Sign Linguistics Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Signed languages employ finely articulated facial displays to express grammatical meanings (Pfau and Quer 2010; Reilly 2006, Wilbur 2000, Dachkovsky and Sandler 2009). Lackner (2019), for example, identifies three major areas — face, mouth, head — capable of articulating more than 100 nonmanual elements expressing such functions as mood and modality, complex propositions (conditionals, causal relations, complementation), information structure (topic, focus), assertions, content and yes/no questions, imperatives, miratives, and so on. Mouth movements in the lower part of the face, on the one hand, and eyebrows’ muscle activities, on the other hand, are very common in expression of grammatical meanings in different signed languages. Two facial markers which are widely involved in sign grammar are horseshoe mouth and brow furrow.
Lowered corners of the mouth, or horseshoe mouth, is a common facial marker which appears in many diverse contexts. For example, horseshoe mouth is quite frequent in expressing modality and assertive propositions in Iranian Sign Language and some other signed languages. Brow furrow, which results in a distinct vertical line between the eyebrows, is a very common marker in interrogatives and imperatives across different signed languages.