Researcher ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0009-0000-3597-804X
Graduation Year
2024
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Linguistics and Cognitive Science
Second Department
Hispanic Studies
Reader 1
Dr. Galia Bar-Sever
Reader 2
Dr. Marina Perez de Mendiola
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2024 Louise A Schiele
Abstract
Adults, as well as children, tend to present adjective ordering preferences in their use of multi-adjective strings. For example, the ordering of “big blue bird” rather than “blue big bird” is reliably preferred for speakers of English. Subjectivity has been shown to be a robust predictor of these adjective ordering preferences, where less subjective adjectives are preferred closer to the noun. Still, much of the previous work on adjective ordering preferences has centered a monolingual experience, and has not considered if multilingual speakers differ in their presentation of these preferences, in any of the languages they speak. This study focused on determining if heritage speakers of Spanish in the United States present adjective ordering preferences in either their Spanish or English language use, and if those preferences could be predicted by subjectivity in the same manner as their monolingual peers. Adjective ordering preferences were determined in English and Spanish for heritage Spanish speakers, and in both languages these preferences were found to be predicted by the adjective subjectivity ratings from heritage Spanish speakers in either language. Furthermore, the subjectivity ratings collected could predict the adjective ordering preferences of the opposite language just as well as their own, indicating that subjectivity of adjectives is not tied to a specific language a multilingual speaker is using, and rather a more inherent understanding in our general language capabilities. These findings further previous assertions that adjective ordering preferences may be a linguistic universal by contextualizing them in the ever more common multilingual experience.
Recommended Citation
Schiele, Louise Anne, "Subjectivity as a Predictor of Adjective Ordering Preferences for Heritage Spanish Speakers" (2024). Scripps Senior Theses. 2382.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/2382
