Big brown dog or brown big dog? An electrophysiological study of semantic constraints on prenominal adjective order

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Brain and Language xxx (2006) xxx–xxx

Big brown dog or brown big dog? An electrophysiological studyof semantic constraints on prenominal adjective order

David Kemmerer a,b,c,*, Christine Weber-Fox a, Karen Price a,Cynthia Zdanczyk b, Heather Way a

a Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-1353, USAb Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, USA

c Department of Neurology, Division of Behavioral Neurology and Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Iowa College of Medicine, USA

Accepted 5 December 2005

Abstract

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants read and made acceptability judgments about sentences con-taining three types of adjective sequences: (1) normal sequences—e.g., Jennifer rode a huge gray elephant; (2) reversed sequences that vio-late grammatical-semantic constraints on linear order—e.g., *Jennifer rode a gray huge elephant; and (3) contradictory sequences thatviolate lexical-semantic constraints on compositionality—e.g., *Jennifer rode a small huge elephant. Relative to the control condition,the second adjective elicited a reduced N400 and an enhanced P600 in both the reversal condition and the contradiction condition.We present several alternative accounts of these two effects, but favor an interpretation which treats them as reflecting semantic and syn-tactic aspects of a temporary reanalysis of the adjective order construction. Furthermore, relative to the control condition, the final nounelicited a robust N400 in the contradiction condition but not in the reversal condition. We suggest that this effect indexes the full reg-istration of the lexical-semantic incompatibility of the two adjectives in the contradiction condition. Finally, we discuss how all of thesefindings fit into the broader context of recent ERP studies that have reported atypical N400s and robust P600s in response to certaintypes of semantic anomalies.� 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Semantics; Syntax; Language; Adjectives; N400; P600; ERP; Event-related potentials

1. Introduction

A large body of electrophysiological research on lan-guage comprehension supports the view that distinctevent-related brain potential (ERP) components are associ-ated with semantic and syntactic levels of online processing(see Brown, Hagoort, & Kutas, 2000, for a review). Severalrecent studies, however, suggest that two of the most well-established associations—specifically, the link between theN400 and semantics, and the link between the P600 andsyntax—are more complicated than previously thought(Casado, Martin-Loeches, Munoz, & Fernandez-Frias,2005; Hoeks, Stowe, & Doedens, 2004; Kim & Osterhout,

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doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2005.12.002

* Corresponding author. Fax: +1 765 494 0771.E-mail address: [email protected] (D. Kemmerer).

2005; Kolk, Chwilla, van Herten, & Oor, 2003; Kuperberg,Sitnikova, Caplan, & Holcomb, 2003; Kuperberg, Caplan,Sitnikova, Eddy, & Holcomb, in press; Kuperberg, Kreher,Sitnikova, Caplan, & Holcomb, in press; Van Herten,Kolk, & Chwilla, 2005). We report a new study that con-tributes to this re-assessment of the N400 and P600 compo-nents by focusing on a relatively neglected linguisticphenomenon that involves an especially interesting interac-tion between semantics and syntax—namely, the tendencyfor certain semantic classes of descriptive adjectives to beordered in particular sequences before nouns (e.g., big

brown dog vs. *brown big dog).The most intensively studied ERP component related to

language is the N400 (Kutas & Hillyard, 1980, 1984; forreviews see Hinojosa, Martin-Loeches, & Rubia, 2001;Kutas & Federmeier, 2000; Kutas & Van Petten, 1994).

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This negative-polarity potential peaks approximately400 ms after stimulus onset and tends to be bilateral butlarger over posterior than anterior electrode sites. It is elic-ited by any meaningful word (but especially nouns, verbs,and adjectives) presented visually or auditorily in isolation,in word pairs, or in sentences. The amplitude of the N400 isinversely related to the cloze probability of a word in a par-ticular semantic context, suggesting that it is a highly sen-sitive measure of the difficulty of semantic integrationprocesses. Thus, in the sentence Susan spread her warm

toast with butter/*socks, the contextually incongruent wordsocks triggers a significantly larger N400 than the contextu-ally congruent word butter. In addition, in lexical primingparadigms involving word pairs, the maximal amplitudeof the N400 elicited by targets preceded by semanticallyunrelated primes (e.g., apple–money) is significantly largerthan the maximal amplitude of the N400 elicited by targetspreceded by semantically related primes (e.g., table–chair)(Boddy, 1986; Brown & Hagoort, 1993; Holcomb, 1988;Holcomb & Neville, 1990).

In addition to the semantic N400 effect, two ERP compo-nents have been linked with different stages of syntactic pro-cessing (for reviews see Friederici, 2002, 2004). First, a leftanterior negativity (LAN) has been observed in associationwith function words and a variety of syntactic violations(e.g., Friederici, 1995; Neville, Nicol, Barss, Forster, & Gar-rett, 1991). The latency of the LAN effect varies from quiteearly (between 150 and 200 ms) to somewhat later (between300 and 500 ms), depending on the type of syntactic infor-mation involved and when it becomes available to the pro-cessor. The second syntax-related ERP component is acentroparietal positivity that peaks approximately 600 msafter stimulus onset; it is usually referred to as either theP600 or the Syntactic Positive Shift (SPS).1 This waveformis elicited by a wide range of syntactic violations, includinganomalies of phrase structure (Friederici, Hahne, & Meck-linger, 1996; Neville et al., 1991; Osterhout & Holcomb,1992), number agreement (Osterhout & Mobley, 1995),and subcategorization (Osterhout & Holcomb, 1992;Osterhout, Holcomb, & Swinney, 1994). It is also associatedwith garden-path sentences in which an initially preferredsyntactic analysis must be abandoned so that an alternativeone can be adopted instead (McKinnon & Osterhout, 1996;Mecklinger, Schriefers, Steinhauer, & Friederici, 1995;Osterhout & Holcomb, 1992, 1993; Osterhout et al.,1994). In many cases a P600 is preceded by a LAN as partof a biphasic pattern. Friederici (1995, 2002, 2004) has pro-posed that this pattern reflects two discrete stages of onlinesyntactic processing, with the LAN indexing detection of asyntactic violation and the P600 indexing execution of syn-tactic repair. It has also been proposed that the P600 reflectsthe ‘‘cost of syntactic processing’’ (Osterhout et al., 1994)

1 It has been suggested that this late positivity may be a member of theP300 family of domain-general responses to unexpected, task-relevantevents (Coulson, King, & Kutas, 1998); however, this view has not goneunchallenged (Osterhout & Hagoort, 1999).

and/or processes of syntactic integration (Fiebach,Schlesewsky, & Friederici, 2002; Kaan, 2000), includingthe formation of ‘‘unification links’’ between the syntacticframes that accompany each word (Hagoort, 2003).

Although the N400 and P600 have been strongly associ-ated with semantic and syntactic processing, respectively,exceptions to these correlations have been found in severalrecent ERP studies that have investigated the assignment ofthematic roles like ‘‘agent’’ and ‘‘patient’’ to noun phrases(NPs) (Hoeks et al., 2004; Kim & Osterhout, 2005; Kolket al., 2003; Kuperberg et al., 2003), Kuperberg, Caplanet al., in press; Kuperberg, Kreher et al., in press; Van Her-ten et al., 2005. In particular, these studies have found theabsence of a large N400 (or else a very small, non-signifi-cant N400), and instead the presence of a large P600, inresponse to the verb in sentences with the following charac-teristics: the meanings of the NPs and the verb lead thereader to expect a certain arrangement of thematic rolesthat would be quite natural in the real world; however, syn-tactic cues dictate that the opposite arrangement actuallyapplies, and this arrangement is semantically anomalous.For example, Kuperberg et al. (2003) found a very small,non-significant N400 but a very large, robust P600 forverbs such as eat in sentences such as For breakfast the eggswould eat. . . , and Kim and Osterhout (2005) found noN400 but a significant P600 for verbs such as devouring

in sentences such as The hearty meal was devouring. . .. Sim-ilar results have been reported for Dutch by Kolk et al.(2003), Hoeks et al. (2004), and Van Herten et al. (2005).The precise interpretation of these findings is controversial,and we postpone a more detailed review until Section 4. Itis generally agreed, however, that the findings reflect situa-tions in which semantic expectations exert a powerful influ-ence over syntactic processing.

Interestingly, Kuperberg et al. (2003) and Kuperberg,Kreher et al. (in press) found that if a verb requires an ani-mate subject NP but the subject NP that actually occurs isinanimate, the verb will trigger an enhanced P600 insteadof an enhanced N400 regardless of whether the associativeconceptual relationship between the subject NP and theverb is close (e.g., For breakfast the eggs would eat. . .) ordistant (e.g., For breakfast the eggs would bury. . .). Themat-ic roles and related notions such as animacy and volition-ality are part of a particular semantic subsystem whichencompasses features of meaning that interact closely withsyntax (e.g., Frawley, 1992; Haspelmath, 2003; Heine &Kuteva, 2002; Levin & Rappaport Hovrav, 2005; Moha-nan & Wee, 1999; Pinker, 1989; Slobin, 1997; Talmy,1988, 2000; Van Valin, 2005). The contrast between gram-matically relevant and irrelevant types of meaning isacknowledged by many contemporary approaches tosemantic theory, but it is perhaps best crystallized by Pink-er’s (1989) Grammatically Relevant Semantic SubsystemHypothesis (GRSSH), which posits a distinction betweenthe following two semantic subsystems: (1) a relativelysmall set of semantic features that are relevant to grammarinsofar as they influence the syntactic properties of open-

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class words and tend to be encoded by closed-class mor-phemes and various complex constructions; and (2) anopen-ended set of semantic features that are not relevantto grammar but instead enable words to express an unlim-ited variety of richly detailed, idiosyncratic concepts. Apossibility that has been hinted at (e.g., by Kuperberg,Caplan et al., in press) but not yet carefully considered inthe ERP literature is that the type of semantic anomalythat triggers an enhanced P600 instead of an enhancedN400 is specifically a grammatical-semantic anomaly.One of the goals of this paper is to evaluate this possibilityby exploring from an electrophysiological perspective a rel-atively neglected, but nevertheless quite intriguing, mani-festation of the contrast between grammatically relevantand irrelevant types of meaning—namely, the semantic fac-tors that do and do not influence the ordering of adjectivesbefore a noun.

Why is it acceptable to say the many other small inconspic-

uous carved jade idols but not *the carved other inconspicuousmany jade small idols?There are twomain levels of organiza-tion for prenominal adjective order (Bache, 1978; Bache &Davidsen–Nielsen, 1997; Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, &Svartvik, 1985). The first level consists of three functionallydefined modification zones (Table 1). Specifying adjectives,which occur in zone 1, help single out or quantify the referentof the head noun in relation to some context. Descriptiveadjectives, which occur in zone 2, characterize the referentof the head noun along a variety of semantic parameters suchas value, size, dimension, and color. Finally, classifyingadjectives, which occur in zone 3, categorize the referent ofthe head noun and thereby help establish precisely what sortof thing it is. Some adjectives can shift function—e.g.,wild isdescriptive inwild party but classifying inwild bird. In certaincontexts, however, the functional distinctions between mod-ification zones strongly constrain interpretation—e.g., dirtyin dirty French novel is ambiguous between ‘‘covered withdirt’’ and ‘‘risque contents’’ because it can be either descrip-tive or classifying, but the same adjective inFrench dirty novelcan only mean ‘‘risque contents’’ because it follows a classi-fying adjective and hence can only be treated as anotheradjective of the same type.

The second level involves positional patterns within eachzone. The current investigation is concerned primarily withthe sequential order of descriptive adjectives, which occupyzone 2. When multiple descriptive adjectives are strungtogether before a noun without being linked by coordina-

Table 1Modification zones for adjective order (adapted from Bache and David-sen–Nielsen, 1997)

Determiner Modification zones for adjectives Head noun

Specification Description Classification

The same beautiful italian actressHer own handsome jazz musicianThe next big guardian dogThis particular tall aboriginal carvingThe same gray church tower

tors, the following linear precedence of semantic classestends to apply: value > size > dimension > various physicalproperties > color (Table 2; Bache, 1978; Bache & David-sen–Nielsen, 1997; Dixon, 1982; Frawley, 1992; Hetzron,1978; Kemmerer, 2000b; Martin, 1969a, 1969b, 1970;Mar-tin & Ferb, 1973; Quirk et al., 1985; Richards, 1975).2

Many of these positional restrictions are just strong prefer-ences as opposed to rigid rules, as shown not only by theexistence of exceptional cases (e.g., the big bad wolf) butalso by the fact that the restrictions can be overridden inunusual pragmatic contexts requiring contrastive reference(e.g., I like the BROWN big dog, not the white one). Never-theless, the most common ordering patterns of descriptiveadjectives do appear to be semantically influenced (Martin& Ferb, 1973). More fine-grained ordering patterns can bediscerned among certain types of descriptive adjectiveswithin some of the semantic classes, but for the most partwhen multiple adjectives from the same semantic classare used to modify a noun, their linear order is free—e.g., warm sweet air and sweet warm air are both finebecause the two adjectives belong to the same class, namely‘‘various physical properties.’’

How is our knowledge of adjective order mentally repre-sented? Two closely related semantic principles (which mayultimately be reducible to one) appear to be at work. Thefirst principle involves degree of objectivity: adjectives thatdenote objective, verifiable properties, like color, tend tooccur closer to the modified noun than adjectives thatdenote subjective, opinion-based properties, like value(Hetzron, 1978; Martin, 1969a; Quirk et al., 1985). The sec-ond principle, which is more subtle, involves degree ofabsoluteness: adjectives that denote the same absoluteproperty regardless of the nominal context tend to occurcloser to the modified noun than adjectives whose interpre-tation is more relativistic insofar as it shifts with the nom-inal context (Ferris, 1993; Frawley, 1992; Martin, 1969a;Siegel, 1980). This principle is illustrated by the differencebetween large round coin and large round table. The mean-ing of round remains fairly constant regardless of the nounit modifies (e.g., a round coin and a round table have verysimilar geometries), so this adjective occurs close to thenoun. The meaning of large, however, changes dependingon the noun it modifies (e.g., even a small table is much big-ger than a large coin), so this adjective occurs farther fromthe noun. A crucial point is that both of the semantic prin-ciples underlying adjective order are only sensitive to fairlyabstract semantic notions. Consider, for example, the

2 Most of the ordering patterns found in English have also beenobserved in a variety of other languages that have prenominal adjectivesequences—e.g., German, Hungarian, Polish, Turkish, Amharic, Hindi,Telugu, Chinese, Japanese, and Selepet—and the mirror images of thesepatterns appear in a variety of languages with postnominal adjectivesequences—e.g., Basque, Chichewa, Persian, Indonesian, and Qiang(Dixon, 1982; Hetzron, 1978; LaPolla & Huang, 2004; Martin, 1969b).Since many of these languages are geographically and historically quitedistant from each other, no mutual influences need be suspected, thusraising the possibility of universal grammatical-semantic predispositions.

Table 2Ordering patterns of descriptive adjectives within zone 2

Ordering pattern Correct example Incorrect example

Value + Size A nice small cup (4.2) A small nice cup (1.5)Value + Dimension A good high ceiling (3.9) A high good ceiling (1.3)Value + Physical property A nice hot dinner (4.5) A hot nice dinner (1.6)Value + Color A gorgeous purple butterfly (4.7) A purple gorgeous butterfly (1.3)Size + Dimension A big tall building (4.5) A tall big building (1.7)Size + Physical property A small square rug (4.3) A square small rug (1.4)Size + Color A huge gray elephant (4.6) A gray huge elephant (1.3)Dimension + Physical property A long rough path (4.0) A rough long path (1.6)Dimension + Color A thick blue towel (4.6) A blue thick towel (1.6)Physical property + Color A soft brown sweater (4.7) A brown soft sweater (1.4)

These positional preferences reflect the following linear hierarchy of semantic classes: value > size > dimension > various physical properties > color. Thenumber after each example is the average naturalness rating that the item received on a scale from 1 (very bad) to 5 (very good) from 72 participants (seeSection 2).


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contrast between gorgeous purple butterfly and *purple gor-geous butterfly. The semantic principles are sensitive to thefact that gorgeous and purple encode ‘‘value’’ and ‘‘color,’’respectively, but they are not sensitive to the idiosyncratic,grammatically irrelevant semantic features that distinguishbetween different value adjectives (e.g., gorgeous vs. hid-eous) or between different color adjectives (e.g., purple vs.green).

Now, if grammatically relevant and irrelevant compo-nents of meaning are segregated in the mind, as Pinker’s(1989) GRSSH maintains, then they are probably sub-served by at least partially distinct neural systems. There-fore it should be possible for them to be impairedindependently of each other by brain damage. Several neu-ropsychological studies confirm this prediction (e.g.,Kemmerer, 2000a, 2000b, 2003a, 2003b, in press; Kemmer-er & Wright, 2002). Of greatest importance for the currentinvestigation is a study which reported six brain-damagedpatients who exhibited the following dissociation(Kemmerer, 2000b). On the one hand, they performedwithin normal limits on a word-to-picture matching testthat assessed their knowledge of the idiosyncratic propertyconcepts encoded by descriptive adjectives from each of theclasses described above. On the other hand, they failed anacceptability judgment test that assessed their appreciationof the semantic principles that determine how the verysame adjectives are preferentially ordered before nouns.Their poor performance on the judgment test could notbe attributed to a purely syntactic disorder because all ofthem passed a third test that probed their knowledge ofthe following two rules involving English NP structure:first, that adjectives can precede nouns; and second, thatadjectives can precede other adjectives. Overall, the resultssuggest that the patients had selectively impaired knowl-edge and/or processing of the grammatical-semantic con-straints on prenominal adjective order.

The discovery that grammatical-semantic and lexical-se-mantic aspects of adjectival meaning can be dissociated byfocal brain damage raises the possibility that they may alsobe linked with distinct patterns of electrophysiological

activity during online language processing. The aim ofthe current study was to test this hypothesis (which isderived from the more general GRSSH), and to also con-tribute to the recent literature re-evaluating the N400 andP600 components, by comparing the types of ERPstriggered by violations of grammatical-semantic and lexical-semantic constraints in sentences with prenominal adjectivesequences. We employed an experimental design thatrequired participants to make binary good/bad acceptabil-ity judgments for sentences containing three different kindsof adjective sequences: (1) normal sequences—e.g., Jenniferrode a huge gray elephant; (2) reversed sequences thatviolate grammatical-semantic constraints on linear order—e.g., *Jennifer rode a gray huge elephant; and (3) contradic-tory sequences that violate lexical-semantic constraints oncompositionality—e.g., *Jennifer rode a small huge ele-

phant. Because the reversed and contradictory sequencesbecome anomalous when the second adjective is detected,we predicted that the ERPs elicited by this adjective in bothconditions would differ significantly from those elicited bythe corresponding adjective in the normal condition. Inaddition, because the reversed and contradictory sequencesinvolve different types of semantic violation, we predictedthat the ERPs elicited by the second adjective in thesetwo conditions would differ significantly from each other.More precise predictions involving the N400 and P600components are as follows.

If it is the case that the type of semantic anomaly thattriggers an enhanced P600 instead of an enhanced N400is specifically a grammatical-semantic anomaly, then thesecond adjective in the reversal condition should elicitexactly these ERP effects. In contrast, the second adjec-tive in the contradiction condition should not elicit anenhanced P600 but should instead modulate the N400component in either of two opposite ways, dependingon whether semantic incongruity or semantic similarityhas a greater influence on integrative lexical-semanticprocessing. If semantic incongruity (e.g., the fact thatsmall and huge are contradictory in *Jennifer rode a small

huge elephant) is more influential, then the second


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adjective should elicit an N400 with significantly greateramplitude than the corresponding adjective in the normalcondition, but if semantic similarity (i.e., the fact thatsmall and huge are both size adjectives that presumablyprime each other) is more influential, then the secondadjective should elicit an N400 with significantly smalleramplitude than the corresponding adjective in the normalcondition.

2. Methods

2.1. Participants

The participants were 20 adults (age: M = 21.4 years,SD = 1.6 years; gender: 11 male, 9 female). At the timeof testing, all participants were Purdue University students,ranging from Freshmen through fifth year Seniors. Themean educational level of the participants was 2.85 yearsof college completed. They all had normal or corrected-to-normal vision, were right handed as determined by theEdinburgh Inventory (Oldfield, 1971), and were nativeEnglish speakers with no reported history of neurological,language, or hearing impairments.

2.2. Materials

2.2.1. Screening measures

To ensure that each participant’s knowledge of lexicaland grammatical aspects of English was within normal lim-its, we administered the following four standardized sub-tests from the Test of Adolescent and Adult Language(TOAL-3): Speaking Vocabulary, Listening Vocabulary,Speaking Grammar, and Listening Grammar (Hammill,Brown, Larsen, & Wiederholt, 1994).

2.2.2. Stimuli for ERP experiment

The stimuli consisted of 200 sentences, 150 of which hadthe same type of syntactic structure: a subject NP (e.g., Thewoman), followed by a past-tense verb (e.g., bought), fol-lowed by a direct object NP containing two adjectivesand an indefinite head noun (e.g., a thick blue towel). Thisset of 150 sentences—listed in full in the Appendix A—con-sisted of three subsets of 50 that varied only in the type ofadjective sequence: normal (e.g., The woman bought a thick

blue towel); reversed (e.g., *The woman bought a blue thick

towel); and contradictory (e.g., *The woman bought a thinthick towel).3 The other 50 sentences were distracters, halfnormal (e.g., The car ran out of gas) and half anomalous(e.g., *The car ran out of cake).

The sentences with normal and reversed adjectivesequences contained roughly equal proportions of thesemantically defined adjective classes shown in Table 1.

3 The second adjective in each contradictory sequence always matchedthe second adjective in the corresponding reversed sequence.

The adjectives occupying first and second position in thenormal sequences were not significantly different in eitherword frequency per million (first position: M = 159.7,SD = 191.6; second position: M = 148.1, SD = 218.7;p = .33; Francis & Kucera, 1982) or letter length (first posi-tion: M = 4.9, SD = 1.2; second position: M = 4.9,SD = 1.3; p = .39). Because the reversed sequences con-tained exactly the same adjectives as the normal sequences,only with their linear order switched, the adjectives occupy-ing first and second position were also controlled for bothfrequency and length. The normal and reversed adjectivesequences used in this study were drawn from a larger setof sequences for which acceptability judgments had beenpreviously obtained in an unpublished experiment with72 healthy participants (age: M = 19.2, SD = 1.8; gender:34 male, 38 female), none of whom were also in the ERPstudy. These participants rated each adjective sequenceon a scale from 1 (very bad) to 5 (very good). The averageratings for the 50 normal sequences and the 50 reversedsequences that were ultimately selected for inclusion inthe ERP study fell near the extreme ends of the scale (nor-mal: M = 4.5, SD = 0.3; reversed: M = 1.5, SD = 0.1; seeAppendix A).

Regarding the sentences with contradictory adjectivesequences, it is noteworthy that both adjectives alwaysbelonged to the same semantic class, such as dimension(e.g., *The woman bought a thin thick towel). As far as lin-ear order is concerned, multiple adjectives from the sameclass can usually occur in any sequence. For instance, asnoted earlier, warm and sweet are both from the class called‘‘various physical properties,’’ and their order is free (e.g.,warm sweet air and sweet warm air are both fine). Thus,the contradictory adjective sequences never violated gram-matical-semantic constraints on linear order, but insteadviolated purely lexical-semantic constraints oncompositionality.

2.3. Procedures

Participants completed the informed consent documentand the handedness questionnaire (Oldfield, 1971). Also,the visual acuity of each eye of each participant wasscreened using a standard eye chart. Before the ERPrecording session, the four subtests from the TOAL-3were administered to assess speaking and listening lan-guage skills for both vocabulary and grammar. The elec-trode cap was then placed on the participant’s head, andthe appropriate impedances were obtained. Participantswere then seated comfortably in a sound-attenuatingroom.

Participants were positioned approximately 56 inchesfrom a 19-inch computer monitor, and the experimentaltask was explained. Participants were given specific instruc-tions about the task and were asked not to blink or movewhen the stimuli were being presented. As the experimentwas self paced, participants triggered the beginning of eachtrial with a button press. A trial began with a centered,


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white rectangular border appearing on the screen. Followinga delay of 1500 ms, a stimulus sentence was presented oneword at a time in the center of the rectangle. Words were300 ms in duration with a 400 ms interstimulus interval.Visual angles of the word stimuli were 0.5 to 5 �C horizon-tally and 0.5 �C vertically. The last word in each sentencewas presented with the appropriate punctuation, i.e., aperiod. The rectangle remained illuminated on the screenfor 1500 ms following the offset of the last word, and partici-pants were instructed not to blink or move as long as itremained. When it disappeared, participants pressed oneof two buttons on a response box—’’Yes’’ if the sentencewas acceptable or correct, ‘‘No’’ if it was odd or incorrect.The use of the right and left hand for responding ‘‘Yes’’ or‘‘No’’ was counterbalanced across participants.

The sentence stimuli were presented in three blocks,and trials were pseudorandomized across blocks withequal representation from each of the three conditionsand distractor sentences. Participants were exposed toall three versions of sentences that varied only withrespect to whether the adjective sequence was normal,reversed, or contradictory (e.g., The woman bought a thickblue towel, *The woman bought a blue thick towel, and*The woman bought a thin thick towel). However, to min-imize the possibility of repetition effects, the three versionsof each sentence were presented in separate blocks, andeach block contained an equal number of sentences witheach type of adjective sequence, along with 16–17 fillersentences. Each block lasted approximately 30 min, vary-ing slightly depending on the pace of individualparticipants.

2.4. Electroencephalographic recordings

Electrical activity at the scalp was recorded from elec-trodes secured in an elastic cap (Quik-Cap, CompumedicsNeuroscan). Twenty-eight electrodes were positioned overhomologous locations of the two hemispheres accordingto the criteria of the International 10–20 system (Jasper,1958). Locations were as follows: lateral sites F7/F8,FT7/FT8, T7/T8, TP7/TP8, P7/P8; mid-lateral sites FP1/FP2, F3/F4, FC3/FC4, CP3/CP4, P3/P4, O1/O2; and mid-line sites FZ, FCZ, CZ, CPZ, PZ, OZ. Recordings were ref-erenced to electrodes placed on the left and right mastoids.Horizontal eye movement was monitored via electrodesplaced over the left and right outer canthi. Electrodes overthe left inferior and superior orbital ridge were used tomonitor vertical eye movement. All electrode impedanceswere adjusted to 5000 ohms or less. The electrical signalswere amplified within a bandpass of 0.1 and 100 Hz anddigitized online (Neuroscan 4.0) at a rate of 500 Hz.

2.5. Data analysis

2.5.1. Behavioral measures

The accuracy of each participant’s acceptability judg-ments was obtained from signals generated from the

response box. Each participant’s percent correct scorewas then computed for each of the three conditions.

2.5.2. ERP measures

Trials with excessive eye movement or other forms ofartifact (19%) were excluded from further analyses of theERP responses. The rejected trials were equally distributedacross the three conditions. The remaining trials were aver-aged by condition for each participant. The averages weretriggered 100 ms prior to the onset of the words in the sen-tences and included 800 ms after the trigger. The ERP datafrom the 100 ms interval prior to word onset served as thebaseline activity. The peak latencies of ERP componentswere computed in relation to the trigger point (0 ms) thatmarked the stimuli onsets. The peaks were automaticallydetected using Neuroscan 4.2 software with specified tem-poral windows that capture the ERP components elicitedin this paradigm, as described below.

For ERPs elicited by the first adjective, second adjec-tive, and final noun, the peak amplitudes and latenciesof the N100/N180 (N100 elicited over anterior and tempo-ral sites, N180 elicited over parietal and occipital sites)and P200 components were measured within the temporalwindows of 50–200 and 150–250 ms, respectively. Thepeak latencies, peak amplitudes, and mean amplitudes ofthe N400 and P600 components were measured withinthe temporal windows of 250–500 and 500–700 ms, respec-tively. Because no clear peaks were observed for the latetemporal window of 500–700 ms for the first adjectiveand the final noun, only the mean amplitudes of the wave-forms were analyzed for that temporal window for thosewords. The measures of peak and mean amplitudes andpeak latencies were compared with mixed effects ANOVAswith repeated measures including a between subject factorof group (High Adjective Order Sensitivity [>83%] andLow Adjective Order Sensitivity [<76%] on the reversalcondition; see below for details) and three within subjectfactors including condition (control, reversal, and contra-diction), hemisphere (left and right), and electrode site(FC3/4, FT7/8, T7/8, TP7/8, CP3/4, O1/2). The subsetof 12 lateral and mid-lateral electrode sites was selectedfor the repeated measures analyses because it provided arepresentative sample of ERPs from anterior to posteriorregions over the left and right hemispheres that allowedfor the examination of distributional effects within andbetween hemispheres. Significance values were set atp < .05. For all repeated measures with greater than onedegree of freedom in the numerator, the Huynh–Feldt(H-F) adjusted p values were used to determine signifi-cance (Hays, 1994). The effect sizes, indexed by the par-tial-eta squared statistic ðe2pÞ, are reported for allsignificant effects. Tukey HSD (Honest Significant Differ-ence) post hoc comparisons (which utilize the MS Errorterm from the original repeated measures ANOVA) werecalculated for significant interactions involving multiplevariables to determine which comparisons contributed tothe significant F values (Hays, 1994).


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3. Results

3.1. Behavioral findings

3.1.1. Screening measures

All 20 participants performed within normal limits on allfour subtests of the TOAL-3. The standard scores, whichprovide age-normalized performance measures, were as fol-lows: Speaking Vocabulary (M = 11.1, SD = .99), ListeningVocabulary (M = 11.05, SD = 1.54), Speaking Grammar(M = 13.47, SD = 2.52), and Listening Grammar(M = 10.47, SD = 1.22). All the individual standard scoresobtained by the participants fell within the normal to superi-or range (8–16) for language abilities (Hammill et al., 1994).

3.1.2. Acceptability judgments

According to the acceptability judgments that were giv-en after each sentence, the participants split into twogroups that we refer to as the High Adjective Order Sensi-tivity Group (N = 10) and the Low Adjective Order Sensi-tivity Group (N = 10), or simply the High SensitivityGroup and the Low Sensitivity Group. As shown inFig. 1, the High Sensitivity Group made accurate judg-ments for over 90% of the sentences containing normaladjective sequences (M = 93.3, SE = 2.1), reversed adjec-tive sequences (M = 92.3, SE = 1.7), and contradictoryadjective sequences (M = 98.7, SE = 0.5). The Low Sensi-tivity Group also performed quite well for the sentencescontaining normal adjective sequences (M = 95.4,SE = 1.5) and contradictory adjective sequences(M = 96.0, SE = 1.3); however, their judgment accuracydropped substantially for the sentences containing reversedadjective sequences (M = 38.7, SE = 10.2).

Judgement Accuracy

Conditions

Control Adj Reversal Adj Contradiction

Per

cent

Cor

rect

0

20

40

60

80

100

High Adj Order Sensitivity

Low Adj Order Sensitivity

Fig. 1. Accuracy of acceptability judgments for sentences in the control,reversal, and contradiction conditions. Black bars indicate the HighAdjective Order Sensitivity Group (N = 10), and gray bars indicate theLow Adjective Order Sensitivity Group (N = 10).

This split in the behavioral results was unexpected, espe-cially given that (1) all of the participants performed normal-ly on the screening tests and (2) the reversed adjectivesequences had been established previously as being quiteodd in a separate rating study (see Section 2.2.2). In Section4, we consider possible explanations for why the Low Sensi-tivity Group had difficulty recognizing the strangeness of thesentences with reversed adjective sequences.

3.2. Electrophysiological findings

3.2.1. First adjective

Fig. 2 shows the ERPs (grand averages across all 20 par-ticipants) elicited by the first adjective in each of the threeconditions. The ERPs from 12 electrode locations wereselected to illustrate the pattern of responses from anteriorand posterior regions over both hemispheres. The condi-tion and group means obtained for the peak latency, peakamplitude, and mean amplitude measures were not signifi-cantly different for the first adjective. The non-significantstatistics are summarized as follows. The highest F valuesand lowest p values across condition, condition · group,condition · hemisphere, and condition · hemisphere ·group, followed by the overall between-group comparisonsfor each of the ERP measures were: N100–N180:F (2,36) < 1.845, H-F p > .17, group-F (1,18) < 1; P200:F (2,36) < 3.189, H-F p > .059, group-F (1,18) < 1; N400:F (2,36) < 1.697, H-F p > .19, group-F (1,18) < 1.48,p > .23; late 500–700 ms measures: F (2,36) < 1.775, H-Fp > .18, group-F (1,18) < 3.91, p > .06. The condi-tion · electrode interactions were also non-significantacross all measures for each of the temporal windows,F (10,180) < 1.811, H-F p > .096.

3.2.2. Second adjective

Fig. 3 shows the ERPs (grand averages across the 10participants in each group) elicited by the second adjectivein each of the three conditions. The format of this figure isthe same as in Fig. 2, except the data for the two groups areplotted separately.

N100, N180, P200. No significant group or conditioneffects for the peak latency and peak amplitude measureswere observed within the 100–250 ms temporal window.The highest F values and lowest p values across condition,condition · group, condition · hemisphere, and condi-tion · hemisphere · group, followed by the overallbetween-group comparisons for each of the ERP measures,and condition · electrode interactions were: N100–N180:F (2,36) < 1.657, H-F p > .20, group-F (1,18) < 1, condi-tion · electrode—F (10,180) < 1; P200: F (2,36) < 2.99, H-F p > .062, group-F (1,18) < 1.63, p > .21, condition · elec-trode—F (10,180) < 1.907, H-F p > .067.

N400. Several interesting findings emerged for the N400component. First, although no group differences,F (1,18) < 1, were observed for the peak and mean ampli-tudes of the N400, there were significant effects of condi-tion, F (2,36) = 8.01, H-F p = .002, e2p ¼ .31, and

TP7

T8T7

O2O1

FT8FT7

FC4FC3

TP8

CP4CP3

First Adjective (N=20)

ms0 200 400 600 800

0.0

-2.5

-5.0

2.5

5.0

µVControl

Adjective Reversal

Adjective Contradiction

Fig. 2. Grand ERP averages elicited by the first adjective in the controlreversal, and contradiction conditions. Data are averaged across all 20participants. In this and subsequent ERP figures, negative potentials areplotted upward.


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,

F (2,36) = 5.551, H-F p = .008, e2p ¼ 24, respectively. Asshown in Fig. 4, for the High Sensitivity Group as wellas the Low Sensitivity Group (but somewhat more stronglyfor the former), the peak amplitude of the N400 elicited bythe second adjective was significantly reduced in both thereversal condition and the contradiction condition, relativeto the control condition, with the same pattern observedfor mean amplitude measures. It is also noteworthy thatthe analysis of N400 peak amplitude revealed a significantinteraction between condition and electrode, F (10,180) =

3.47, H-F p = .004, e2p ¼ .16. Post hoc comparisonsrevealed that the N400 peak amplitude condition effectswere significant for the mid-lateral sites FC3/4 and CP3/4(Tukey HSD p < .05). The interaction did not reach signif-icance for the mean amplitude measures, F (10,180) =1.784, H-F p = .12. Also, interactions were non-significantbetween condition · hemisphere and condition · hemi-sphere · group, F (2,36) < 1.16, H-F p > .32, and condi-tion · electrode · group, F (10,180) < 1.87, H-F p > .10.

Second, an analysis of the peak latency of the N400 didnot reveal an effect of group, F (1,18) = 1.80, H-F p = .20,however, it did reveal a significant effect of condition,F (2,36) = 8.36, H-F p = .001, e2p ¼ .32. There was also asignificant interaction between condition and groupF (2,36) = 4.31, H-F p = .023, e2p ¼ .19. These results areportrayed in Fig. 5. For the High Sensitivity Group, theN400 elicited by the second adjective in the reversal condi-tion peaked approximately 20 ms later than the N400 elic-ited by the second adjective in each of the other twoconditions. In contrast, for the Low Sensitivity Group,the N400 elicited by the second adjective was delayed byapproximately 25 ms not only for the reversal conditionbut also for the normal condition, as compared with thecontradiction condition (Tukey HSD p < .05). Interactionsbetween condition · hemisphere, condition · hemi-sphere · group, F (2,36) < 1.21, H-F p > .30, condi-tion · electrode and condition · electrode · group,F (1,180) < 1, were not significant.

P600. There were no overall group differences in the peakor mean amplitudes of the P600 elicited by the second adjec-tive, F (1,18) < 1, but there was a significant effect of condi-tion for both the peak, F (2,36) = 4.97, H-F p = .012,e2p ¼ .22, and mean, F (2,36) = 5.437, H-F p = .009,e2p ¼ .232, amplitude measures. There was also a significantinteraction between condition and group for the peakamplitude measure, F (2,36) = 3.82, H-F p = .031,e2p ¼ .18, with a trend for a condition · group interactionfor the mean amplitude measure, F (2,36) = 2.501, H-Fp = .096, e2p ¼ .122. As depicted in Fig. 6, the peak ampli-tude of the P600 elicited by the second adjective increasedprogressively across the normal, reversal, and contradictionconditions for the High Sensitivity Group but not the LowSensitivity Group; moreover, these peak and mean ampli-tude differences between conditions were significant onlyfor the High Sensitivity Group (Tukey HSD p < .05). Posthoc comparisons revealed that for the High SensitivityGroup, the P600 peak and mean amplitudes elicited bythe reversal and contradiction conditions were not signifi-cantly different from one another, but both were significant-ly larger than the control condition (Tukey HSD p < .05).For the peak amplitude measure, the distribution of theP600 component was maximal over central-parietal sites,CP3 and CP4 (electrode F (5,90) = 4.957, H-F p = .003,e2p=.216, Turkey HSD p<.05). For the mean amplitudemeasure, a condition · electrode interaction, F (10,180) =2.519, H-F p = .04, e2p ¼ .123, revealed that the P600 effectwas larger over CP3/4 for the contradiction condition

O2

CP4

TP8

T8

FT8

FC4FC3

FT7

T7

TP7

CP3

O1

Control

Adjective Reversal


ms

0 200 400 600 800

µV 0.0

-2.5

-5.0

2.5

5.0

Second AdjectiveHigh Adjective

Order Sensitivity

Low Adjective

Order Sensitivity

CP3

TP8 TP7

T8 T7

O1

CP4

O2

FC3FC4

FT7FT8

Fig. 3. Grand ERP averages elicited by the second adjective in the control, reversal, and contradiction conditions. Data are averaged separately for the 10participants in each group—i.e., High Adjective Order Sensitivity (left panel) and Low Adjective Order Sensitivity (right panel).


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compared to the reversal condition (Tukey HSD, p < .05).This interaction is apparent in Fig. 3 and was also a trendfor the measure of peak amplitude, F (10,180) = 2.243, H-F p = .066. Peak and mean amplitude effects on interactionsbetween condition · hemisphere and condition · hemi-sphere · group, F (2,36) < 1.621, H-F p > .21, as well ascondition · electrode · group, F (10,180) < 2.02, H-Fp > .09, were not significant.

In addition, an analysis of the peak latency of the P600revealed a significant effect of group, F (1,18) = 5.33, H-Fp = .033, e2p ¼ .23. The P600 peak latency for the High Sen-sitivity Group was approximately 31 ms longer comparedto that of the Low Sensitivity Group (623.8 and

592.5 ms, respectively). This difference may be due to thefact that the amplitude of the P600 was greater for the Highthan the Low Sensitivity Group. Effects of condition, con-dition · group, condition · hemisphere, and condi-tion · hemisphere · group, F (2,36) < 3.042, H-F p > .06,as well as condition · electrode and condition · elec-trode · group, F (10,180) < 1, on the peak latency of theP600 elicited by the second adjective were non-significant.

3.2.3. Final noun

Fig. 7 shows the grand average ERPs elicited by the finalnoun in each of the three conditions. The data are plottedin the same manner as in Fig. 2.

Fig. 4. Mean (SE) peak amplitude of the N400 component elicited by thesecond adjective in the control, reversal, and contradiction conditions.Data are plotted separately for the 10 participants in each group—i.e.,High Adjective Order Sensitivity (black bars) and Low Adjective OrderSensitivity (gray bars).

Fig. 5. Mean (SE) peak latency of the N400 component elicited by thesecond adjective in the control, reversal, and contradiction conditions.Data are plotted separately for the 10 participants in each group—i.e.,High Adjective Order Sensitivity (black bars) and Low Adjective OrderSensitivity (gray bars).

Fig. 6. Mean (SE) peak amplitude of the P600 component elicited by thesecond adjective in the control, reversal, and contradiction conditions.Data are plotted separately for the 10 participants in each group—i.e.,High Adjective Order Sensitivity (black bars) and Low Adjective OrderSensitivity (gray bars).


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N100, N180, P200. There were no significant group dif-ferences, F (1,18) < 1, for the earlier latency components.Within the temporal window of 100–250 ms, two interest-ing findings emerged: first, there was a significant effect ofcondition on the peak amplitude of the N100–N180,F (2,36) = 3.34, H-F p = .047, e2p ¼ .16; and second, therewas a significant effect of condition on the peak latency

of the P200, F (2,36) = 4.71, H-F p = .017, e2p ¼ .21. Posthoc comparisons revealed that relative to the other twoconditions, the final noun in the contradiction conditiongenerated a higher amplitude N100–N180 and an earlierpeak latency for the P200 (Tukey HSD p < .05). Theseeffects can be seen in Fig. 7. Peak amplitude and latencyeffects of condition (N100–N180 peak latency, P200 peakamplitude), condition · group, condition · hemisphere,condition · hemisphere · group for N100, N180, andP200 were not significant, F (2,36) < 2.171, H-F p > .13.

N400. For the N400 component, there were no signifi-cant group differences for the peak amplitude and meanamplitude measures, F (1,18) < 2.775, p > .11, but we founda highly significant effect of condition on the peak and meanamplitudes, peak-F (2,36) = 19.70, H-F p < .0005, e2p ¼ .52,mean-F (2,36) = 12.749, H-F < .005, e2p ¼ .42. This is cap-tured in Fig. 8, which indicates that the peak amplitude ofthe N400 elicited by the final noun was significantly greaterin the contradiction condition than in each of the other twoconditions, as confirmed by post hoc comparisons (TukeyHSD p < .05). An effect of condition · electrode, F (10,180) = 7.450, H-F p < .0005, e2p ¼ 293, revealed that theN400 mean amplitude for the contradiction condition wassignificantly larger than the other two conditions overFC3/4, T7/8, TP7/8, CP3/4, and O1/2 electrode sites(Tukey HSD p < .05). A similar trend was observed forthe peak amplitude measure, F (10,180) = 3.137, H-F p =.055. Interactions of condition · group and condition ·hemisphere · group were non-significant, F (2,36) <1.372, H-F p > .26, for the peak and mean amplitudes ofthe N400 elicited by the final noun.

Final Noun (N=20)

T8T7

FT8FT7

FC4FC3

O2O1

CP4CP3

TP8TP7

ms0 200 400 600 800

µV0

-2.5

-5

-7.5

2.5

5

Control

Adjective Reversal


Fig. 7. Grand ERP averages elicited by the final noun in the control,reversal, and contradiction conditions. Data are averaged across all 20participants.

Fig. 8. Mean (SE) peak amplitude of the N400 component elicited by thefinal noun in the control, reversal, and contradiction conditions. Data areaveraged across all 20 participants.

Fig. 9. Mean (SE) peak latency of the N400 component elicited by thefinal noun in the control, reversal, and contradiction conditions. Data areaveraged across all 20 participants.


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There was no group difference in the peak latency of theN400, F (1,18) = 1.558, p = .23. There was, however, a sig-nificant effect of condition on the peak latency of the N400elicited by the final noun, F (2,36) = 4.35, H-F p = .020,e2p ¼ .20. This is shown in Fig. 9, which reveals that theN400 peaked later for the contradiction condition thanfor the reversal condition (Tukey HSD p < .05), with theN400 peak latency of the control condition falling inbetween the reversal and contradiction conditions and nosignificant difference between the N400 peak latency forthe control condition relative to the other two (TukeyHSD p < .05). Interactions of condition · group and condi-tion · hemisphere · group, F (2,36) < 1.281, H-F p > .28,and condition · electrode and condition · elec-trode · group, F (10,180) < .578, H-F p > .57, for the peaklatency of the N400 elicited by the final noun were notsignificant.

500–700 ms window. There was a marginal effect of groupin themean amplitude of the ERPsmeasured in the late tem-poral window for the final noun, F (1,18) = 4.807, p = .042.Themean amplitude in the late temporal windowwas slight-ly more negative for the High Sensitivity Group than theLow Sensitivity Group (�.97 and .14 lV, respectively).There was also a significant effect of condition,F (2,36) = 13.766, H-F p < .0005, e2p ¼ .43. Again, this effectdistinguishes the contradiction condition from the other twoconditions (Tukey HSD p < .05), and is clearly visible inFig. 7. In addition, a significant interaction was observedbetween condition and electrode, F (10,180) = 7.136, H-Fp < .0005, e2p ¼ .28. Post hoc comparisons indicated thatthe mean amplitude of the waveform in the late temporalwindow elicited by the contradiction condition was more


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negative compared to control and reversal conditions overthe FC3/4, T7/8, TP7/8, CP3/4, and O1/2 electrodes sites(Tukey HSD p < .05).

4. Discussion

4.1. Behavioral findings

All twenty participants accurately judged the normaladjective sequences as being acceptable and the contradicto-ry ones as being odd. However, only 10 participants accu-rately judged the reversed adjective sequences as being odd;on average, the other 10 participants judged slightly over halfof these sequences as being acceptable. As already noted, thisbehavioral split betweenwhat we have been callingHigh andLow Adjective Order Sensitivity Groups was quite surpris-ing, especially in light of the following two facts: first, all ofthe participants fell within the normal to superior range onthe Speaking Grammar and Listening Grammar subtestsof the TOAL-3; and second, all of the reversed adjectivesequences that were included in the ERP study had beenjudged as being odd in a previous rating studywith 72 partic-ipants—in fact, on a scale from 1 (very bad) to 5 (very good),the average rating for these adjective sequences was 1.5. It isnot clear why the behavioral split occurred, and several fac-tors may be relevant. We will mention just one possibility,which hinges on the fact that the rating study only requiredparticipants to make acceptability judgments for normaland reversed adjective sequences, whereas the ERP studyincluded the conditionwith contradictory adjective sequenc-es. Although the reversed sequences were perceived as beingquite odd in the rating study, in less formal situations peopleusually consider violations of adjective order to be rathersubtle. It is therefore conceivable that in the ERP study thereversed sequences struck the participants in the Low Sensi-tivityGroup as being comparatively less anomalous than thecontradictory sequences. Toput it adifferentway, theblatantlexical-semantic violations of the contradictory sequencesmay have biased the participants toward a response strategywhereby they judged those sequences as beingworse than thereversed sequences.4 This is only a conjecture, though, and inthe following discussion of the electrophysiological findings,we focus on the results for the High Sensitivity Group, sincethis group had superior behavioral performance.

4.2. Electrophysiological findings

4.2.1. Evaluation of the predictions

On the basis of recent literature demonstrating that cer-tain semantic anomalies evoke an enhanced P600 insteadof an enhanced N400 (Hoeks et al., 2004; Kim &Osterhout,2005; Kolk et al., 2003; Kuperberg et al., 2003; Kuperberg,Caplan et al., in press; Kuperberg, Kreher et al., in press;Van Herten et al., 2005), we proposed that the specific type

4 We thank Gina Kuperberg for suggesting this interpretation.

of semantic anomaly that triggers these ERP effects may beone that involves a violation of grammatical-semantic con-straints, as opposed to purely lexical-semantic constraints.As noted in Section 1, this linguistic contrast is captured byPinker’s (1989) Grammatically Relevant Semantic Subsys-tem Hypothesis (GRSSH), which posits a distinctionbetween, on theonehand, a restricted set of semantic featuresthat interact closely with syntax and, on the other, an open-ended set of semantic features that do not. With respect toadjective order, grammatically relevant semantic featuresinclude general notions like ‘‘size’’ and ‘‘color,’’ since theynotonly define the classes of adjectives that exhibit positionalpreferences, but also serve as input to the abstract principlesthat putatively give rise to those preferences in the first place,not just in English but in many other languages worldwide(see footnote 2). In contrast, grammatically irrelevantsemantic features include highly specific notions like ‘‘huge’’and ‘‘gray,’’ since they uniquely characterize the idiosyncrat-ic meanings of particular adjectives within certain classes,and do not influence linear order. In general, the GRSSHpredicts that violations of grammatical-semantic and lexi-cal-semantic constraints should give rise to different ERPeffects, since the two types of violations derive from differentneurocognitive subsystems. However, when the GRSSH iscombined with the proposal described above, it leads tomuch more precise predictions: Grammatical-semanticanomalies, like those in reversed adjective sequences, shouldtrigger an enhanced P600 but not an enhanced N400,whereas lexical-semantic anomalies, like those in contradic-tory adjective sequences, should trigger an enhanced N400but not an enhanced P600. We noted earlier, though, thatcontradictory sequencesmight evoke a reducedN400 insteadof an enhanced N400, because the two adjectives in eachsequence always belong to the same semantic class (e.g., sizein *Jennifer rode a small huge elephant), and hence the firstadjective might prime the second (Boddy, 1986; Brown &Hagoort, 1993; Holcomb, 1988; Holcomb & Neville, 1990).

Regarding the reversed sequences, the predictions werelargely confirmed. As expected, the second adjective eliciteda robust P600. In addition, the second adjective did not elic-it an enhanced N400, which is also consistent with the pre-vious literature as well as the GRSSH. Interestingly,however, this adjective elicited an N400 with significantlyreduced amplitude—a finding that has not, to our knowl-edge, been previously reported for any type of grammati-cal-semantic anomaly. Regarding the contradictorysequences, some of the predictions were confirmed, butthere were also a few surprising findings. As predicted bythe GRSSH, an enhanced N400 was observed, presumablyreflecting the lexical-semantic anomaly. But the timing ofthis effect was strange, since it was evoked by the final nouninstead of the second adjective. One of the effects triggeredby the second adjective was a reduced N400, which fitsthe prediction of the priming hypothesis mentioned above.However, apart from a difference in latency, this redu-ced N400 was strikingly similar to the one elicited by thesecond adjective in the reversal condition, which raises the


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possibility that the former effectmight not be due to priming,and that instead both effects might reflect some other neuro-cognitive operation. The second adjective in the contradic-tion condition also triggered a robust P600. This effect waswholly unexpected, but it was very much like the one evokedby the second adjective in the reversal condition, suggestingonce again that the two conditions may have engaged morecommon processes than we originally anticipated.

In the following section, we elaborate a particular inter-pretation of the ERP findings, and consider various alterna-tive accounts as well. We then conclude by briefly relatingour study to other reports of atypical N400s and robustP600s evoked by certain types of semantic anomalies.

4.2.2. An interpretation based on alternative adjective order

constructions

4.2.2.1. Background linguistic theory. We begin by examin-ing more carefully the syntactic and semantic properties ofthe adjective sequences in the reversal and contradictionconditions. In both conditions, the meaning of the secondadjective is unexpected, albeit for different reasons: it vio-lates grammatical-semantic constraints on linear order inthe former condition, and lexical-semantic constraints oncompositionality in the latter. As we pointed out in Section1, however, the adjective sequences in both conditions canbe felicitous in special situations. Thus, an expression likebrown big dog is perfectly appropriate if there are severalbig dogs around and the speaker wants to distinguish thebrown one from the others. Likewise, even an expressionlike small big dog is tolerable if there are several big dogsaround and the speaker wants to distinguish the smallone from the others. Under such circumstances, contrastivestress is usually placed on the first adjective—e.g., I like theBROWN big dog or I like the SMALL big dog. For presentpurposes, however, what is most important is that in prag-matically unusual utterances such as I like the BROWN big

dog, the reversed yet suitable adjective sequence differsfrom its more conventional counterpart both syntacticallyand semantically. We propose that these two types ofadjective sequences actually correspond to separate butclosely related constructions, adopting the generic senseof ‘‘construction’’ assumed in recent constructionistapproaches to language (e.g., Croft, 2001; Culicover &Jackendoff, 2005; Goldberg, 1995, 2003, in press; Goldberg& Jackendoff, 2004; Jackendoff, 2002, in press; see alsoKemmerer, 2000a, 2003a, 2003b, in press; Kemmerer &Wright, 2002). The basic characteristics of these two con-structions are as follows:

5 In a psycholinguistic study that addressed exactly this phenomenon,
Construction 1: Byrne (1979) asked participants to interpret NPs containing superficially Syntax: [Adj + Adj + N]NP incompatible adjective pairs, one example being a slow fast dog. He foundthat ‘‘the solutions typically involved an ordered application of the
Semantics:

adjectives to the noun, with the one closest to the noun being first

[Descriptive Property + DescriptiveProperty + Entity]

bracketed with it to form a generic term (a fast kind of dog), the other
Frequency: High adjective then modifying that construction in terms of some local Example: I like the big brown dog condition (e.g., an aging greyhound)’’ (p. 73). This interpretive strategy is also what grants coherence to the name of the country music group, LittleBig Town.
Line missing

Construction 2:
Phonology: Contrastive stress on first adjective Syntax: [Adj + [Adj + N]]NP
Semantics:
[Descriptive Property + ClassifyingProperty + Entity]
Frequency:
Low Example: I like the BROWN big dog
Syntactically, adjective sequenceswith normal order, as inConstruction 1, generally have a flat structure—e.g., bigbrown dog is anNP in which the two adjectives combine withthe noun to form a single complex three-word constituent.This is why a comma can easily be placed after the first adjec-tive. In contrast, adjective sequences with reversed order(and alsowith stress on the first adjective), as inConstruction2, have a hierarchical structure—e.g., BROWN big dog is anNP in which the second adjective combines with the noun toform a complex two-word constituent, and the first adjectivecombines with that unit to forman evenmore complex three-word constituent. Evidence for this hierarchical syntacticanalysis comes from the fact that in utterances such as I likethe BROWN big dog, not the white one, the pronoun one sub-stitutes for the whole expression big dog.

Turning to semantic issues, we mentioned in Section 1that the highest level of functional organization for adjec-tive order involves a division into three separate zones ofmodification—specification, description, and classification(see Table 1). In normal adjective sequences of the typeillustrated in Construction 1, both adjectives are descrip-tive—e.g., in big brown dog, both big and brown serve tocharacterize the dog in terms of certain qualitative proper-ties. However, when these sequences are reversed (and thefirst adjective is stressed), as in Construction 2, the firstadjective is still descriptive, but the second one is classify-ing—e.g., in BROWN big dog, while brown provides purelydescriptive information about the dog, big indicates whatkind of dog it is. This semantic distinction is clearest inutterances such as I like the BROWN big dog, not the whiteone, because here it is apparent that the context involvestwo dogs of the same kind, namely big ones, which thespeaker differentiates according to the qualitative trait ofcolor. The same analysis applies to contradictory adjectivesequences, as in I like the SMALL big dog and I like the

SHORT long dress, where ‘‘big dogs’’ and ‘‘long dresses’’are sets of objects, and in each case the other adjectiveserves to identify a particular member of the set.5

6 Other studies have shown that sentence-final words often evoke N400swhen sentence-mid words evoke P600s (e.g., Osterhout & Holcomb, 1992,1993). However, we suspect that the N400 evoked by the final noun in thecontradiction condition is different, since a similar N400 was not evokedby the final noun in the reversal condition, even though a P600 was evokedby the second adjective in both conditions.


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4.2.2.2. Application to the electrophysiological findings.

Returning to the ERP study, the sentences comprisingthe reversal and contradiction conditions were judged tobe unacceptable, presumably because they were perceivedas violating grammatical-semantic and lexical-semanticconstraints, respectively. If the sentences had not been pre-sented orthographically, but had instead been presentedauditorily with contrastive stress on the first adjective, theyprobably would have been judged to be more acceptable,since the participants would have been more likely to treatthem as instantiations of Construction 2. But in theabsence of phonological cues for Construction 2, it wasreasonable for the participants to assume that Construc-tion 1, which is the high-frequency default, was in force,and that the sentences in both conditions were thereforebad. Given this scenario, certain aspects of the meaningof the second adjective—specifically, grammatical-semanticaspects in the reversal condition and lexical-semanticaspects in the contradiction condition—were surprising.In what follows, we argue that despite the fact that the nat-ure of the anomaly was different in the two conditions, theprocessor may have reacted to the unexpected secondadjective by momentarily considering the possibility thatConstruction 2 might be more appropriate than Construc-tion 1. As we demonstrate below, this approach can explainthe major ERP effects that were observed, but we also pres-ent other possible interpretations of some of the effects.

The first major ERP effect that distinguished the reversaland contradiction conditions from the control conditionwas a reduction in the amplitude of the N400 evoked bythe second adjective. We defer discussing this effect, howev-er, until after addressing the other significant effects.

The second major ERP effect that distinguished thereversal and contradiction conditions from the control con-dition was an increase in the amplitude of the P600 evokedby the second adjective. As mentioned above, we proposethat when the second adjective was encountered, the pro-cessor may have briefly shifted from Construction 1 toConstruction 2. This would have involved switching froma flat to a hierarchical analysis of the syntactic structureof the NP, and we suggest that the enhanced P600 indexesthis operation. Our interpretation is consistent with previ-ous ERP studies which have shown that the P600 effectcan be triggered by syntactically ambiguous or garden-pathsentences (McKinnon & Osterhout, 1996; Mecklingeret al., 1995; Osterhout & Holcomb, 1992, 1993; Osterhoutet al., 1994) As noted earlier, we actually predicted that thesecond adjective in the reversal condition would evoke arobust P600, since that condition involves grammatical-se-mantic violations; however, we did not predict such aneffect for the contradiction condition, since it involves lex-ical-semantic violations. What we are suggesting here isthat the processor may have reacted to the contradictorysequences in essentially the same way as it reacted to thereversed sequences; in particular, our hypothesis is that inboth conditions the P600 reflects a temporary syntacticreanalysis. While it is true that the P600 was enhanced to

a greater degree in the contradiction condition than inthe reversal condition, it is certainly possible, even likely,that this ERP effect indexes the same underlying neurocog-nitive operation in both conditions, with that operationsimply being engaged to different extents (Luck, 2005).

The electrophysiological responses for the reversal andcontradiction conditions diverged quite dramatically atthe point of the final noun; specifically, in just the contra-diction condition this word evoked a strongly enhancedN400. Given that this kind of effect is generally treated asreflecting an increase in the difficulty of semantic integra-tion, its occurrence here presumably indexes the full regis-tration of the lexical-semantic incompatibility of the twoadjectives. It is not clear, however, why the enhancedN400 was elicited by the final noun, since the anomalycould, at least in principle, have been detected when thesecond adjective appeared.6 One possible reason for thedelay is that, as we have been arguing, the processor mayhave been focusing on temporarily shifting from Construc-tion 1 to Construction 2 (an idea that we develop morefully below).

We return now to the significantly reduced N400 thatwas elicited by the second adjective in both the reversalcondition and the contradiction condition. This effect wasquite puzzling, and in what follows we present three alter-native accounts of it. First, as already noted, for just thecontradiction condition the reduced N400 could be inter-preted in terms of priming, since the two adjectives in eachsentence were always from the same semantic class, andsince it is well-established that binary antonymous adjec-tives like fast and slow are strongly interconnected in thelexicon (Deese, 1964; Gross, Fischer, & Miller, 1989). Suchan account might be valid, and there is in fact much to rec-ommend it (Boddy, 1986; Brown & Hagoort, 1993;Holcomb, 1988; Holcomb & Neville, 1990). However, alimitation of this account is that it does not generalize toaccommodate the finding that the N400 was reduced toan equal degree after the second adjective in the reversalcondition. It would therefore be worthwhile to considerother lines of explanation that could attribute the sameERP effect in the two conditions to the same underlyingneurocognitive operation.

A second interpretation is closely tied to the hypothesisthat in both conditions the processor momentarily consid-ers the possibility that Construction 2 is more suitablethan Construction 1. According to this approach, the pro-cessor not only engages in a transient syntactic reanalysisthat is putatively indexed by the enhanced P600, but alsobriefly shifts from assuming that the second adjectiveencodes a descriptive property to assuming that it encodes

8


ARTICLE IN PRESS

a classifying property. This grammatical-semantic distinc-tion is rather subtle, but it is nevertheless a genuine phe-nomenon. For instance, as discussed previously, in anutterance instantiating Construction 2 such as I like the

BROWN big dog, not the white one, the context involvesa set of at least two dogs that the second adjective inthe first object NP classifies as ‘‘big’’ (a semantic featurethat also becomes associated with the pronoun one), andthe first adjective specifies that the particular dog whichthe speaker likes is distinguished by the qualitative traitof color. Thus the two adjectives modify the noun in dif-ferent ways. We suggest that the proposed transient gram-matical-semantic reanalysis of the second adjective in boththe reversal and contradiction conditions might have beenmanifested electrophysiologically as a significant decreasein the amplitude of the N400 component. This interpreta-tion helps explain why the lexical-semantic incompatibilityof the two adjectives in the contradiction condition wasnot fully registered (assuming that such registration is typ-ically indexed by a strongly enhanced N400) until the finalnoun: Immediately after the second adjective appeared,the processor was briefly engaged in a grammatical-semantic adjustment that would make the meanings ofthe two adjectives compatible, and this attempt to achievecoherence was not abandoned until the noun was encoun-tered. This interpretation appears to be theoretically plau-sible, but it is obviously quite speculative. Its most seriouslimitation is that, as far as we know, there is no indepen-dent reason for supposing that the kind of grammatical-semantic reanalysis that we have proposed would be man-ifested electrophysiologically as a reduced N400. On theother hand, canonical modulations of the N400 compo-nent have a predominantly centroparietal distribution,whereas the effect observed in our study was prominentnot only over the centroparietal sites but also over themore anterior sites, including FC3 and FC4, so this find-ing supports the idea that the effect might index a uniquetype of semantic processing.

A third interpretation is that instead of there being twoseparate ERP effects triggered by the second adjective—areduced N400 followed by an enhanced P600—there mayhave been just one effect that spanned both temporal win-dows. According to this account, the part of the waveformwithin the 300–500 ms epoch was not really a modulationof the N400 component, but was rather the beginning ofan extended positivity; in addition, the apparent differencein N400 latency between the reversal and contradictionconditions was actually a difference in the onset of thatpositivity.7 Such an account is consistent with the data,but it leaves open the functional basis of the early periodof the positivity.

There are undoubtedly other possible interpretations ofthe reduced N400, as well as various combinations of inter-

7 We thank an anonymous reviewer for drawing our attention to thisinterpretation.

pretations, applying either to both conditions or to just oneor the other. The correct account of this puzzling electro-physiological effect is by no means clear, but hopefullyfuture research will shed more light on it.

4.2.3. Relating this study to other reports of atypical N400sand robust P600s evoked by semantic anomalies

As already mentioned, several recent ERP studies havereported the absence of an enhanced N400 (or else a rela-tively small, non-significant N400), and instead the pres-ence of an enhanced P600, in response to the verb insentences in which a certain arrangement of thematic rolesis highly expected because of the meanings of the noun(s)and the verb, yet the opposite arrangement is prescribedby syntactic cues. We are aware of four independentresearch teams that have obtained such results (for relatedstudies see Casado et al., 2005 and Nieuwland & Van Ber-kum, 2005). First, in a study conducted in Dutch, Kolket al. (2003; see also Van Herten et al., 2005) found noN400 effect but an enhanced P600 for verbs such as fled

(which occurs after its arguments, cat and mice) in sentenc-es such as *The cat that from the mice fled, ran across theroom (original: *De kat die voor de muizen vluchtte, rendedoor de kamer). Second, in another study conducted inDutch, Hoeks et al. (2004) found no N400 effect but anenhanced P600 for verbs such as thrown (again occurringafter its arguments, javelin and athletes) in sentences suchas *The javelin has the athletes thrown (original: *De speer

heeft de atleten geworpen). Third, Kuperberg et al. (2003)and Kuperberg, Kreher et al. (in press) found a relativelysmall, non-significant N400 but a robust P600 for verbssuch as eat in sentences such as *For breakfast the eggs

would eat. . ., and the same investigators obtained similarresults even when the associative conceptual relationshipbetween the subject NP and the verb was quite distant, asin *For breakfast the eggs would bury. . ., suggesting thatthe animacy violation was the critical factor (see alsoKuperberg, Caplan et al., in press). Fourth, Kim andOsterhout (2005) found no N400 effect but an enhancedP600 for verbs such as devouring in sentences such as*The hearty meal was devouring. . .8

In comparing the previous studies with the currentone, several interesting similarities and differencesemerge. With respect to linguistic issues, all of the previ-ous studies investigated what we consider to be gram-matical-semantic phenomena, especially thematic rolesand related notions such as animacy. Moreover, in mostof the studies the critical sentences involved a kind ofreversal of what was expected. But while those studiestended to focus on (covert) reversals of thematic role

Unlike the studies by Kuperberg et al. (2003) and Kuperberg, Kreheret al. (in press), however,KimandOsterhout (2005)didnot findanenhancedP600 for animacy violations on verbs that bore a distant associativeconceptual relationship with the subject NP. Kuperberg, Kreher et al. (inpress) suggest that this discrepancy may be due to discourse factors.

ncescomprisingthenorm

al,reversal,andcontradictionconditions

Reversalcondition

Contrad

ictioncondition

monkey.

4Thewoman

saw

ayo

ungsm

allmonkey.

1.7

Thewoman

saw

alargesm

allmonkey.

lding.

4.5

Theman

worksin

atallbig

building.

1.7

Theman

worksin

asm

allbig

building.

jacket.

4.9

Mr.Smithwore

ayellow

uglyjacket.

1.7

Mr.Smithwore

abeautifuluglyjacket.

4.9

Jeffwore

ablack

warm

coat.

1.7

Jeffwore

acold

warm

coat.

pond.

4.4

Chrisdiscoveredashallow

lovely

pond.

1.7

Chrisdiscoveredahorrible

lovely

pond.

in.

4.0

Thedoctortookaslow

longtrain.

1.7

Thedoctortookashort

longtrain.

house.

4.2

Theboybuiltasturdygo

odtreehouse.

1.7

Theboybuiltabad

goodtreehouse.

.4.4

Todderectedagray

tallflagpole.

1.7

Todderectedashort

tallflagpole.

ion.

4.6

Mrs.Lee

ownsablack

finestallion.

1.7

Mrs.Lee

ownsabad

finestallion.

narrow

bridge.

3.9

Thetruck

drove

across

anarrow

terrible

bridge.

1.7

Thetruck

drove

across

awonderful

terrible

bridge.

ard.

4.0

Theman

bough

tastiff

goodboard.

1.7

Theman

bough

tabad

goodboard.

barrenfield.

4.3

Mikewalked

across

abarrenim

mense

field.

1.6

Mikewalked

across

atinyim

mense

field.

ath.

4.0

Therangertookarough

longpath.

1.6

Therangertookashort

longpath.

4.5

Theship

hitahardbig

rock.

1.6

Theship

hitasm

allbig

rock.

4.6

Bobatearipebig

apple.

1.6

Bobateasm

allbig

apple.

.4.7

Theman

wore

agreenthin

shirt.

1.6

Theman

wore

athickthin

shirt.

(continued

onnextpage)


ARTICLE IN PRESS

assignment, the current study focused mainly on (overt)reversals of adjective order.

With respect to electrophysiological issues, all of thestudies found atypical N400 effects, but these effects weremanifested differently. The previous studies found noN400 effect (or else a very small one) in response tothe verbs, but the current study revealed a reduced

N400 in response to the second adjectives. While theabsence (or weakness) of an N400 effect in the previousstudies was very unusual, the reduction of the N400 inthe current study is even more peculiar, as discussedabove. Turning to the P600 component, it was signifi-cantly enhanced by the critical words in all of the stud-ies. Van Herten et al. (2005) suggest that this P600 effectreflects a monitoring process that checks upon the verid-icality of the original syntactic analysis, sort of like ques-tioning oneself ‘‘Did I read that correctly?’’ This view iscompatible with the account that we have offered, butour account is formulated to address the more specificpossibility of a momentary shift between alternativeadjective order constructions. Regarding the relationshipbetween the N400 and P600 components, Kuperberg,Kreher et al. (in press) propose that they are functionallyand reciprocally linked in the following way: The earlypart of the P600, which overlaps in time with the latepart of the N400, indexes detection of the unexpectedlinguistic violation (an animacy violation in their study);this then ‘‘switches off’’ semantic integration of the verbinto its preceding context, as indexed by the absence of arobust N400. Kuperberg et al.’s proposal cannot be eas-ily applied to our data, however, since we found areduced N400 instead no effect at all, and it is not clearwhy a disengagement of the semantic integration of thesecond adjective into its preceding context would causea significant decrease in N400 amplitude.9 Still, accordingto our favored interpretation, the reduced N400 andenhanced P600 are in fact closely related insofar as theyreflect semantic and syntactic aspects of a momentaryshift between alternative adjective order constructions.We are well aware, however, that this account is highlyspeculative, and that further research would be necessaryto confirm it. More generally, we would encourage otherinvestigators to explore in greater detail the types of elec-trophysiological effects that are triggered by violations ofgrammatical-semantic constraints.

ware

thesente

asm

allyo

ung

nabig

tallbui

anuglyyellow

black

coat.

alovely

shallow

alongslow

tra

oodsturdytree

llgray

flagpole

fineblack

stall

across

aterrible

ago

odstiff

bo

ssan

immense

alongrough

phardrock.

eap

ple.

thin

greenshirt

Acknowledgment

This work was supported by a grant from the NIDCD(R03 DC006137-01).

Appendix

A.Belo

Norm

alcondition

Thewoman

saw

Theman

worksi

Mr.Smithwore

Jeffwore

awarm

Chrisdiscovered

Thedoctortook

Theboybuiltag

Todderectedata

Mrs.Lee

ownsa

Thetruck

drove

Theman

bough

tMikewalked

acro

Therangertook

Theship

hitabig

Bobateabig

rip

Theman

wore

a

9 We thank an anonymous reviewer for helping us appreciate this point.

Appendix A (continued)Normal condition Reversal condition Contradiction condition

Bob wore a hideous green hat. 4.7 Bob wore a green hideous hat. 1.6 Bob wore a gorgeous hideous hat.Michelle drove a fast red car. 4.7 Michelle drove a red fast car. 1.6 Michelle drove a slow fast car.Michelle cooked a nice hot dinner. 4.5 Michelle cooked a hot nice dinner. 1.6 Michelle cooked a bad nice dinner.The house had a short white fence. 4.5 The house had a white short fence. 1.6 The house had a tall short fence.The girl used a sharp silver needle. 4.8 The girl used a silver sharp needle. 1.6 The girl used a dull sharp needle.The man found a tiny purple insect. 4.8 The man found a purple tiny insect. 1.6 The man found a large tiny insect.John bought a thick blue towel. 4.6 John bought a blue thick towel. 1.6 John bought a thin thick towel.John dug a good deep hole. 3.6 John dug a deep good hole. 1.6 John dug a bad good hole.Emma bought a nice tall candle. 4.4 Emma bought a tall nice candle. 1.6 Emma bought a yucky nice candle.The boy slept on a nice thick mattress. 4.8 The boy slept on a thick nice mattress. 1.6 The boy slept on a bad nice mattress.Mrs. Lee made a huge green sign. 4.9 Mrs. Lee made a green huge sign. 1.6 Mrs. Lee made a tiny huge sign.Jill has a pretty blue fish. 4.8 Jill has a blue pretty fish. 1.6 Jill has an ugly pretty fish.Mrs. Jones entered a tall black skyscraper. 4.5 Mrs. Jones entered a black tall skyscraper. 1.6 Mrs. Jones entered a short tall skyscraper.The artist painted a clear blue sky. 4.9 The artist painted a blue clear sky. 1.5 The artist painted a murky clear sky.The child pointed to a huge white cloud. 4.8 The child pointed to a white huge cloud. 1.5 The child pointed to a tiny huge cloud.Jeff fixed a small black clock. 4.8 Jeff fixed a black small clock. 1.5 Jeff fixed a large small clock.The boy has a nice small cup. 4.2 The boy has a small nice cup. 1.5 The boy has a bad nice cup.Mrs. Jones has a lovely white blouse. 4.9 Mrs. Jones has a white lovely blouse. 1.5 Mrs. Jones has an ugly lovely blouse.Melissa drove a big orange truck. 4.9 Melissa drove an orange big truck. 1.5 Melissa drove a small big truck.Mr. Johnson sold an ugly pink bicycle. 4.5 Mr. Johnson sold a pink ugly bicycle. 1.5 Mr. Johnson sold a beautiful ugly bicycle.Sara held a small red rose. 4.7 Sara held a red small rose. 1.5 Sara held a large small rose.Mike has a cute black puppy. 4.7 Mike has a black cute puppy. 1.5 Mike has an ugly cute puppy.Jennifer cleaned a small square rug. 4.3 Jennifer cleaned a square small rug. 1.4 Jennifer cleaned a large small rug.John has a large brown desk. 4.9 John has a brown large desk. 1.4 John has a small large desk.Jill bought a soft brown sweater. 4.7 Jill bought a brown soft sweater. 1.4 Jill bought a rough soft sweater.Miss Lane moved a large hollow log. 4.6 Miss Lane moved a hollow large log. 1.4 Miss Lane moved a tiny large log.Mr. Wilson caught a small white moth. 4.7 Mr. Wilson caught a white small moth. 1.4 Mr. Wilson caught a large small moth.Michelle lost a tiny silver ring. 4.5 Michelle lost a silver tiny ring. 1.4 Michelle lost a huge tiny ring.Mrs. Jones bought a huge gold tuba. 4.5 Mrs. Jones bought a gold huge tuba. 1.3 Mrs. Jones bought a tiny huge tuba.Jennifer saw a gorgeous purple butterfly. 4.7 Jennifer saw a purple gorgeous butterfly. 1.3 Jennifer saw an ugly gorgeous butterfly.The house has a good high ceiling. 3.9 The house has a high good ceiling. 1.3 The house has a bad good ceiling.Lisa rode a huge gray elephant. 4.6 Lisa rode a gray huge elephant. 1.3 Lisa rode a tiny huge elephant.The boy had a cute gray rabbit. 4.7 The boy had a gray cute rabbit. 1.3 The boy had an ugly cute rabbit.Melissa wore a long blue dress. 4.7 Melissa wore a blue long dress. 1.3 Melissa wore a short long dress.

Mean 4.5 1.5Standard deviation 0.3 0.1

Also shown are the average acceptability ratings for the sentences in the first two conditions, based on a scale from 1 (very bad) to 5 (very good).

D.Kem

merer

etal./Brain

andLanguagexxx(2006)xxx–xxx

17

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INPRESS


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Big brown dog or brown big dog? An electrophysiological study of semantic constraints on prenominal adjective order