Paper Abstract

This study of the relative order of prenominal monosyllabic adjectives in the Chinese language has revealed various two-adjective ordering tendencies among native speakers. These tendencies can be summarized as Size-Quality/Age/Shape(?)-Color-Sex. Some of the tendencies, e. g., those in favor of the orderings to have a sex adjective stand closer to the noun and those to have a size adjective stay farther from the noun, are more salient than the others. All the tendencies appear to be stronger when no emphatic purpose exists, i.e., when the modifier marker de is not used after the first adjective. The use of de is hardly predicatable when the context is not specified. However, it seems that de is used most frequently in adj+adj combinations of color and shape, size and age, and quality and shape. It has the least chance to occur in combinations of size and shape, size and color, and color and age.

The non-emphatic ordering preference for an adj+adj combination including a size adjective is to place the size adjective in the front; when the combination takes the reversed order with the size adjective immediately preceding the noun, there is a tendency for de to be used more frequently. These two tendencies join to realize a majority in the frequency counts, a phenomenon which can be explained by the theory of markedness reversal. As is claimed by Haiman (1980), markedness is iconically motivated. Categories that are marked morphologically and syntactically are also marked semantically (p. 528). In Chinese, both the use of de and the reversal of the preferred two-adjective ordering carry the same semantic value -- contrast. This is how markedness reversal gets motivated.

Learner subjects in the study demonstrated significant disparities from the native performance in their adjective ordering practice. On the whole, they did not show a gradual proximation towards the native norm. However, they were found to make progress over time in most specific cases as their exposure to the Chinese-speaking communities increased. This is especially true when their performance on the use of the modifier marker de was observed. The fact that they probably could never realize the native-like tendencies testifies the difficulty in the acquisition of adjective orderings. Overt efforts to explain the Chinese adjective orderings in contrast with the English characteristics and to remind learners of their possible overgenerization of the use of de would be constructive and helpful to the acquisitional process.

--Master's thesis, Brigham Young University, 1993

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