Children and adults privilege linguistic over visual information when creating comparison classes for prenominal gradable adjectives
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22130653 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Merle Weicker (0000-0001-6977-8695, Goethe University Frankfurt), Petra Schulz (0000-0002-6765-6659, Goethe University Frankfurt) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2024-03-15 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Glossa a journal of general linguistics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2397-1835 • E-ISSN: 2397-1835 |
| Publisher | Open Library of the Humanities (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.16995/glossa.9912 |
| OpenAlex | W4392125413 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 27 |
Mastering the semantics of gradable adjectives is a complex acquisition task, since their interpretation requires the calculation of a threshold relative to a comparison class. Context plays a role in determining the comparison class in multiple ways; empirical research has focused on non-linguistic cues, such as world knowledge and visual context, and less on linguistic cues, such as the modified head noun. The present study is the first to examine how preschoolers and adults use the taxonomic category encoded by the modified head noun as well as visual cues to interpret relative (big, small) and absolute (clean, dirty) gradable adjectives. Using existing objects from different taxonomic categories (basic-level and superordinate-level), we developed a picture-choice task that allowed us to infer the comparison class and the threshold from participants’ choices. Forty-three children (aged 3 to 5) and 26 adults, all monolingual German-speaking, were tested. Confirming previous research, children, like adults, showed a context-sensitive interpretation of relative but not of absolute gradable adjectives. The taxonomic label was preferred to visual cues in creating the comparison class already by age three; this advantage of linguistic over non-linguistic information was also present in the adults. We explain this finding with the privileged role of information provided by the taxonomic label: the modified head noun encodes the cognitive representation of an object category and the corresponding taxonomic hierarchy. Accordingly, this representation is easily accessible while creating the comparison class, which provides further evidence that language is a powerful tool to modulate our mental computations
Linguistics · Categorization, perception, and language · Child and Animal Learning Development · Computer Science · Philosophy · Psychology · Reading and Literacy Development
Vagueness and grammar
A semantics for positive and comparative adjectives
Words as Invitations to Form Categories
Prototype theory and compositionality
Fitting Linear Mixed-Effects Models Using lme4
Meaning and Context in Children's Understanding of Gradable Adjectives
Comparing Semantic Theories of Comparison
Vagueness and Imprecision
Total Adjectives vs. Partial Adjectives
Adjective Semantics, World Knowledge and Visual Context
The use of lexical and referential cues in children's online interpretation of adjectives
Interactions Between Language and Mental Representations
Scale Structure, Degree Modification, and the Semantics of Gradable Predicates
Pragmatic Halos
| Highly cited | No |
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