A Corpus-Based Study of the Order of Adjectives in Japanese Antonym Sequences: The Role of Markedness and Frequency

Abstract This study investigates whether the order of adjectives in antonym pairs (e.g., ii ‘good, warui ‘bad’) in single sentences of Japanese follows principles of markedness and whether the more frequently used antonym is more likely to be used first. Based on data collected from the Tsukuba Web Corpus, the results of the study were that both markedness and frequency equally influence the order of antonym pairs. This study suggests that markedness plays a role in determining the ordering of adjectives in antonym pairs. Additionally, it was found that markedness affects the order in terms of factors of positivity and magnitude.