Sign Language & Linguistics - Volume 23, Issue 1-2, 2020

Abstract

Sign languages are frequently described as having three verb classes. One, ‘agreeing’ verbs, indicates the person/number of its subject and object by modification of the beginning and ending locations of the verb. The second, ‘spatial’ verbs, makes a similar appearing modification of verb movement to represent the source and goal locations of the theme of a verb of motion. The third class, ‘plain’ verbs, is characterized as having neither of these types of modulations. A number of researchers have proposed accounts that collapse all of these types, or the person-agreeing and spatial verbs. Here we present evidence from late learners of American Sign Language and from the emergence of new sign languages that person agreement and locative agreement have a different status in these conditions, and we claim their analysis should be kept distinct, at least in certain ways.

Abstract

This paper investigates how systematically a young macro-community sign language, Kenyan Sign Language, uses two different means to communicate about events: (i) word order, and (ii) verb agreement using spatial co-reference. The study finds that KSL signers rely primarily on word order and using the body as a referent, rather than verb agreement, when representing transitive events. Yet, by looking separately at how KSL signers use the sub-components of verb agreement, a pattern emerges that indicates a possible path toward ‘canonical verb agreement’. These sub-components are evaluated using Meir’s stages/types of grammaticalization of verb agreement (Meir 2011, 2016), and compared with other young and emerging sign languages.

Abstract

Observations that iconicity diminishes over time in sign languages (Frishberg 1975) pose a puzzle: Why should something so evidently useful and functional decrease? Using an archival dataset of signs elicited over 15 years from 4 first-cohort and 4 third-cohort signers of an emerging sign language (Nicaraguan Sign Language), we investigated changes in pantomimic (body-to-body) and perceptual (body-to-object) iconicity. We make three key observations: (1) there is greater variability in the signs produced by the first cohort compared to the third; (2) while both types of iconicity are evident, pantomimic iconicity is more prevalent than perceptual iconicity for both groups; and (3) across cohorts, pantomimic elements are dropped to a greater proportion than perceptual elements. The higher rate of pantomimic iconicity in the first-cohort lexicon reflects the usefulness of body-as-body mapping in language creation. Yet, its greater vulnerability to change over transmission suggests that it is less favored by children’s language acquisition processes.

Abstract

Meir’s (2010) Double Mapping Constraint (DMC) states the use of iconic signs in metaphors is restricted to signs that preserve the structural correspondence between the articulators and the concrete source domain and between the concrete and metaphorical domains. We investigated ASL signers’ comprehension of English metaphors whose translations complied with the DMC (Communication collapsed during the meeting) or violated the DMC (The acid ate the metal). Metaphors were preceded by the ASL translation of the English verb, an unrelated sign, or a still video. Participants made sensibility judgments. Response times (RTs) were faster for DMC-Compliant sentences with verb primes compared to unrelated primes or the still baseline. RTs for DMC-Violation sentences were longer when preceded by verb primes. We propose the structured iconicity of the ASL verbs primed the semantic features involved in the iconic mapping and these primed semantic features facilitated comprehension of DMC-Compliant metaphors and slowed comprehension of DMC-Violation metaphors.

Abstract

We analyze sign locations in 776 signs from 16 antonym pairs across 27 sign languages to examine metaphorical mappings of emotional valence (positive vs. negative) along different spatial axes. We conduct both an automatic and a manual analysis of sign location and movement direction, to investigate cross-linguistic patterns of spatial valence contrasts. Contrary to our hypothesis, negative valence concepts are generally articulated higher up than their positive counterparts. However, when we consider movement in space, we find that although signs generally move downward over time, positive valence concepts are associated with upward movements more often than their negative counterparts. This points to a systematic pattern for vertical valence contrasts – a known metaphor across languages – iconically mapped onto physical sign articulation. We similarly, but surprisingly, find a difference in movements along the sagittal axis, such that outward movement is associated with positive valence concepts more often than negative.

Abstract

Demonstratives provide an important link between gesture, discourse and grammar due to their communicative function to coordinate the interlocutor’s focus of attention. This underlies their frequent cross-linguistic development into a wide range of function words and morphemes (Diessel 1999). The present study provides evidence for a link between gesture and grammar by tracking diachronic development of a relative clause marker in Israeli Sign Language (ISL) restrictive relative clauses, which starts as a gestural locative pointing sign, and grammaticalizes into a relative pronoun connecting relative and main clauses and agreeing with referent loci, and then into an invariant relativizer. Diachronic changes are inferred from the data collected from three generations of signers. The results reveal that the behavior of demonstratives in the data varied with the signers’ ages according to four diagnostic criteria of grammaticalization (e.g., Hopper & Traugott 2003): increased systematicity, distributional and morphological changes, and phonetic reduction.

Abstract

We investigate how predicates expressing symmetry, asymmetry and non-symmetry are encoded in a newly emerging sign language, Central Taurus Sign Language (CTSL). We find that predicates involving symmetry (i.e., reciprocal and symmetrical actions) differ from those involving asymmetry (i.e., transitive) in their use of the morphological devices investigated here: body segmentation, mirror-image articulators and double perspective. Symmetrical predicates also differ from non-symmetrical ones (i.e., intransitive) in their use of mirror-image configuration. Furthermore, reciprocal actions are temporally sequenced within a linear structure, whereas symmetrical actions are not. Thus, our data reveal that CTSL expresses each type of action with a particular combination of linguistic devices to encode symmetry, asymmetry, and non-symmetry. Furthermore, differences in the use of these devices across age cohorts of CTSL suggest that some have become more conventionalized over time. The same semantic distinctions have been observed – though with different realization – in another emerging sign language, Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL). This converging suggests that natural human language learning capacities include an expectation to distinguish symmetry, asymmetry and non-symmetry.

Abstract

Compounding, as a nearly universal word-formation process that is very useful in emerging languages, might be expected to conventionalize early in a language’s history. However, a recent study focusing on novel compounding in ISL and ABSL found that this may not be the case, and moreover, that the two languages appear to differ in how compounding is conventionalizing (Tkachman & Meir 2018). In this paper, we follow up on their findings, using six new measures to further evaluate lexical and structural conventionalization in the same set of novel compounds elicited by Tkachman & Meir (2018). We found that ISL shows more lexical convergence, whereas ABSL shows more structural convergence. We propose that the differences in conventionalization we observe can be linked to the different social circumstances of these languages (Meir et al. 2010).

Abstract

In the study of sign language phonology, little attention has been paid to the phonetic detail that distinguishes one sign language from another. We approach this issue by studying the foreign accent of signers of a young sign language – Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL) – which is in contact with another sign language in the region, Israeli Sign Language (ISL). By comparing ISL signs and sentences produced by ABSL signers with those of ISL signers, we uncover language particular features at a level of detail typically overlooked in sign language research. For example, within signs we find reduced occlusion (lack of contact), and across phrases there is frequent long distance spreading of the nondominant hand. This novel study of an emerging language in a language contact environment provides a model for comparative sign language phonology, and suggests that a community’s signature accent is part of the evolution of a phonological system.

Abstract

Humans can use language to refer to and describe endless varieties of situations, thoughts, ideas, and topics, actual or hypothetical. This capacity, which distinguishes human language from communication systems of other animals, is referred to here as topic-open-endedness. A key factor in explaining topic-open-endedness early in the life of a new sign language is the nature of the linguistic symbols, the words, and the human ability to extend their meanings – e.g., through metonymy and metaphor – to novel semantic domains, applying a finite lexicon to infinite situations and topics. Other early language properties such as predication and negation facilitate creativity and flexibility from the beginning. The property of recursion accounts for the creation of an infinite number of sentences from a finite set of words and rules. But it cannot account for the open-endedness of the contents of those sentences. Therefore, the importance attributed to recursion as the sole mechanism that is uniquely human is overrated.

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