Workshop R Levitan, M Ott, R Levy, A Nenkova 11–16 Stroudsburg, PA: Assoc. Comput. Linguist.
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Huang HW, Federmeier KD. 2012. Dispreferred adjective order elicits brain responses associated with lexico-semantic rather than syntactic processing. Brain Res. 1475:62–70
    [Google Scholar]
  41. Kachakeche Z, Futrell R, Scontras G. 2021. Word order affects the frequency of adjective use across languages. Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society3006–12 Seattle, WA: Cogn. Sci. Soc.
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Kachakeche Z, Scontras G. 2020. Adjective ordering in Arabic: post-nominal structure and subjectivity-based preferences. Proc. Linguist. Soc. Am. 1:419–30
    [Google Scholar]
  43. Kölbel M. 2004. Faultless disagreement. Proc. Aristot. Soc. 104:53–73
    [Google Scholar]
  44. Kotowski S, Härtl H. 2019. How real are adjective ordering constraints? Multiple prenominal adjectives at the grammatical interfaces. Linguistics 57:2395–427
    [Google Scholar]
  45. Laenzlinger C. 2005. French adjective ordering: perspectives on DP-internal movement types. Lingua 115:645–89
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Larson RK 1998. Events and modification in nominals. Proceedings of SALT 8 D Strolovitch, A Lawson 145–68 Washington, DC: Linguist. Soc. Am.
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Larson RK. 2021. Rethinking cartography. Language 97:2245–68
    [Google Scholar]
  48. Leivada E, Westergaard M. 2019. Universal linguistic hierarchies are not innately wired: evidence from multiple adjectives. PeerJ 7:e7438
    [Google Scholar]
  49. Leung JY, Emerson G, Cotterell R 2020. Investigating cross-linguistic adjective ordering tendencies with a latent-variable model. Proceedings of the 2020 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP) B Webber, T Cohn, Y He, Y Liu 4016–28 Stroudsburg, PA: Assoc. Comput. Linguist.
    [Google Scholar]
  50. Lockhart RS, Martin JE. 1969. Adjective order and the recall of adjective–noun triples. J. Verbal Learn. Verbal Behav. 8:272–75
    [Google Scholar]
  51. MacFarlane J. 2014. Assessment Sensitivity Oxford, UK: Clarendon
    [Google Scholar]
  52. Martin JE. 1969a. Semantic determinants of preferred adjective order. J. Verbal Learn. Verbal Behav. 8:697–704
    [Google Scholar]
  53. Martin JE. 1969b. Some competence-process relationships in noun phrases with prenominal and postnominal adjectives. J. Verbal Learn. Verbal Behav. 8:471–80
    [Google Scholar]
  54. Martin JE. 1970. Adjective order and juncture. J. Verbal Learn. Verbal Behav. 9:379–83
    [Google Scholar]
  55. Martin JE, Ferb TE. 1973. Contextual factors in preferred adjective ordering. Lingua 32:75–81
    [Google Scholar]
  56. Martin JE, Molfese D. 1971. Some developmental aspects of preferred adjective ordering. Psychon. Sci. 22:219–20
    [Google Scholar]
  57. Martin JE, Molfese DL. 1972. Preferred adjective ordering in very young children. J. Verbal Learn. Verbal Behav. 11:287–92
    [Google Scholar]
  58. McNally L, Boleda G 2004. Relational adjectives as properties of kinds. Empirical Issues in Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 5 O Bonami, P Cabredo Hofherr 179–96 Paris: CSSP
    [Google Scholar]
  59. Ney JW. 1983. Optionality and choice in the selection of order of adjectives in English. Gen. Linguist. 23:294–128
    [Google Scholar]
  60. Oller JW, Sales BD. 1969. Conceptual restrictions on English: a psycholinguistic study. Lingua 23:209–32
    [Google Scholar]
  61. Pierce JR. 1980. An Introduction to Information Theory: Symbols, Signals and Noise Mineola, NY: Dover
    [Google Scholar]
  62. Posner R 1986. Iconicity in syntax: the natural order of attributes. Iconicity: Essays on the Nature of Culture P Bouissac, M Herzfeld, R Posner 305–37 Tübingen, Ger: Stauffenburg
    [Google Scholar]
  63. Quirk R, Greenbaum S, Leech G, Svartvik J. 1972. A Grammar of Contemporary English London: Longman
    [Google Scholar]
  64. Quirk R, Greenbaum S, Leech G, Svartvik J. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language London: Longman
    [Google Scholar]
  65. Rosales CM, Scontras G. 2019. On the role of conjunction in adjective ordering preferences. Proc. Linguist. Soc. Am. 4:321–12
    [Google Scholar]
  66. Rubio-Fernández P. 2016. How redundant are redundant color adjectives? An efficiency-based analysis of color overspecification. Front. Psychol. 7:153
    [Google Scholar]
  67. Scheffelin M. 1971. Children's understanding of constraints upon adjective order. J. Learn. Disabil. 4:534–42
    [Google Scholar]
  68. Scontras G, Bar-Sever G, Kachakeche Z, Rosales CM Jr., Samonte S. 2020. Incremental semantic restriction and subjectivity–based adjective ordering. In Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 24Vol. 2:pp. 253–70 Berlin/Osnabrück Osnabrück Univ.:
    [Google Scholar]
  69. Scontras G, Degen J, Goodman ND. 2017. Subjectivity predicts adjective ordering preferences. Open Mind Discov. Cogn. Sci. 1:153–65
    [Google Scholar]
  70. Scontras G, Degen J, Goodman ND. 2019. On the grammatical source of adjective ordering preferences. Semant. Pragmat. 12:71–21
    [Google Scholar]
  71. Scontras G, Kachakeche Z, Nguyen A, Rosales C, Samonte S et al. 2021. Cross-linguistic evidence for subjectivity-based adjective ordering preferences Talk presented at Theoretical and Experimental Approaches to Modification Tübingen, Ger:.
    [Google Scholar]
  72. Scott GJ 2002. Stacked adjectival modification and the structure of nominal phrases. The Cartography of Syntactic Structures, Vol. 1: Functional Structure in the DP and IP G Cinque 91–120 Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  73. Seiler H 1978. Determination: a functional dimension for interlanguage comparison. Language Universals: Papers from the Conference Held at Gummersbach/Cologne, Germany, October 3–8, 1976 H Seiler 301–28 Tübingen: Narr
    [Google Scholar]
  74. Shannon CE. 1948. A mathematical theory of communication. Bell Syst. Tech. J. 27:3379–423
    [Google Scholar]
  75. Shi Y, Scontras G. 2020. Mandarin has subjectivity-based adjective ordering preferences in the presence of de. Proc. Linguist. Soc. Am. 5:1410–18
    [Google Scholar]
  76. Simonič M. 2018. Functional explanation of adjective ordering preferences using probabilistic programming Master's Thesis, Univ. Tübingen Tübingen, Ger:.
    [Google Scholar]
  77. Sproat R, Shih C 1991. The cross-linguistic distribution of adjective ordering restrictions. Interdisciplinary Approaches to Language: Essays in Honor of S.-Y. Kuroda C Georgopoulos, R Ishihara 565–93 Dordrecht, Neth: Kluwer
    [Google Scholar]
  78. Svenonius P 2008. The position of adjectives and other phrasal modifiers in the decomposition of DP. Adjectives and Adverbs: Syntax, Semantics, and Discourse L McNally, C Kennedy 16–42 Oxford, UK: Oxford Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
  79. Sweet H. 1898. A New English Grammar, Logical and Historical, Vol. 2: Syntax. London: Clarendon
    [Google Scholar]
  80. Trainin N, Shetreet E. 2021. It's a dotted blue big star: on adjective ordering in a post-nominal language. Lang. Cogn. Neurosci. 36:3320–41
    [Google Scholar]
  81. Trainin N, Shetreet E. 2022. Subjectivity DOES predict adjective ordering preferences in Hebrew. Poster presented at the 35th Annual Conference on Human Sentence Processing Univ. Calif. Santa Cruz: March 24–26
    [Google Scholar]
  82. Trotzke A, Wittenberg E. 2019. Long-standing issues in adjective order and corpus evidence for a multifactorial approach. Linguistics 57:2273–82
    [Google Scholar]
  83. Truswell R. 2009. Attributive adjectives and nominal templates. Linguist. Inq. 40:525–33
    [Google Scholar]
  84. Vendler Z. 1963. The grammar of goodness. Philos. Rev. 72:4446–65
    [Google Scholar]
  85. Vendler Z. 1968. Adjectives and Nominalizations The Hague, Neth: Mouton
    [Google Scholar]
  86. Westbury C. 2021. Prenominal adjective order is such a fat big deal because adjectives are ordered by likely need. Psychon. Bull. Rev. 28:122–38
    [Google Scholar]
  87. Whorf BL. 1945. Grammatical categories. Language 21:11–11
    [Google Scholar]
  88. Wulff S. 2003. A multifactorial corpus analysis of adjective order in English. Int. J. Corpus Linguist. 8:2245–82
    [Google Scholar]
  89. Ziff P. 1960. Semantic Analysis Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-linguistics-030521-041835
Loading
  • Article Type: Review Article
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error