Current issues in sign language

linguistics

Day 3LOT Summer School 2006

Universiteit van AmsterdamJosep Quer (ICREA & UB)

Agreement

• A process whereby “a grammatical element X matches a grammatical element Y in property Z within some grammatical configuration” (Barlow & Ferguson 1988: 1)

SL Verb Typology

• SL verbs seem to fall into three morphosyntactic classes (Padden 1988/1983):– Plain verbs: no agreement– Spatial verbs: agreement with locative arguments

– Agreeing verbs: agreement with subject and object

SL Verb Typology

• Plain verbs

‘think’ (BSL) ‘like’ (BSL)

SL Verb Typology

• Spatial verbs

BSL ASL

SL Verb Typology• Spatial verbs: CUT, PUT-BANDAGE-ON

SL Verb Typology

• Spatial verbs: STAY, MOVE-TO

SL Verb Typology

• Spatial verbs: BE-AT

SL Verb Typology

• Agreeing verbs: they show agreement with subject and object loci by means of the movement path and the facing (orientation of palm and/or fingertips)

• Subtype of agreeing verbs: backwards agreeing verbs (TAKE, STEAL...) vs. regular agreeing verbs (GIVE, HELP...)

SL Verb Typology

• Agreeing verbs (path): GIVE

SL Verb Typology• Agreeing verbs (facing): TAKE-CARE-OF

SL Verb Typology

• Backwards agreeing verbs

BSL

SL Verb Typology

• Backwards verbs: UNDERSTAND

SL Verb Agreement

• Agreeing verbs display agreement with the referential loci associated with their arguments.

• Subject agreement is optional, object agreement is obligatory.

SL Nonmanual Agreement

• For ASL, another type of syntactic agreement has been described: nonmanual agreement with subject and object agreement features, irrespective of the morphological verb type (Neidle et al. 2000, Bahan 1996).

SL Nonmanual Agreement

• Head tilt: subject agreement• Eye gaze: object agreement

Neidle et al. (2000)

SL Nonmanual Agreement

ftp://csr.bu.edu/asl/sequences/compressed/master/ch5-523_273_small_0.mov

SL Nonmanual Agreement

SL Nonmanual Agreement

• Sandler & Lillo-Martin (2006):– Neutral form of subject agreement: body lean, but not always. Untestable.

– Timing of eyegaze and headtilt– Other semantic or pragmatic functions of eyegaze and headtilt.

SL Nonmanual Agreement

• Thompson, Emmorey & Kluender (2006) question the characterization of eye gaze as a grammatical marker of agreement on an experimental basis.

• Eg with agreeing Vs towards object; with plain Vs rarely towards object.

• Eg with spatial Vs towards locative argument

• Plain verbs with null objects not marked by eyegaze.

Referential Indices

• In sign languages, referential indices are expressed directly

• Realization of referential indices by R(eferential) loci (pointing or gazing)

• In agreement verbs, location specifications of R-loci are copied into location slots (2)

• Each referent is paired with a unique location in space

Alliterative Agreement

• Common alliterative agreement (e.g. Swahili):wa-tu wa-zuri wa-wili wa-le wa-meangukaCl2-person Cl2-good Cl2-two Cl2-that Cl2-fell.down

‘Those two good persons fell down.’

• Literal alliterative agreement: part of the controller is copied onto the target (e.g. Bainouk):

kata:ma-no in-ka vs. dapon-no in-dariver-DEF this-CV grass-DEF this-CV‘this river’ ‘this grass’

Rathmann & Mathur (2002)

• No need to provide a phonological specification for a locus: syntax operates with indices, but it’s not until they reach the articulatory-perceptual interface that they have to be matched against some conceptual structure that represents spatial relations among the loci.

• Mediated by a “gestural space as medium” component/module that makes the conceptualization of referents visible.

Verb Agreement

• Meir (1998, 2002): verb class is determined by thematic structure.

• Path movement is from source to goal (thematically determined) while facing of the hands is towards the object (syntactically determined).

• DIR morpheme in agreeing and spatial verbs denotes a path a referent traverses.

• Some candidate agreement verbs may not show agreement overtly for phonological reasons (orientation or location segments underlyingly specified)

Auxiliaries

Properties of SL Auxiliaries

• Express agreement morphology (subject/object)

• Do not realize tense or mood categories

• May realize aspect morphology in some languages

• Mainly cooccur with plain verbs

Cross-linguistic Variation: Form

• Pfau & Steinbach (2005) identify three basic types of auxiliary crosslinguitically in SLs, based on their origin:– Concatenated pronouns– PERSON– Verb (GIVE, MEET, GO-TO)

Type 1TSL

Type 2

DGS

Type 3

NGT

TSL

Auxiliaries: more variation

• LSB AUX-IX:– Never co-occurs with an inflected agreeing verb

– Restricted syntactic position– Cannot inflect for aspect– Pure agreement auxiliary

• LSC AUX-IX:– Can co-occur with an inflected agreeing verb

– Freer syntactic distribution– Can inflect for aspect– Closer to a light verb

LSB Auxiliary

Aixiliary with backward verbs

Null arguments

Acquisition of agreement

• Action gestures + Agreement verbs in neutral forms

• 2-3 years: Countericonic forms: GIVE-2 instead of GIVE-1

• 3;0-3;6: start of correct inflection wrt present referents. Overgeneralizations.

Acquisition of agreement

Acquisition of agreement

• Agreement with non-present referents: second half of 4th year.

• Stacking of loci still in year 5.• In place year 6.• Reason: Limitations of spatial memory? Inflections already learned at year 3.

Agreement and negation in LSB

• Manual negation can intervene between subject and agreeing verb, but not between subject and plain verb:– IX JOHNa NO aGIVEb BOOK– *IX JOHNa NO DESIRE CAR– IX JOHNa DESIRE CAR NO