Contextual variation in predicting adjective ordering: an information-theoretical measure for meaning specificity

Abstract

When multiple adjectives are used to modify an object, their ordering generally follows a certain fixed pattern. This rule of order exists across languages and has attracted many linguists to seek a possible general explanation for it. Meaning specificity has been proven to be a reliable predictor of English adjective ordering. In this study, we propose contextual variation as a new measure to quantify the meaning specificity of adjectives. We applied this measure to both Mandarin and English adjectives and evaluated its effectiveness in predicting their order. Our model shows to be an effective predictor in Mandarin but not in English. Upon analyzing the contexts in which adjectives are used, we discovered that polysemy is the primary factor contributing to the outliers in measuring specificity.