[Paper] Universal linguistic hierarchies are not innately wired. Evidence from multiple adjectives
[Paper] Universal linguistic hierarchies are not innately wired. Evidence from multiple adjectives
Linguists and psychologists have explained the remarkable similarities in the orderings of linguistic elements across languages by suggesting that our inborn ability for language makes available certain innately wired primitives. Different types of adjectives, ...
There's a general tendency across languages to order the adjectives connected to the same noun the same way; for example, usually adjectives referring to colour or other innate attributes are closer to the noun than the ones dealing with subjective attributes. This tendency is so strong that made some linguists (and psychologists) believe that this order might be actually innate.
This study contradicts that. Excerpt from the conclusion:
Taking these findings together, we have argued that there is no universal hierarchy for adjective ordering imposing a hard constraint which then translates into one rigid, unmarked order.