Prenominal adjective order and communication context

Danks, Joseph H.; Schwenk, Mary Ann

doi:10.1016/s0022-5371(72)80075-6

Cited by 34 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…Hence, the question remains: How do we account for the normal ordering? We have suggested previously (Danks & Glucksberg, 1971;Danks & Schwenk, 1972) that the pragmatic communieation rule does function in normal ordering but in a less specific fashion than in the experimental contexts used here. The pragmatic communieation rule was applied here to specific adjectives in carefully controlled contexts.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 76%

“…the nonreferents from which thc referent is 10 he discriminated are not obvious or specifiable (Olson, 1970). In such situations, speakers prefer (Martin, 1969b;Danks & Schwenk, 1972) and listeners are helped by (Experiment 11) a "normal" adjective order. Hence, the question remains: How do we account for the normal ordering?…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The pragmatic communication rule proposed by Danks and Schwenk (1972) was stated as if the nonrcferent context cornpletely controls the ordering 01' adjectives. In the typical case.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If one makes the not unreasonable assumption that the more frequently used adjectives refer to properties more frequently used to discriminate referents, then this pragmatic communication rule accounts for the frequency relation. Danks and Schwenk (1972) tested the pragma tic communication rule by instructing Ss to select which of two phrases better described a referent object appearing in different physical contexts. The eriterion for the Ss' decision was the phrase that would more likely insure that a listener would make a correct identification of a referent object.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Comprehension of prenominal adjective orders

Danks

Schwenk

1974

Memory & Cognition

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In two experiments, phrases describing a referent object contained two prenominal adjectives in either normal or inverted order. The time to identify the position of the referent in a display was a function of both the adjective order and the nonreferent context. If the referent appeared with a nonreferent differing from it only in size or number. the normal order of adjectives facilitated responding. However, if the referent appeared with a nonreferent differing from it only in color, the inverted order of adjectives resulted in faster identification times. These results support a pragmatic communication rule that, when the more discriminating adjectives are ordered earlier in aseries. comprehension is facilitated.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 76%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The pragmatic communication rule proposed by Danks and Schwenk (1972) was stated as if the nonrcferent context cornpletely controls the ordering 01' adjectives. In the typical case.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Comprehension of prenominal adjective orders

Danks

Schwenk

1974

Memory & Cognition

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“…Adjective ordering preferences are not static, fixed properties of the adjectives but are susceptible to variation as a function of semantic interpretation (Experiment 2) as well as the pragmatic context of the utterance (Danks & Schwenk, 1972). Manipulating semantic interpretation experimentally provides a f'Irmer basis for asserting the functional productivity of semantically governed adjective ordering than do correlations between semantic properties and adjective ordering.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ordering of taboo adjectives

Jay

Danks

1977

Bull. Psychon. Soc.

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Effects of Prenominal Adjective Ordering on Children's Latencies and Errors in an Immediate Sentence Recall Task12

Freedle

Hall

1973

ETS Research Bulletin Series

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Thirty‐four children ranging in age from 2,6 to 6,1 (median age 4,3) were presented with sentences for imitation which either violated or honored a prenominal adjective ordering rule which requires that size adjectives must precede color adjectives. Two response measures were evaluated in terms of these sentence types: latency to begin a sentence imitation and recall errors. For both the older and younger subjects, latencies following adjective order violations were significantly longer than following correct adjective order. This was argued to provide evidence for the existence of a perceptual strategy in noun phrase segmentation which occurs at the time the sentence is comprehended. The recall error measure indicated that a different strategy is reflected in the output phase of a sentence imitation task: this strategy was called a shift‐to‐grammatical‐output. Older subjects were found to employ this latter strategy whereas the younger subjects did not employ it. These results were interpreted both in terms of Bever's developmental theory of prenominal adjective ordering acquisition and the empirical work of Martin and Molfese. Finally, these results were related to a more general developmental theory suggested by a pragmatic communication interpretation of adjective ordering due to the work of Danks, Glucksberg, and Schwenk.

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Prenominal adjective order and communication context

Cited by 34 publications

References 9 publications

Comprehension of prenominal adjective orders

Comprehension of prenominal adjective orders

Ordering of taboo adjectives

Effects of Prenominal Adjective Ordering on Children's Latencies and Errors in an Immediate Sentence Recall Task12

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