How World Knowledge Shifts Adjective Interpretation

Dimensional adjective interpretation is dependent on the comparison class -- the set of object representations -- against which the object being modified by the adjective is judged. This talk explores the factors determining the composition of the comparison class, arguing that real world size information and prototypicality play crucial parts in its determination. Researchers often implicitly assume that only the objects in the immediate visual context constitute the comparison class. However,  Exp. 1 shows that this information from the visual context is integrated with knowledge of real world size and category properties to form the comparison class. Exp. 2 shows that  prototype information is utilized when making size judgments of cartoon images, while size judgments of objects in photographs draw more heavily on a speaker's prior knowledge about the actual size of the objects in the world. Exp. 3 demonstrates that the effects observed in Exp. 1 and 2 are not caused by the adjectives used, but rather reflect differences  between the size of the objects depicted in the images.