[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-seo-139472-105":3,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":77,"doc-detail-139472-en":126},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"ok",{"site_id":7,"language":8,"slug":9,"title":10,"keywords":11,"description":12,"schema_data":13,"social_meta":70,"head_meta":72,"extra_data":74,"updated_unix":76},105,"en","children-are-more-sensitive-to-the-recursive-set-subset-ordering-than-to-adjective-ordering-restrictions","Children are more sensitive to the Recursive Set-Subset Ordering than to Adjective Ordering Restrictions","","The paper tests whether Romanian children and adults favor an adjective order driven by semantic/cognitive dimensions or one driven by recursive set–subset structure. In tasks requiring identifying green leaves from a set of long leaves, participants prefer placing set-related adjectives so that the subset reading is reflected in word order. Results show stronger sensitivity to the set–subset distinction than to size/color ordering preferences. The analysis proposes Recursive Set-Subset Ordering as the primary constraint shaping adjective hierarchy, with cognitive dimensions treated as secondary preferences.",{"@graph":14,"@context":69},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & Report",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/children-are-more-sensitive-to-the-recursive-set-subset-ordering-than-to-adjective-ordering-restrictions/139472/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/children-are-more-sensitive-to-the-recursive-set-subset-ordering-than-to-adjective-ordering-restrictions/139472.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"Anda","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-09-20","2026-08-24",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":55},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",7,{"@type":57,"mainEntity":58},"FAQPage",[59,65],{"name":60,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":62},"What ordering do children and adults prefer in the green-leaves task?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"They prefer orders that reflect the set–subset distinction, using word order that supports the subset interpretation (e.g., “the green long leaves”).","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"What main constraint is proposed to explain adjective ordering?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"The paper argues for a Recursive Set-Subset Ordering Constraint (RSSO) as the driver of hierarchical adjective orderings.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":71,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":73,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":75,"site_id":7},139472,1787541293,{"code":4,"msg":78,"data":79},"success",[80,84,88,92,97,102,106,110,115,118,122],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":81,"show_sort_weight":82,"slug":83},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":85,"show_sort_weight":86,"slug":87},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":89,"show_sort_weight":90,"slug":91},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":93,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":94,"show_sort_weight":95,"slug":96},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":98,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":99,"show_sort_weight":100,"slug":101},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":55,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":103,"show_sort_weight":104,"slug":105},"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":107,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},8,30,"research-report",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":112,"show_sort_weight":113,"slug":114},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":113,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":116,"show_sort_weight":113,"slug":117},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":119,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":120,"show_sort_weight":119,"slug":121},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":123,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":124,"show_sort_weight":93,"slug":125},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":78,"data":127},{"doc_id":75,"user_id":128,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":129,"doc_module":4,"category_id":107,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":130,"file_id":131,"file_url":132,"file_type":133,"file_size":134,"view_count":55,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":135,"language":136,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":137,"faqs":138,"seo_title":139,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":76,"read_time":140},962075006959,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/e0002397efbe92a78e?_k=1776741047341049297","2022. Proc Ling Soc Amer 7(1) . 5267. [https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v7i1.5267](https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v7i1.5267) .  \nChildren are more sensitive to the Recursive Set-Subset Ordering than to Adjective Ordering Restrictions.  \n*  \nAdina Camelia Bleotu & Tom Roeper  \nAbstract. The current paper investigates experimentally whether, in a context requiring identifying green leaves out of a set of long leaves, Romanian 4-year-oldsand adults choose to place the Color adjective closer to the noun than the Size adjective in accordance with a more rigid adjective ordering depending on the (typeof) semantic property, or whether they choose to place the Set adjective closer to the noun than the Subset adjective, irrespective of the cognitive property specified by the adjective (Size or Color) . We find that both Romanian adults and children are more sensitive to the Set-Subset distinction, preferring to refer to the subset of green leaves out of a set of long leaves through frunzele lungi verzi ‘the green long leaves’.  \nWe argue that adjectives are primarily ordered by a Recursive Set-Subset Ordering Constraint (RSSO), while orderings of adjectives in terms of properties such as Size and Color are cognitive.  \nKeywords. Romanian L1; adjectives; recursion; adjective ordering; sets; subsets  \n1. Introduction. In the current paper, we bring experimental evidence from Romanian 4-yearolds and adults that orderings of adjectives which reflect hierarchical structure and entail the recursive Set-Subset relation are stronger than universal crosslinguistic adjectival orderings which involve cognitive dimensions such as Size and Color. Multiple studies have focused on Adjective Ordering Restrictions (AORs) such as those in (1), placing Color adjectives closer to the noun than Size adjectives (1a), and not the other way round (1b):  \n(1) the long green leaves?the green long leaves  \nWhile some studies discuss this adjective ordering in cognitive terms (Scontras et al. 2017), other studies have argued that AORs are fixed structurally, and, as a consequence of the semantics-syntax mapping, Color and Size adjectives are ordered grammatically, i.e., adjectives specifying different dimensions are projected as Specifiers of distinct syntactic projections (Cinque 1994, 2005, 2010) . We argue instead that the ordering of adjectives in terms of cognitive dimensions such as Size and Color is not primary in the grammar, but it is rather a matter of preference: Size is a more subjective property than Color, hence, it should be placed further away from the noun, being less defining (Scontras et al. 2017) . In contrast, what seems to be fundamental for ordering adjectives is how adjectives establish sets and subsets, which we argue is an  \n* The current work has been supported by the ISDS-UB postdoc project A Coloring Approach to how Children Understand Recursion in Romanian (supervised by Larisa Avram) . We would like to thank the children and tutors at No. 248 Kindergarten (Bucharest) and the students at the University of Bucharest for taking part in the experiment. In addition, we would also like to give thanks to the audiences at UMass, BUCLD 46, LSA 2022 for their valuable comments and suggestions. Authors: Adina Camelia Bleotu, ZAS Berlin, ISDS, University of Bucharest ([bleotu@leibniz-zas.de](bleotu@leibniz-zas.de), [cameliableotu@gmail.com](cameliableotu@gmail.com)) & Tom Roeper, UMass Amherst ([roeper@linguist.umass.edu](roeper@linguist.umass.edu)).  \n© 2022 Author(s) . Published by the LSA with permission of the author(s) under a CC BY license.  \nautomatic reflex of recursive syntactic structure. Importantly, in a context where one needs to identify the green leaves out ofa set of long leaves, in order to distinguish them from the yellow leaves in the same set,(1b) ([green [long leaves]) becomes more adequate than (1a) ([long [green leaves]]). Moreover, in a context where one has to distinguish green leaves among long leaves from long leaves among ","cbCaiqmzT6oFsd7J","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiqmzT6oFsd7J","pdf",1079865,15,"English","# Introduction\n# Do adjective orderings based on properties such as Size, Color, a.o. have a cognitive source, a grammatical source, or are they both cognitive and grammatical?\n## Adjectives in English","[{\"question\":\"What ordering do children and adults prefer in the green-leaves task?\",\"answer\":\"They prefer orders that reflect the set–subset distinction, using word order that supports the subset interpretation (e.g., “the green long leaves”).\"},{\"question\":\"What main constraint is proposed to explain adjective ordering?\",\"answer\":\"The paper argues for a Recursive Set-Subset Ordering Constraint (RSSO) as the driver of hierarchical adjective orderings.\"}]","Children are more sensitive to the Recursive Set-Subset Ordering than to Adjective Ordering Restrictions | PDF",38]