Sign Language & Linguistics - Volume 22, Issue 2, 2019

Abstract

There are two main competing views about the nature of sign language role shift within formal semantics today: Quer (2005) and Schlenker (2017a,b), following now standard analyses of indexical shift in spoken languages, analyze it as a so-called ‘monstrous operator’, while Davidson (2015) and Maier (2017), following more traditional and cognitive approaches, analyze it as a form of quotation. Examples of role shift in which some indexicals are shifted and some unshifted pose a prima facie problem for both approaches. In this paper, we propose a pragmatic principle of attraction to regulate the apparent unshifting/unquoting of indexicals in quotational role shift. The analysis is embedded in a systematic empirical investigation of the predictions of the attraction hypothesis for German Sign Language (DGS). Results for the first and second person pronouns (ix1 and ix2) support the attraction hypothesis, while results for here are inconclusive.

Abstract

This paper provides a description of the distribution of buoys across genres and of their possible functions as discourse markers in French Belgian Sign Language. We selected a sample of dialogic genres – argumentative, explanatory, narrative, and metalinguistic – produced by different signers from the LSFB Corpus. In our dataset, buoys are unequally distributed across genres, and list and fragment buoys are the most frequent. Apart from a pointer and a point buoy, only some list buoys have discourse-marking functions, including enumeration, alternative, and addition. On the basis of the distribution of all types of buoys, the narrative dialogic genre is the most different as compared to the other three genres. It is characterized by a lower frequency of list buoys and a higher frequency of fragment buoys. When focusing on discourse-marking buoys, the explanatory genre attracts the highest number of tokens, which we relate to the higher degree of preparation as compared to the other genres.

Abstract

Little research has been conducted on interrogative constructions in Chinese Sign Language (CSL) based on naturalistic data. This paper presents a comprehensive investigation of CSL interrogative constructions. Based on findings from naturalistic data, both manual and non-manual components of these constructions are described and analyzed, revealing a complex system. Firstly, manual markers in content questions consist of two basic wh-signs, what and how-many, which form two series of wh-compounds for more specific information retrieval. As for the manual marking of CSL polar questions, three types of particles are attested, namely yes, a-not-a, and some negators.

Non-manual markers work as interrogative markers in two ways: morphologically and prosodically. The former way is realized by mouthings, which can be equaled to suprasegmental markers like tones in spoken language. Prosodic non-manual marking is mainly realized by brow movement while head tilt, eye gaze, etc. are excluded as optional. Considering the spread of brow movement, we find that polar questions without particles are predominantly marked by brow raise spreading over the entire sentence, while in interrogatives with manual markers, brow movement seems to be optional, since its frequency is lower and its spreading behavior less regular. CSL is proposed to be a particle-rich sign language, and some speculations are offered on what may cause this behavior.

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