Sign Language & Linguistics - Volume 2, Issue 1, 1999

Previous approaches to explaining brow raise behavior in American Sign Language (ASL) have claimed that it performs a semantic or pragmatic function, such as indicating that information is presupposed, given, or otherwise not asserted. However we show that this explanation cannot be extended to all the data. The commonality among all the structures that have ‘br’ marking is that the ‘br’ shows up in A'-positions associated with [-wh] operator features. These operators are semantically restrictive. Furthermore, the domain of ‘br’ spreading is the checking domain of the [-wh] feature, in contrast with c-command domain associated with [+wh] and [+neg] features. The three distinctive ASL brow positions, raised, furrowed, and neutral, are each associated with a different operator situation, [-wh], [+wh], and none, respectively. In sum, ‘br’-marking is clearly associated with syntactic structures that are related only indirectly with specific semantic, pragmatic, or discourse factors.

In this paper I argue for the existence of an aspectual marker in Israeli Sign Language (ISL) denoting perfect constructions. This marker is the sign glossed as ALREADY. Though this sign often occurs in past time contexts, I argue that it is a perfect-aspect marker and not a past tense marker. This claim is supported by the following observations: (a) ALREADY can co-occur with past, present and future time adverbials; (b) its core meaning is to relate a resultant state to a prior event; (c) it occurs much more in dialogues than in narrative contexts. Further examination of the properties and functions of ALREADY in the language reveals that it shares many properties with perfect constructions in other languages. In addition, it is shown that the co-occurrence of ALREADY with various time adverbials, as well as with the durational aspectual modulation, gives rise to a rich aspectual system in the language. This aspectual system is compared to similar systems in other languages. The ISL system turns out to be very different from that of Hebrew on the one hand, while showing significant similarities to that of ASL. However, there are also some differences between ISL and ASL aspectual markers, which might be due to the relative youth of ISL, and to the different source for the aspectual marker: a verbin the case of ASL, and an adverb in ISL.