Using syntax and semantics to acquire subjective adjective meanings

Bibliographic Data

ID21630833
AuthorsMegan Gotowski (0000-0002-6780-6784, William & Mary, corresponding author), Kristen Syrett (0000-0002-3773-3035, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick)
Year2025
Volume32
Issue4
Pages638-667
Publication date2025-10-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguage Acquisition (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1048-9223 • E-ISSN: 1532-7817
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10489223.2024.2384556
OpenAlexW4402355268
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited80

Adjectives like good, nice, pretty, and big are among the most frequent adjectives heard by children in the ambient language, and among the first adjectives produced by children. While these gradable adjectives are ostensibly short and sweet, their abstract semantic representations encode reference to features of the discourse context, including speaker subjectivity, which are surprisingly complex, and which also give rise to specific subclasses. How, then, do children acquire these fine-grained adjectival meanings? In this research, we hypothesize that as with verbs, the linguistic environments in which these adjectives appear provide surface-level distributional cues that narrow the space of meaning. In a proof-of-concept experiment with adults following in the footsteps of the Human Simulation Paradigm, we provide empirical evidence that surface-level linguistic patterns support the acquisition of different subclasses of subjective adjectives. Adults were presented with scripted dialogues featuring novel words in controlled linguistic environments manipulating grammatical subjects, adverbial modifiers, standard phrases, syntactic complements, and evidence of faultless disagreement among speakers. Participants were then asked to guess the word meaning (either incrementally after each ‘frame’ or after multiple frames) and rate their confidence. Results, as measured by the percentage of category-consistent, frame-compliant guesses, paired with an increase in confidence levels, indicate a sensitivity to this surface-level information, thereby highlighting the role of the linguistic environment in supporting the acquisition of adjective meaning

Adjective · Grammar · Linguistics · Noun · Pragmatics · Programming language · Syntax · Theoretical linguistics · Computer Science · Language Development and Disorders · Philosophy · Psychology · Reading and Literacy Development · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation

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