The Recursive Set-Subset Ordering Principle orders adjectives and relative clauses in visual context

Authors

  • Adina Camelia Bleotu University of Bucharest
  • Deborah Foucault University of Massachusetts Amherst
  • Tom Roeper University of Massachusetts Amherst

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v8i1.5535

Keywords:

English L1, adjectives, relative clauses, recursion, adjective ordering, visual context

Abstract

We present evidence from two picture-matching experiments that native adult speakers of American English order and interpret sequences of nouns modified by adjectives/relative clauses containing adjectives in line with the Recursive Set-Subset Ordering Principle proposed in Bleotu & Roeper (2022a, b) and Bleotu, Foucault, & Roeper (2023). This principle ensures an automatic mapping of set-subset semantics to a recursive syntax in Universal Grammar, such that set modifiers are merged closer to the noun than subset modifiers: leaves (N) that are short (SET) that are long (SUBSET) or short (SET) leaves (N) that are long (SUBSET). We here expand upon the interpretation and ordering of set-subset modification to elucidate the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic interface.

 

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Published

2023-04-27

How to Cite

Bleotu, Adina Camelia, Deborah Foucault, and Tom Roeper. 2023. “The Recursive Set-Subset Ordering Principle Orders Adjectives and Relative Clauses in Visual Context”. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America 8 (1): 5535. https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v8i1.5535.