Abstract
Previous studies have shown that speakers have robust adjective ordering preferences. For example, in English, big red apple is strongly preferred to red big apple. Recently, Scontras et al. (2017) showed that an adjective’s distance from the noun it modifies is best predicted by the adjective’s subjectivity, with less subjective adjectives preferred closer to the modified noun. However, this finding was limited to English. The current study investigates the status of subjectivity-based adjective ordering preference in Tagalog, a language that forms its modification structures with the conjunction-like LINKER particle. Using Tagalog translations of the original English materials, we show that subjectivity predicts ordering preferences in Tagalog, as it does in English.
Highlights
Adjective ordering preferences determine the relative order of multi-adjective strings
Adjective ordering preferences have been the subject of targeted inquiry for more than half a century and with good reason: why should we continue to find the same preferences everywhere we look? It comes as no surprise, that the literature is flush with answers to this question
We face the following question: if Tagalog requires a conjunction-like LINKER to mediate the composition of multi-adjective strings, and if conjunction does neutralize adjective ordering preferences, does LINKER neutralize ordering preferences in Tagalog? To answer this question, we extend the methodology from Scontras et al (2017) to measure ordering preferences and adjective subjectivity in Tagalog
Summary
Adjective ordering preferences determine the relative order of multi-adjective strings. Grammatical approaches attempt to specify the knowledge underlying the observed preferences These approaches assume the existence of discrete lexical-semantic classes of adjectives (e.g., size, color, shape, etc.; Dixon 1982), which inhabit specialized syntactic projections (Cinque 1994; Scott 2002; Laenzlinger 2005). These class projections are ordered with respect to one another, which explains the robust preferences we observe cross-linguistically. As the literature on adjective ordering demonstrates, it is non-trivial to arrive at a consensus on the inventory of adjective classes, let alone the specific adjectives that inhabit them (cf., e.g., Dixon 1982; Kingsbury & Wellman 1986; Sproat & Shih 1991; Scott 1998)
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