Comprehension of prenominal adjective orders.

In two experiments, phrases descrying 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 nortreferent 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 a series, comprehension is facilitated.

A developmental study of the pragmatic communication rule for prenominal adjective ordering*.

First-, fourth-, and eighth-grade children and college undergraduates indicated preference for either normal or inverted orders of prenominal adjectives (for example,the large red car or the red large car, respectively) to describe a pictorial referent. Preference for the normal order of adjectives first appeared with the fourth graders. When communication context was vaxied by presenting a nonreferent that required a color adjective for discrimination from the referent, college students increased their preference for the inverted order. This separation of the acquisition of a linguistic rule from its utilization in communication was discussed.