Sign Language & Linguistics - Volume 14, Issue 1, 2011

This study investigates three different multiple wh-question types in American Sign Language (ASL). While the three are strikingly similar, subtle but systematic differences in their prosody make them semantically distinct. I derive these distinctions from their syntax, via extensions of Koopman and Szabolcsi’s (2000) remnant movement and Sportiche’s (1988) stranded movement, and I propose that multiple wh-questions in ASL involve Parallel Merge structures of the kind proposed by Citko (2005). I also present new generalizations to characterize their prosody, whereby A-bar movement gives rise to prosodic breaks and ‘prosodic resets’.

Eye gaze as a nonmanual component of sign languages has not yet been investigated in much detail. The idea that eye gaze may function as an agreement marker was brought forward by Bahan (1996) and Neidle et al. (2000), who argued that eye gaze is an independent agreement marker occurring with all three verb types (plain verbs, spatial verbs, and agreeing verbs) in American Sign Language (ASL). Thompson et al. (2006) conducted an eye-tracking experiment to investigate the interdependency between eye gaze and ASL verb agreement in depth. Their results indicate that eye gaze in ASL functions as an agreement marker only when accompanying manual agreement, marking the object in agreeing verbs and the locative argument in spatial verbs. They conclude that eye gaze is part of an agreement circumfix. Subsequently, I conducted an eye-tracking experiment to investigate the correlation of eye gaze and manual agreement for verbs in German Sign Language (DGS). The results differ from Thompson et al.’s, since eye gaze with agreeing verbs in the DGS data did not occur as systematically as in ASL. Nevertheless, an analysis of verb duration and the spreading of a correlating eye gaze suggests that there is a dependency relation between eye gaze and manual agreement.

This article investigates the claim that tongue protrusion (‘th’) acts as a nonmanual adverbial morpheme in British Sign Language (BSL) (Brennan 1992; Sutton-Spence & Woll 1999) drawing on narrative data produced by two deaf native signers as part of the European Cultural Heritage Online (ECHO) corpus. Data from ten BSL narratives have been analysed to observe the frequency and form of tongue protrusion. The results from this preliminary investigation indicate tongue protrusion occurs as part of the phonological formation of lexical signs (i.e., ‘echo phonology’, see Woll 2001), as well as a separate meaningful unit that co-occurs (sometimes as part of constructed action) with classifier constructions and lexical verb signs. In the latter cases, the results suggest ‘th’ sometimes appears to function as an adverbial morpheme in BSL, but with a greater variety of meanings than previously suggested in the BSL literature. One use of the adverbial appears similar to a nonmanual signal in American Sign Language described by Liddell (1980), although the form of the mouth gesture in our BSL data differs from what is reported in Liddell’s work. Thus, these findings suggest the mouth gesture ‘th’ in BSL has a broad range of functions. Some uses of tongue protrusion, however, remain difficult to categorise and further research with a larger dataset is needed.

Across sign languages, topic constructions are marked by nonmanual features such as a brow raise and head tilt. This study investigates whether a topic constituent is marked nonmanually in Hong Kong Sign Language. Spontaneous and elicited data show that the majority of ‘scene-setting’ topics, which provide a temporal, spatial or individual framework for the proposition in the sentence, are accompanied with a brow raise and a specific head/body position different from the rest of the sentence. In contrast, ‘aboutness’ topics that represent what a sentence is about are neither marked by nonmanuals consistently nor separated intonationally from the rest of the sentence. Grammatical objects fronted to the sentence-initial position are not marked nonmanually, either. The findings suggest that there are cross-linguistic differences with respect to the functions of nonmanuals in the information structuring of sign languages.

This paper provides an analysis of certain nonmanuals from a semantic perspective with respect to the different types of semantic operators they are associated with. The categories of operators include simple/monadic and tripartite/dyadic. This semantic analysis will explain different phonological spreading among upper face/head nonmanuals: negative headshake, brow lowering, and structurally varied use of brow raise. Negative headshake and [+wh]-question brow lowering spread over their c-command domain. However, brow raise does not spread over its c-command domain, and its spreading domain is harder to characterize. The operator analysis provides a coherent explanation for the spreading domain. This distinction underlies a new analysis of the derived sign understand′, and helps resolve two puzzling issues related to its use: (1) why it has brow raise; and (2) what position it occupies in CP. This solution offers additional evidence in support of the claim that ASL has the spec,CP on the left.

Computer-generated three-dimensional animation holds great promise for synthesizing utterances in American Sign Language (ASL) that are not only grammatical, but well-tolerated by members of the Deaf community. Unfortunately, animation poses several challenges stemming from the necessity of grappling with massive amounts of data. However, the linguistics of ASL may aid in surmounting the challenge by providing structure and rules for organizing animation data. An exploration of the linguistic and extralinguistic behavior of the brows from an animator’s viewpoint yields a new approach for synthesizing nonmanuals that differs from the conventional animation of anatomy and instead offers a different approach for animating the effects of interacting levels of linguistic function. Results of formal testing with Deaf users have indicated that this is a promising approach.