Deixis, anaphora, and highly iconic structures: Cross-linguistic evidence on American (ASL), French (LSF), and Italian (LIS) signed languages (original) (raw)
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The occurrence of WH-items at the right edge of the sentence, while extremely rare in spoken languages, is quite common in sign languages. In particular, in sign languages like LIS (Italian Sign Language) WH-items cannot be positioned at the left edge. We argue that existing accounts of right-peripheral occurrences of WH-items are empirically inadequate and provide no clue as to why sign languages and spoken languages differ in this respect. We suggest that the occurrence of WH-items at the right edge of the sentence in sign languages be taken at face value: in these languages, WH-phrases undergo rightward movement. Based on data from LIS, we argue that this is due to the fact that WH-NONMANUAL MARKING (NMM) marks the dependency between an interrogative complementizer and the position that the WH-phrase occupies before it moves. The hypothesis that NMM can play this role also accounts for the spreading of negative NMM with LIS negative quantifiers. We discuss how our analysis can be extended to ASL (American Sign Language) and IPSL (Indo-Pakistani Sign Language). Our account is spelled out in the principlesand-parameters framework. In the last part of the article, we relate our proposal to recent work on prosody in spoken languages showing that WH-dependencies can be prosodically marked in spoken languages. Overt movement and prosodic marking of the WH-dependency do not normally cooccur in spoken languages, while they are possible in sign languages. We propose that this is due to the fact that sign languages, unlike spoken languages, are multidimensional.*
Wilcox & Occhino (2016) Constructing signs: Place as a symbolic structure in signed languages
Cognitive Linguistics, 2016
This paper presents a usage-based, Cognitive Grammar analysis of Place as a symbolic structure in signed languages. We suggest that many signs are better viewed as constructions in which schematic or specific formal properties are extracted from usage events alongside specific or schematic meaning. We argue that pointing signs are complex constructions composed of a pointing device and a Place, each of which are symbolic structures having form and meaning. We extend our analysis to antecedent-anaphora constructions and directional verb constructions. Finally, we discuss how the usage-based approach suggests a new way of understanding the relationship between language and gesture.
Advances in the study of signed languages within a cognitive perspective
Hesperia: Anuario de Filología Hispánica, 2020
In this paper we describe a cognitive grammar approach to the study of signed language grammar. Using data from different signed languages, we explore three broad topics. First, we examine pointing, Place, and placing. We analyze pointing as a construction consisting of a pointing device, a symbolic structure which directs the interlocutor’s conceptual attention, and a Place, a symbolic structure consisting of a spatial location and a meaning, the focus of attention. Placing is a construction in which non-body anchored signs are placed at a location in space, thereby creating or recruiting a Place structure which can be used in subsequent discourse. We examine how these structures work in nominal grounding and in extended discourse. Second, we examine a cognitive grammar approach to grammatical modality. Our analysis is based on the cognitive model called the control cycle, which posits two types of control: effective, which describes our striving to influence what happens in the wo...
Italian Sign Language relatives: A contribution to the typology of relativization strategies
Liptàk, A.(a cura di), On Correlatives. Amsterdam: North …
Italian Sign Language displays a dedicated structure expressing relativization: a biclausal construction made of an embedded clause containing the antecedent, followed by a main clause containing a gap or a pronoun coreferent with the antecedent. This paper compares two possible analyses for such a construction: as a correlative structure, as recently proposed by , or as a non correlative internally headed relative clause. Evidence for the nominal status of the clause, for its extraposition, and for the trace nature of the gap in the main clause is provided and discussed leading to the conclusion that the noncorrelative analysis is more suitable. As for their interpretative status, we argue that PE-clauses are restrictive at the light of a battery of diagnostics.
Strategies of relativization in Italian Sign Language
Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 2006
We discuss a construction of Italian Sign Language (LIS) that we call PROREL clauses. This construction is used to translate Italian relative clauses by native signers of Italian Sign Language. We show, however, that it differs from Italian relative clauses both syntactically and semantically. From a syntactic standpoint, we argue that PROREL clauses are correlative constructions on a par with left-adjoined relative clauses investigated for Hindi by Dayal (1996). On the semantic side, we argue however that, unlike Hindi correlatives, PROREL clauses lack restrictive interpretations and are interpreted instead as subject-predicate structures. In this respect, they are similar to Japanese internally-headed relative clauses (IHRCs) investigated by Shimoyama (1999). We propose that, like Japanese IHRCs in Shimoyama's proposal, PROREL clauses are related to the main clause via e-type anaphora.
The categorical role of structurally iconic signs
Goldin-Meadow and Brentari argue that iconic and imagistic forms employed during sign language use are often better characterized as gesture than as a categorical part of sign language itself. This view is undoubtedly correct in some cases. However “structural iconicity,” in which an (abstract) iconic mapping exists between logical structure and superficial form (Schlenker 2015), is somewhat problematic for the theory espoused by Goldin-Meadow and Brentari. We consider two specific cases demonstrating that structurally iconic properties of Italian Sign Language (LIS) would be better analyzed as a categorical part of the linguistic system as opposed to being “mere” gesture: (1) Aspectual marking – in which morphemes denoting logical culmination are necessarily accompanied by salient movement boundaries in the sign itself and (2) Comparative constructions in which locations or handshape aperture changes denotes different degrees along a given dimension (e.g. differing degrees of completeness, size, etc…). Both grammatical devices clearly involve structurally iconic signs, but these signs nevertheless play a key role in determining the grammar of LIS. Thus they are better analyzed as being a categorical part of the language as opposed to being mere gestures. One piece of evidence comes from an analysis of complementary vs. free alternation of lexicalized signs (e.g. independently realized aspectual markers and analytic comparative constructions). We go on to consider, more generally, the types of evidence that should be used to adjudicate whether or not a given iconic sign is part of the categorical structure language. We argue that detailed linguistic analyses of this sort should take priority over empirical evidence demonstrating overlap between co-speech gestures produced by users of spoken language and gestural/signing forms produced by users of sign language (e.g. Duncan, 2005). Thus we claim that even though recent evidence (Strickland et al., 2015) suggests that non-signers would likely produce aspectual gestures similar in form to the aspectual morphemes found in LIS, this should not be interpreted as evidence that the iconic signs in LIS are mere gesture. Instead researchers should be open to the possibility that a single competence (mapping fully structured logical forms to kinematic properties of hand movements) can simultaneously but independently influence signing/speech systems and gestural systems.
On the cardinal system in Italian Sign Language (LIS)
Journal of Linguistics, 2019
This paper offers a comprehensive discussion of the cardinal numeral system of Italian Sign Language. At the lexical level, we present the different formational strategies used to generate cardinal numerals and we provide evidence that in the younger generations of signers, the sign one has lost the function of indefinite determiner and is now used as a cardinal only. At the syntactic level, we show that the attested variation in the ordering between the cardinal and the noun is in part due to definiteness and contrastive focus. We account for this variation within the cartographic approach to syntax. Finally, we offer a principled explanation for the reason why cardinals inside Measure Phrases are not subject to word order variation, but always precede the measure noun.
Sign languages, after having being confined for years at the borders of core linguistic research, often associated to the study of pathologies or as a matter of applied linguistics, have gained in recent times the center of the international debate, especially among linguists investigating language variation and language universals. It is in fact clear that, once it has been widely demonstrated that they are indeed complete languages, endowed with the same potentialities and the same fundamental structures (cf. Stokoe 1960; Liddell 1980 a.o.), and even acquired through the same phases (Newport 1990; Petitto 1987; Petitto and Marentette 1991a.o.) and generated by the same neurological structures as spoken languages (cf. Emmorey 2002, Poizner, Klima and Bellugi 1987 and the references therein), sign languages raise an important challenge to any research aiming at defining language universals: many hypotheses initially formulated on the exclusive basis of the observation of spoken languages need to be verified in the light of what we know about sign languages; universal principles need to be reformulated in a more abstract way (see Sandler and Lillo-Martin 2006 and the references therein); it is the very idea of human language that gets modified by the impact of this important reality: no more intrinsically and necessarily tied to the acoustic-articulatory modality, but rather more abstract and ductile, in its ability to adapt in a * The research that is discussed in this chapter was achieved through the joint work of many people that do
Nominal Modification in Italian Sign Language
Nominal Modification in Italian Sign Language, 2017
This book is a revised version of my 2015 dissertation which was approved for the PhD degree in Linguistics at Ca' Foscari University of Venice. When I first plunged into the world of academic research, almost five years ago, I would never have imagined it was possible to achieve such an important milestone. Being so close to finalizing this book, I would like to look back briefly and remember and thank all the people who showed me the way, supported me, and encouraged me to grow both academically and personally. First and foremost, I would like to thank Carlo Geraci and Anna Cardinaletti for guiding me through my PhD project. I thank them both for having supported me with great professionalism throughout the process, and for providing me with a wealth of knowledge and skills. I am deeply grateful to Carlo Geraci, the first person who talked to me about the chance to start this new experience and saw my potential before anyone else. Despite the geographical distance between us, I could count on him during all the stages of this work. With unceasing dedication, he was always ready to address my doubts and correct my mistakes. His rigorous scientific methodology and technical expertise inspired me and gave me confidence. I would like to express my gratitude to Anna Cardinaletti because she has been a constant reference point in Venice. With patience and understanding, she was always willing to take into consideration my ideas-sometimes expressed in a confused way-and she helped me develop convincing arguments to sustain them. I am also very grateful to Roland Pfau, Carlo Cecchetto, Natasha Abner, and Caterina Donati for having perused and evaluated this work. Their sharp observations and useful suggestions guided me during the whole revision process and helped me improve both the content and the general form of this work. Deep gratitude must be expressed to Annika Herrmann, Markus Steinbach, and the other members of the editorial staff for giving me the valuable opportunity to turn my PhD thesis into this book for the Sign Languages and Deaf Communities (SLDC) series. Special thanks go to all my LIS informants without whom a key part of this work would have not seen the light of day: Mirko Santoro, Gabriele Caia, Rosella Ottolini, and Fabio Scarpa. In particular, I thank them for their great helpfulness, willingness to collaborate, and friendship. I wish to thank Luca Des Dorides for having provided me with historical details concerning the Deaf community.
The syntax of nominal modification in Italian Sign Language (LIS)
Sign Language and Linguistics, 2017
In this paper, we investigate structural aspects of nominal modification in Italian Sign Language (LIS), a language with a relatively flexible word order. In order to tackle the issue, this study combines different approaches, including generalizations from typological universals on word order, their formal counterparts, and a variationist approach to language facts. Data come from the largest corpus of LIS currently available. Despite the absence of categorical rules, our mixed approach shows that LIS data are consistent with the general tenets of nominal modification. Results from the statistical analysis indicate that the attested language-internal variability is constrained both by linguistic and social factors. Specifically, a fine-grained structure of nominal modification is able to capture the internal variability of LIS. Processing effects, age, gender, and early exposure to the language also play a relevant role in determining order preferences.