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How many seats in a chair? The derivation of nouns and verbs in American Sign Language

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... Este artigo aborda um fenômeno linguístico estudado em outras línguas de sinais, como a ASL (Supalla, Newport, 1978), AUSLAN ( Johnston, 2001), entre outras, como a RSL (Russian Sign Language), a LIS (Italian Sign Language) (Abner, 2021): a categorização de palavras na Libras, mais especificamente o caso de nomes 1 (N) e verbos (V), definidos pelo processo morfológico de derivação. ...
... Dentre as línguas de sinais já investigadas, o estudo de Supalla e Newport (1978) demonstra que a ASL marca a derivação e a distinção de nomes e verbos morfofonologicamente, ou seja, uma alteração no parâmetro fonológico movimento (M) distingue nomes de verbos. Supalla e Newport (1978) ...
... A fim de respeitar e seguir a nomenclatura adotada em outras pesquisas de línguas de sinais, como a deSupalla e Newport (1978), além de outras referências, comoQuadros e Karnopp (2004), optamos por usar nome sempre que estivermos tratando de substantivos em línguas de sinais. ...
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Este artigo investiga a distinção morfofonológica entre nomes e verbos na Língua Brasileira de Sinais (Libras), fenômeno investigado em outras línguas de sinais, como a American Sign Language (ASL) e a Australian Sign Language (AUSLAN). O parâmetro movimento desses sinais foi analisado em contexto morfossintático para descrever se existe uma distinção morfofonológica baseada na repetição de parâmetros fonológicos (Quadros e Karnopp, 2004; Sobrinho, 2022) ou interpretação morfossintática (Minussi e Takahira, 2013; Almeida-Silva, 2019; Santos, 2020) entre substantivos e verbos. Isso significa que um fenômeno da morfologia e suas interfaces foi analisado. Para isso, foram observados dados de produção espontânea da língua, coletados do Corpus da Libras UFSC, da Grande Florianópolis. A fim de determinar a categoria gramatical dos sinais analisados, optamos por coletar sinais em unidades sintáticas, com foco para estruturas em que a grade argumental do elemento que estrutura o sintagma permitiu minimizar ambiguidades. Também buscamos observar o mouthing como possível elemento fonológico categorizador. Os resultados da análise indicaram inconsistência ao associar o processo morfológico de derivação ao movimento, pois a maior parte dos dados não apresentou o movimento esperado, corroborando os achados de investigações anteriores. As ocorrências do mouthing também não demonstram relevância para o fenômeno. Portanto, compreendemos que a distinção entre nomes e verbos é interpretada morfossintaticamente. Além disso, embora as variáveis sociolinguísticas possam ser outra explicação para o fenômeno, dados de outras investigações corroboram os resultados encontrados.
... Este artigo aborda um fenômeno linguístico estudado em outras línguas de sinais, como a ASL (Supalla, Newport, 1978), AUSLAN ( Johnston, 2001), entre outras, como a RSL (Russian Sign Language), a LIS (Italian Sign Language) (Abner, 2021): a categorização de palavras na Libras, mais especificamente o caso de nomes 1 (N) e verbos (V), definidos pelo processo morfológico de derivação. ...
... Dentre as línguas de sinais já investigadas, o estudo de Supalla e Newport (1978) demonstra que a ASL marca a derivação e a distinção de nomes e verbos morfofonologicamente, ou seja, uma alteração no parâmetro fonológico movimento (M) distingue nomes de verbos. Supalla e Newport (1978) ...
... A fim de respeitar e seguir a nomenclatura adotada em outras pesquisas de línguas de sinais, como a deSupalla e Newport (1978), além de outras referências, comoQuadros e Karnopp (2004), optamos por usar nome sempre que estivermos tratando de substantivos em línguas de sinais. ...
Article
Full-text available
Este artigo investiga a distinção morfofonológica entre nomes e verbos na Língua Brasileira de Sinais (Libras), fenômeno investigado em outras línguas de sinais, como a American Sign Language (ASL) e a Australian Sign Language (AUSLAN). O parâmetro movimento desses sinais foi analisado em contexto morfossintático para descrever se existe uma distinção morfofonológica baseada na repetição de parâmetros fonológicos (Quadros e Karnopp, 2004; Sobrinho, 2022) ou interpretação morfossintática (Minussi e Takahira, 2013; Almeida-Silva, 2019; Santos, 2020) entre substantivos e verbos. Isso significa que um fenômeno da morfologia e suas interfaces foi analisado. Para isso, foram observados dados de produção espontânea da língua, coletados do Corpus da Libras UFSC, da Grande Florianópolis. A fim de determinar a categoria gramatical dos sinais analisados, optamos por coletar sinais em unidades sintáticas, com foco para estruturas em que a grade argumental do elemento que estrutura o sintagma permitiu minimizar ambiguidades. Também buscamos observar o mouthing como possível elemento fonológico categorizador. Os resultados da análise indicaram inconsistência ao associar o processo morfológico de derivação ao movimento, pois a maior parte dos dados não apresentou o movimento esperado, corroborando os achados de investigações anteriores. As ocorrências do mouthing também não demonstram relevância para o fenômeno. Portanto, compreendemos que a distinção entre nomes e verbos é interpretada morfossintaticamente. Além disso, embora as variáveis sociolinguísticas possam ser outra explicação para o fenômeno, dados de outras investigações corroboram os resultados encontrados.
... Both within and across sign languages, nouns can be derived from verbs through a variety of methods, including changing mouthing (Johnston, 2001), combining multiple signs (Tkachman & Sandler, 2013), and changing the morphophonological structure of the verb, including modifying the handshape or movement of the sign (Abner, 2017, Kimmelman, Klezovich, & Moroz, 2018Padden et al., 2015). Reduplication of the verb is a robust form of noun derivation in sign languages (Abner, 2017;Supalla & Newport, 1978). Accompanying the reduplication of a signed verb is a change in the quality of sign movement such that the movement of the noun is smaller and more restrained relative to the verb, leading to a shorter articulation time (Hunger, 2006). ...
... Accompanying the reduplication of a signed verb is a change in the quality of sign movement such that the movement of the noun is smaller and more restrained relative to the verb, leading to a shorter articulation time (Hunger, 2006). The contrastive use of reduplication and movement size is applied to only those verbs that have a single movement, typically perfective verbs which have a "clear spatial endpoint" and are noniterative, for example, FLY-BY-AIRPLANE, SIT (Supalla & Newport, 1978). Reduplication, however, cannot be the only means of noun derivation, as reduplicated movement can be applied to verbs in sign languages to convey additional semantic information such as event duration, telicity (whether or not an action is completed), and event frequency (Supalla & Newport, 1978). ...
... The contrastive use of reduplication and movement size is applied to only those verbs that have a single movement, typically perfective verbs which have a "clear spatial endpoint" and are noniterative, for example, FLY-BY-AIRPLANE, SIT (Supalla & Newport, 1978). Reduplication, however, cannot be the only means of noun derivation, as reduplicated movement can be applied to verbs in sign languages to convey additional semantic information such as event duration, telicity (whether or not an action is completed), and event frequency (Supalla & Newport, 1978). Imperfective verbs, for example, are expressed with a reduplicated large movement (e.g., PEDAL_A_BIKE, SWEEP), and their derived nouns are articulated with the same, but reduced, reduplicated movement. ...
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Across sign languages, nouns can be derived from verbs through morphophonological changes in movement by (1) movement reduplication and size reduction or (2) size reduction alone. We asked whether these cross-linguistic similarities arise from cognitive biases in how humans construe objects and actions. We tested nonsigners’ sensitivity to differences in noun–verb pairs in American Sign Language (ASL) by asking MTurk workers to match images of actions and objects to videos of ASL noun–verb pairs. Experiment 1a’s match-to-sample paradigm revealed that nonsigners interpreted all signs, regardless of lexical class, as actions. The remaining experiments used a forced-matching procedure to avoid this bias. Counter our predictions, nonsigners associated reduplicated movement with actions not objects (inversing the sign language pattern) and exhibited a minimal bias to associate large movements with actions (as found in sign languages). Whether signs had pantomimic iconicity did not alter nonsigners’ judgments. We speculate that the morphophonological distinctions in noun–verb pairs observed in sign languages did not emerge as a result of cognitive biases, but rather as a result of the linguistic pressures of a growing lexicon and the use of space for verbal morphology. Such pressures may override an initial bias to map reduplicated movement to actions, but nevertheless reflect new iconic mappings shaped by linguistic and cognitive experiences.
... For example, verb and noun signs can be distinguished by size or length of movement: verbs tend to be articulated with a larger movement (Kimmelman 2009;Pizzuto and Corazza 1996), or longer duration (Hunger 2006;Pizzuto and Corazza 1996) than nouns. They can also be distinguished by the manner of movement: verbs may be articulated with continuous movement while nouns are articulated with more restrained movement in both American Sign Language (ASL) and Australian Sign Language (Auslan) (Johnston 2001;Supalla and Newport 1978). In addition, nouns in both ASL and Auslan, as well as Russian Sign Language, tend to be articulated with repeated movements, whereas verbs exhibit variability based on their meaning (Johnston 2001;Kimmelman 2009;Supalla and Newport 1978). ...
... They can also be distinguished by the manner of movement: verbs may be articulated with continuous movement while nouns are articulated with more restrained movement in both American Sign Language (ASL) and Australian Sign Language (Auslan) (Johnston 2001;Supalla and Newport 1978). In addition, nouns in both ASL and Auslan, as well as Russian Sign Language, tend to be articulated with repeated movements, whereas verbs exhibit variability based on their meaning (Johnston 2001;Kimmelman 2009;Supalla and Newport 1978). Finally, sign languages such as British Sign Language (BSL) can borrow mouthings from the ambient spoken language, and use these mouthings to distinguish nominal and verbal forms, with noun forms more likely to be accompanied by mouthing than verb forms in some languages (Hunger 2006;Johnston 2001;Kimmelman 2009;Tkachman and Sandler 2013). ...
... This iconic relationship has been suggested in particular to relate to the event structure of the verb (Wilbur 2003). Supalla and Newport (1978) observed that, while nouns in noun-verb form pairs are consistently distinguished in the same way, the specific form of the verb will depend on the properties of its event structure, consistent with the Event Visibility Hypothesis, which states that formal properties of predicates in sign languages reflect the semantics of event structure. For example, Tkachman and Sandler (2013) suggest that the continuous/restrained mapping for the manner of movement to verbs and nouns, respectively, represents a mapping of continuous and temporal aspects of the event structure of verbal forms. ...
Article
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The noun–verb distinction has long been considered a fundamental property of human language, and has been found in some form even in the earliest stages of language emergence, including homesign and the early generations of emerging sign languages. We present two experimental studies that use silent gesture to investigate how noun–verb distinctions develop in the manual modality through two key processes: (i) improvising using novel signals by individuals, and (ii) using those signals in the interaction between communicators. We operationalise communicative interaction in two ways: a setting in which members of the dyad were in separate booths and were given a comprehension test after each stimulus vs. a more naturalistic face-to-face conversation without comprehension checks. There were few differences between the two conditions, highlighting the robustness of the paradigm. Our findings from both experiments reflect patterns found in naturally emerging sign languages. Some formal distinctions arise in the earliest stages of improvisation and do not require interaction to develop. However, the full range of formal distinctions between nouns and verbs found in naturally emerging language did not appear with either improvisation or interaction, suggesting that transmitting the language to a new generation of learners might be necessary for these properties to emerge.
... Os esforços que vêm sendo realizados nesse sentido pelos especialistas, tanto no que diz respeito às línguas faladas (HARTMANN 1983;HARTMANN;JAMES TradTerm, São Paulo, v.45, p. (STOKOE 1960;BATTISON 1974;FRIEDMAN 1975;BAKER-SHENK;COKELY 1980 Com relação às línguas de sinais, de acordo com alguns autores (STOKOE 1960(STOKOE , 1965KLIMA;BELLUGI 1979;SUPALLA;NEWPORT 1978;WALLIN 1996) ...
... Os esforços que vêm sendo realizados nesse sentido pelos especialistas, tanto no que diz respeito às línguas faladas (HARTMANN 1983;HARTMANN;JAMES TradTerm, São Paulo, v.45, p. (STOKOE 1960;BATTISON 1974;FRIEDMAN 1975;BAKER-SHENK;COKELY 1980 Com relação às línguas de sinais, de acordo com alguns autores (STOKOE 1960(STOKOE , 1965KLIMA;BELLUGI 1979;SUPALLA;NEWPORT 1978;WALLIN 1996) ...
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Resumo: Este artigo apresenta resultados de uma pesquisa relacionada à construção de um modelo de dicionário on-line monolíngue para a Libras. Para tanto, foram analisados os parâmetros que compõem os sinais da Libras, os mecanismos linguísticos e relacionamentos nos níveis morfofonético, morfossintático e semântico-lexical. Além disso, foram observados critérios úteis e necessários, não apenas no que diz respeito à organização de um dicionário, mas também no que tange às suas estruturas (macro e micro) internas. A ideia que orientou esta pesquisa se baseou na proposição de um modelo de dicionário que fosse de uso mais intuitivo para seus usuários, sobretudo a comunidade surda. Embora o dicionário esteja em construção, os resultados já obtidos relacionam-se aos critérios delineados para a organização das estruturas internas (macro e microestrutura), destacando-se a fase avançada de especificação e de modelagem, seguida pela discussão de questões computacionais relacionadas à implementação do produto. Abstract: This article presents results of research related to the construction of a monolingual online dictionary model for Libras. To this end, the parameters that make up the signs of Libras, the linguistic mechanisms and relationships at the morphophonetic, morphosyntactic and semantic-lexical levels were analyzed. Furthermore, useful and necessary criteria were observed, not only with regard to the organization of a dictionary, but also with regard to its internal (macro and micro) structures. The idea that guided this research was based on proposing a dictionary model that would be more intuitive to use for its users, especially the deaf community. Although the dictionary is under construction, the results already obtained are related to the criteria outlined for the organization of internal structures (macro and microstructure), highlighting the advanced specification and modeling phase, followed by the discussion of computational issues related to implementation of product.
... Os esforços que vêm sendo realizados nesse sentido pelos especialistas, tanto no que diz respeito às línguas faladas (HARTMANN 1983;HARTMANN;JAMES TradTerm, São Paulo, v.45, p. (STOKOE 1960;BATTISON 1974;FRIEDMAN 1975;BAKER-SHENK;COKELY 1980 Com relação às línguas de sinais, de acordo com alguns autores (STOKOE 1960(STOKOE , 1965KLIMA;BELLUGI 1979;SUPALLA;NEWPORT 1978;WALLIN 1996) ...
... Os esforços que vêm sendo realizados nesse sentido pelos especialistas, tanto no que diz respeito às línguas faladas (HARTMANN 1983;HARTMANN;JAMES TradTerm, São Paulo, v.45, p. (STOKOE 1960;BATTISON 1974;FRIEDMAN 1975;BAKER-SHENK;COKELY 1980 Com relação às línguas de sinais, de acordo com alguns autores (STOKOE 1960(STOKOE , 1965KLIMA;BELLUGI 1979;SUPALLA;NEWPORT 1978;WALLIN 1996) ...
Chapter
Full-text available
Abstract: This article presents results of research related to the construction of a monolingual online dictionary model for Libras. To this end, the parameters that make up the signs of Libras, the linguistic mechanisms and relationships at the morphophonetic, morphosyntactic and semantic-lexical levels were analyzed. Furthermore, useful and necessary criteria were observed, not only with regard to the organization of a dictionary, but also with regard to its internal (macro and micro) structures. The idea that guided this research was based on proposing a dictionary model that would be more intuitive to use for its users, especially the deaf community. Although the dictionary is under construction, the results already obtained are related to the criteria outlined for the organization of internal structures (macro and microstructure), highlighting the advanced specification and modeling phase, followed by the discussion of computational issues related to implementation of product.
... Os esforços que vêm sendo realizados nesse sentido pelos especialistas, tanto no que diz respeito às línguas faladas (HARTMANN 1983;HARTMANN;JAMES TradTerm, São Paulo, v.45, p. (STOKOE 1960;BATTISON 1974;FRIEDMAN 1975;BAKER-SHENK;COKELY 1980 Com relação às línguas de sinais, de acordo com alguns autores (STOKOE 1960(STOKOE , 1965KLIMA;BELLUGI 1979;SUPALLA;NEWPORT 1978;WALLIN 1996) ...
... Os esforços que vêm sendo realizados nesse sentido pelos especialistas, tanto no que diz respeito às línguas faladas (HARTMANN 1983;HARTMANN;JAMES TradTerm, São Paulo, v.45, p. (STOKOE 1960;BATTISON 1974;FRIEDMAN 1975;BAKER-SHENK;COKELY 1980 Com relação às línguas de sinais, de acordo com alguns autores (STOKOE 1960(STOKOE , 1965KLIMA;BELLUGI 1979;SUPALLA;NEWPORT 1978;WALLIN 1996) ...
Chapter
Full-text available
Abstract: This article presents results of research related to the construction of a monolingual online dictionary model for Libras. To this end, the parameters that make up the signs of Libras, the linguistic mechanisms and relationships at the morphophonetic, morphosyntactic and semantic-lexical levels were analyzed. Furthermore, useful and necessary criteria were observed, not only with regard to the organization of a dictionary, but also with regard to its internal (macro and micro) structures. The idea that guided this research was based on proposing a dictionary model that would be more intuitive to use for its users, especially the deaf community. Although the dictionary is under construction, the results already obtained are related to the criteria outlined for the organization of internal structures (macro and microstructure), highlighting the advanced specification and modeling phase, followed by the discussion of computational issues related to implementation of product.
... Os esforços que vêm sendo realizados nesse sentido pelos especialistas, tanto no que diz respeito às línguas faladas (HARTMANN 1983;HARTMANN;JAMES TradTerm, São Paulo, v.45, p. (STOKOE 1960;BATTISON 1974;FRIEDMAN 1975;BAKER-SHENK;COKELY 1980 Com relação às línguas de sinais, de acordo com alguns autores (STOKOE 1960(STOKOE , 1965KLIMA;BELLUGI 1979;SUPALLA;NEWPORT 1978;WALLIN 1996) ...
... Os esforços que vêm sendo realizados nesse sentido pelos especialistas, tanto no que diz respeito às línguas faladas (HARTMANN 1983;HARTMANN;JAMES TradTerm, São Paulo, v.45, p. (STOKOE 1960;BATTISON 1974;FRIEDMAN 1975;BAKER-SHENK;COKELY 1980 Com relação às línguas de sinais, de acordo com alguns autores (STOKOE 1960(STOKOE , 1965KLIMA;BELLUGI 1979;SUPALLA;NEWPORT 1978;WALLIN 1996) ...
Article
Full-text available
This article presents results of research related to the construction of a monolingual online dictionary model for Libras. To this end, the parameters that make up the signs of Libras, the linguistic mechanisms and relationships at the morphophonetic, morphosyntactic and semantic-lexical levels were analyzed. Furthermore, useful and necessary criteria were observed, not only with regard to the organization of a dictionary, but also with regard to its internal (macro and micro) structures. The idea that guided this research was based on proposing a dictionary model that would be more intuitive to use for its users, especially the deaf community. Although the dictionary is under construction, the results already obtained are related to the criteria outlined for the organization of internal structures (macro and microstructure), highlighting the advanced specification and modeling phase, followed by the discussion of computational issues related to implementation of product.
... Sign Language (ASL) is a primary linguistic system passed down from one generation of deaf people to the next and is a language in the full sense of the word. Like spoken languages, ASL is structured at syntactic (Fischer, 1974;Liddell, 1980;Lillo-Martin, 1986;Padden, 1983), morphological (Fischer, 1973;Fischer &Gough, 1978;KlimaA Bellugi, 1979;Newport, 1981;Supalla, 1982Supalla, , 1986Supalla & Newport, 1978), and "phonological" 2 (Battison, 1974;Coulter, 1990;Lane, Boyes-Braem, & Bellugi, 1976;Liddell, 1984;Liddell & Johnson, 1986;Padden &Perlmutter, 1987;Sandier, 1986;Stokoe, 1960;Wilbur, 1986) levels. ...
... In addition, and again unlike the gestures that accompany speech, the signs of ASL are themselves composed of meaningful components, that is, morphemes. Like spoken languages, ASL has developed grammatical markers that serve as inflectional (e.g., Fischer, 1973;Fischer & Gough, 1978;Klima & Bellugi, 1979;Metlay & Supalla, 1995) and derivational morphemes (e.g., Supalla & Newport, 1978). In other words, there are regular changes in basic form associated with systematic changes in meaning, and these changes occur internal to a sign. ...
Article
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Grammatical properties are found in conventional sign languages of the deaf and in unconventional gesture systems created by deaf children lacking language models. However, they do not arise in spontaneous gestures produced along with speech. The authors propose a model explaining when the manual modality will assume grammatical properties and when it will not. The model argues that two grammatical features, segmentation and hierarchical combination, appear in all settings in which one human communicates symbolically with another. These properties are preferentially assumed by speech whenever words are spoken, constraining the manual modality to a global form. However, when the manual modality must carry the full burden of communication, it is freed from the global form it assumes when integrated with speech—only to be constrained by the task of symbolic communication to take on the grammatical properties of segmentation and hierarchical combination.
... In addition to handedness, length and iteration of movement of the sign may also be iconically motivated. For example, Supalla and Newport (1978) observe that in verbal signs denoting actions that require some temporal duration or reiteration often employ repeated movement in their lexical forms. Wilbur (2008) extends this observation to telicity. ...
... Linguistically, movement repetition as opposed to single movement is exploited in some grammatical patterns. In some sign languages, a subset of nouns can be distinguished from semantically and formationally related verbs by single versus repeated movement: for instance, in ASL a noun such as CHAIR is produced with short repeated motion whereas the corresponding verb SIT is produced with a larger singular motion (Supalla & Newport, 1978; see also Johnston, 2001 Crasborn & Safar, 2016). Therefore, repetition preferences (as well as other articulatory preferences) may not be as frequent in spontaneous signing. ...
Thesis
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Duality of patterning, which refers to the fact that in languages a limited number of meaningless units combine to create an unlimited number of meaningful units, is considered a language design feature, a property that any human language is expected to have. However, some emerging sign languages have been claimed to lack this property, and some research on spoken languages suggests that it is a strong statistical tendency rather than a universal property of human language. In this dissertation, I explore the possibility that duality of patterning is an emergent property, and it is so widespread because some commonality of human communication motivates its emergence repeatedly, across languages of different types and even modalities. I argue that this commonality is the human body. I adopt the Embodied Cognition framework, which views the body as integral to cognitive processing via the sensorimotor systems that are active not only in action but also in mental imagery and conceptual representation. It views cognition as emergent from embodied experiences of the sensorimotor system, perception, and interaction with the environment. “Abstract” properties of higher cognition are epiphenomenal to the lower-level habitual functioning of bodies in their environments, which is true of language as well. One way to understand how duality of patterning could emerge phylogenetically is via iconicity; iconicity is claimed to be a bridge between language and sensorimotor experiences. I argue that meaningless sublexical componentiality develops as a consequence of the emergence and conventionalization of meaningful sublexical componentiality. We should expect the emergence of meaningful sublexical componentiality in phylogenesis, because we are embodied creatures, and both the content and the form of our communicative messages are motivated and constrained by the structure and kinematics of our bodies. If both the content and the form of the message are embodied, we should expect to find effects of embodiment both in the iconic prototypes chosen to create an iconic sign, and in the phonetic form of a sign. Therefore, I explore the role of two factors, iconicity and kinematics, in contributing to the emergence of a conventionalized inventory of meaningful sublexical segments in the visual-manual modality.
... In ASL, this process is productive and creates pairs of verbs (single syllable) and nouns (two syllables). In these cases, only the first syllable is prominent (Supalla & Newport, 1978). A different kind of multisyllabic lexical sign also has only two syllables, but in these cases, the morpheme itself requires two syllables. ...
... A different kind of multisyllabic lexical sign also has only two syllables, but in these cases, the morpheme itself requires two syllables. The second syllable movement is restricted with respect to the first, either rotated 180 degrees (back-and-forth, side-to-side (as illustrated with baby in Figure 1), or up-anddown) (Supalla and Newport, 1978), or rotated 90 degrees from the first syllable (illustrated with CANCEL in Figure 1). These lexical disyllables have equal prominence on both syllables. ...
Article
This chapter addresses the debate concerning the status of nonmanuals (head, face, body) as prosodic or not by exploring in detail how prosody is structured in speech and what might be parallels and differences in sign. Prosody is divided into two parts, rhythmic phrasing (timing, syllables, stress), and intonation. To maximize accessibility, in each part, an introduction to what is known for speech is presented, followed by what is known and/or claimed for sign languages. With the exception of the internal structure of syllables, sign languages are very similar to spoken languages in the rhythmic domain. In the intonational domain, the parallels are less strong, in part because analogies of nonmanual functions to spoken intonation tend to be based on older/simpler models of intonation. There needs to be much more detailed research on sign languages to catch up with the recent research on spoken intonation.
... lie used such an analysis to demonstrate how, the ASL signs for SIT and CHAIR were different and not identical, as formational parameter analysis would suggest. Supulla and Newport (1978) had found that the ASL sign CHAIR had what they termed as a "hold manner" at the end of its production (i. e. the hands were immobile at the end of the sign). ...
... Liddell's movement-hold model accounts for the differences between verb signs (SIT) and noun signs (CHAIR) by positing a HMH structure for verbs and a HMHH structure for nouns. The two H segments at the end of a noun result in the sign being held for a short while longer (the restrained manner noted by Supulla and Newport (1978). I-GIVE-YOU and YOU-GIVE-ME can be contrasted by changing the specifications of the H segments: ...
Thesis
p>This thesis presents four experimental studies that aim to assess the validity of formational parameters as psychological constructs. The studies employ two experimental paradigms - ordered recall of lists and form priming - with three groups of experimental participants - hearing sign language learners, deaf people who learned sign as a first language (native signers), and deaf people who learned sign language after the age of 6 years (non-native signers). The studies were designed to assess whether sign language was internalised as a formational or morphological code. Findings from the studies using ordered recall of lists are equivocal, supporting neither formational nor morphological coding. It is proposed that (a) more accurate measures of similarity are required, and (b) it is important to consider the number of items recalled from a list when assessing the effect of list similarity on order errors - findings reported in previous studies have failed to do this. The study employing a form priming procedure produced more substantive findings. Clear differences were evident in how signs were processed by native and non-native signers. Non-native signers appeared to process signs in terms of global visual characteristics, whereas native signers processed signs in terms of formational parameters. The role of morphological parameters was not assessed. It is concluded that form priming procedures stand to offer more valid and valuable insights than list recall studies, and a model of access to the sign lexicon is proposed for further empirical investigation.</p
... While she pointed that speech is linear and non-spatial while gestures used in sign languages rely on spatial contrasting, research suggests that sign is processed as linguistic rather than spatial information. Like spoken and written language, sign languages were found to possess the same linguistic structures such as syntax, phonology and morphology (Liddell, 1980;Lillo-Martin, 1991;Supalla, 1986;Supalla & Newport, 1978;Corina and Sandler, 1993;Perlmutter, 1992). ...
... As studies on the grammar of emoji-only communication are limited, in order to address the questions, we build on the methods used in some prior studies and literature on word orders and grammar in the context of gesture-and sign languages (Gershkoff-Stowe & Goldin-Meadow, 2002;Corina and Sandler, 1993;Perlmutter, 1992;Lillo-Martin, 1991;Supalla, 1986;Liddell, 1980;Supalla & Newport, 1978). This study investigates the patterns that emerged during our experiment where emoji characters were used instead of words. ...
Thesis
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Sequences of emoji characters are often used in online communication to convey meaning in conjunction with words, but also in their place. This thesis explores the use of emoji-only utterances in instant messaging, looking at them from a grammatical point of view, building on Jackendoff and Wittenberg’s (2014) hierarchy of grammatical complexity for the structure of sentence-level utterances. In this context, emoji, if used in isolation might posit word-like properties and show grammatical patterns and orders, similar to words. The present study investigates whether emoji showcase grammar on their own and identifies the grammatical patterns appearing in utterances where they substitute for words. According to its results, emojionly communication shows grammatical patterns on the lower levels of Jackendoff and Wittenberg’s hierarchy.
... January 2021 | Volume 5 | Article 612973 sign-language grammars often employ repeated motions to mark grammatical features. For example, some sign languages employ repeated movements for nominal signs and single movements for verbal signs in noun-verb pairs with otherwise similar forms and related meanings, such as "a hammer" and "to hammer" (see Supalla andNewport, 1978 for ASL, Johnston, 2001 for Australian Sign Language, Tkachman and Sandler, 2013 for Israeli Sign Language). Thus, the distribution of formational features is also subject to grammar, and frequencies of some of them may be affected by what is grammaticalized in an individual sign language. ...
... Repetition of movement may also be motivated by iconicity. In ASL, verbal signs that denote actions requiring duration or reiteration may employ repeated movement in their lexical forms (Supalla and Newport, 1978). Moreover, Wilbur (2008) argues that movement in many verbs, adverbs and adjectives indicates the temporal extent of the event they denote, and movement repetition in lexical forms may be related to telicity. ...
Article
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Language is produced by bodies that evolved to fulfill a variety of functions, most of them non-communicative. Vestigial influences of adaptation for quadrupedal locomotion are still affecting bimanual actions, and have consequences on manual communication systems such as sign languages of the deaf. We discuss how central pattern generators (CPGs), networks of nerve cells in the spinal cord that drive locomotion, influence bimanual actions with alternating movements to be produced with repeated motion. We demonstrate this influence with data from three unrelated sign languages, American Sign Language, British Sign Language, and Hong Kong Sign Language: in all three sign languages two-handed balanced signs produced with alternating movements have a tendency to be repeated, whereas other types of two-handed balanced signs show the opposite tendency for single movements. These tendencies cannot be fully explained by factors such as iconicity. We propose a motoric account for these results: as alternating bimanual movements are influenced by locomotor patterns, they favor repeated movements.
... In her fascinating work describing emerging sign languages, Sandler and colleagues (Sandler, 2018) report that different body articulators correspond to linguistic categories which combine through compositional rules. For instance,, two-handed signs denote plurality (Börstell et al., 2016), facial expressions are markers of conditional and interrogative sentences (Sandler & Lillo-Martin, 2006), and sub-components of hand configurations act as morphemes (Newport & Supalla, 1978). In stark contrast, an argument presented in many chapters of this volume is that early humans capitalised from the transparency of representations of bodily actions for communicative purposes. ...
... One way to test this hypothesis would be to increase the potential for visual alignment between pictures and motorically-iconic signs by targeting verbs using pictures (or videos) of actions. For example, the form of the verb TO-HAMMER resembles the form of the noun HAM-MER (see Fig. 2), but the movement is larger (some noun-verb pairs in ASL differ only in movement; Supalla and Newport, 1978). A picture of a person using a hammer would visually align with both semantic and phonological features of the target sign, e.g., the grasping handshape and arm movement. ...
... 16. CORNER is a frozen classifier construction produced with nominal movement (Supalla and Newport 1978). T he sign can be articulated at various positions in space to indicate where the corner is located (e.g., top left or bottom right). ...
Chapter
The fifteen original contributions in Language and Space bring together the major lines of research and the most important theoretical viewpoints in the areas of psychology, linguistics, anthropology, and neuroscience, providing a much needed synthesis across these diverse domains. The study of the relationship between natural language and spatial cognition has the potential to yield answers to vexing questions about the nature of the mind, language, and culture. The fifteen original contributions in Language and Space bring together the major lines of research and the most important theoretical viewpoints in the areas of psychology, linguistics, anthropology, and neuroscience, providing a much needed synthesis across these diverse domains. Each chapter gives a clear up-to-date account of a particular research program. Overall, they address such questions as: how does the brain represent space, how many kinds of spatial representations are there, how do we learn to talk about space and what role does culture play in these matters, should experimental tests of the relations between space and language be restricted to closed-class linguistic elements or must the role of open-class elements be considered as well? Throughout authors speak to each other's arguments, laying bare key areas of agreement and disagreement. Contributors Manfred Bierwisch, Paul Bloom, Melissa Bowerman, Karen Emmorey, Merrill Garrett, Ray Jackendoff, Philip Johnson-Laird, Barbara Landau, Willem Levelt, Stephen Levinson, Gordon Logan, Jean Mandler, Lynn Nadel, John O'Keefe, Mary Peterson, Daniel Sadler, Tim Shallice, Len Talmy, Barbara Tversky Bradford Books imprint
... Although we find a set of similarly shaped noun-verb pairs in ASL, characterized by a repeated short movement in nouns and a single, larger movement in verbs (e.g. Supalla and Newport 1978), this set is closed and quite small. Moreover, the presence or absence of such movement qualities can often be explained from other factors such as iconic depiction, sentence prosody, and focus (cf. ...
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Lexical items in sign languages are rampant with iconicity, as many studies have shown. Most of these signs in a sign language like Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT) have been considered to be monomorphemic. The present study aims to reanalyze such signs in terms of the Relational Morphology model, following up on recent work demonstrating that as many as 99% of all NGT signs contain one or more sublexical morpheme. Form-meaning units that are distinguished can be as small as a single phonological feature, or consist of clusters of features jointly related to a specific meaning. This analysis sheds new light on the issue of why so-called classifier constructions are used both with a literal, compositional, meaning, and an idiomatic meaning. Many iconic properties of signs can thus be reanalyzed in terms of morphological complexity, and seen as more than a historic epiphenomenon of the visual modality. This brings the linguistic analysis of signs in line with psycholinguistic findings demonstrating the impact of iconicity on language processing. The study raises new questions on the nature of morphemes in sign languages and on how phonology and morphology can be related in the visual modality.
... Ramos (2004) Dentre os 10 textos, foram descartados os seguintes: "As pessoas surdas e o mercado de trabalho", de Carneiro e Soares (2017); "Língua inglesa como terceira língua: considerações sobre o ensino de línguas estrangeiras para estudantes surdos na educação básica brasileira", de Kupske (2018) A ementa do curso aborda estratégias de leitura verbal e não verbal e de intepretação de textos em inglês, palavras cognatas, palavras-chave, Skimming, Skanning, classe de palavras e verbos (SUPALLA, 1978). No final do curso, esperava-se que aluno surdo adquirisse habilidades de leitura e interpretação de textos em língua inglesa por meio da implementação de diferentes técnicas de leitura com intuito de desenvolver a compreensão de textos no idioma estrangeiro. ...
... Fischer (1973) showed that typical verbs in ASL are marked morphologically for agreement in person and number with both subject and object (see also Padden, 1988), as well as for temporal aspect (Klima & Bellugi, 1979); in other words, ASL has in ectional morphology. Supalla and Newport (1978) showed that ASL has noun-verb pairs that di er systematically in form, suggesting that ASL also has derivational morphology (see also Berent, Dupuis, & Brentari, 2014). ...
Chapter
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... Una de las construcciones morfológicas más productivas en las lenguas de signos es la reduplicación (Pfau y Steinbach, 2006;Pizzuto y Corazza, 1996;Supalla y Newport, 1978, Supalla, 1982Schmaling, 2000;Sutton-Spence y Woll, 1999). Formalmente consiste en la repetición del signo, que resulta en una modificación de la velocidad, tensión o amplitud del movimiento (Wilbur, 2009). ...
... These modulations of movement structure are non-affixal; examples include the changes in movement direction and in hand orientation by which directional verbs in many signed languages mark argument structure (e.g., Lillo-Martin and Meier, 2011). Other examples include the short, repeated, restrained movement that marks deverbal nouns in ASL (Supalla and Newport, 1978;Abner, 2019) and the varying patterns of repeated movement that mark temporal aspect in ASL (Klima and Bellugi, 1979). ...
Article
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The visual-gestural modality affords its users simultaneous movement of several independent articulators and thus lends itself to simultaneous encoding of information. Much research has focused on the fact that sign languages coordinate two manual articulators in addition to a range of non-manual articulators to present different types of linguistic information simultaneously, from phonological contrasts to inflection, spatial relations, and information structure. Children and adults acquiring a signed language arguably thus need to comprehend and produce simultaneous structures to a greater extent than individuals acquiring a spoken language. In this paper, we discuss the simultaneous encoding that is found in emerging and established sign languages; we also discuss places where sign languages are unexpectedly sequential. We explore potential constraints on simultaneity in cognition and motor coordination that might impact the acquisition and use of simultaneous structures.
... The question, to be clear, is not simply whether spoken and sign languages share formal structures, nor is it whether speakers and signers rely on common brain region in extracting phonological structure in their respective language modalities. Indeed, many previous studies have found that spoken and sign language share aspects of their design (e.g., Brentari, 1993;Corina, 1990;Klima & Bellugi, 1979;Padden & Perlmutter, 1987;Sandler, 1993;Stokoe Jr., 1960;Supalla & Newport, 1978), and identified brain regions that subserve phonological computations across modalities (e.g., Emmorey, McCullough, Mehta, & Grabowski, 2014;MacSweeney, Waters, Brammer, Woll, & Goswami, 2008;Petitto et al., 2000). But the finding that a speaker and signer each extract similar phonological structures using similar brain structures in their respective language modality (e.g., speech, for English speakers) does not speak to the question of whether they can also spontaneously do so in an unfamiliar modality. ...
Article
A large literature has gauged the linguistic knowledge of signers by comparing sign-processing by signers and non-signers. Underlying this approach is the assumption that non-signers are devoid of any relevant linguistic knowledge, and as such, they present appropriate non-linguistic controls-a recent paper by Meade et al. (2022) articulates this view explicitly. Our commentary revisits this position. Informed by recent findings from adults and infants, we argue that the phonological system is partly amodal. We show that hearing infants use a shared brain network to extract phonological rules from speech and sign. Moreover, adult speakers who are sign-naïve demonstrably project knowledge of their spoken L1 to signs. So, when it comes to sign-language phonology, speakers are not linguistic blank slates. Disregarding this possibility could systematically underestimate the linguistic knowledge of signers and obscure the nature of the language faculty.
... The laboratoryproduced forms show important similarities with the kinds of noun-verb distinctions described in naturally emerging languages such as Nicaraguan Sign Language (Abner et al. 2019). This indicates that distinguishing between objects and actions is an essential feature of human communication (Supalla and Newport 1978), as has been shown for two emerging sign languages (Tkachman and Sandler 2013), and likely provides a basis for the emergence of nouns and verbs in nascent sign languages in general. Motamedi et al. also found convergence on forms within dyads (irrespective of iconicity), implicating cultural transmission as a relevant factor in the emergence of language. ...
Article
Full-text available
The emergence of sign language is of special interest because sign languages are the only human languages that can emerge de novo at any time [...]
... 16. CORNER is a frozen classifier construction produced with nominal movement (Supalla and Newport 1978). T he sign can be articulated at various positions in space to indicate where the corner is located (e.g., top left or bottom right). ...
... In the sign language condition, she signed the phrase, "LOOK MODI, YOU SEE MODI?, " using infant-directed ASL. The pseudo-sign used for MODI was a phototactically well-formed ASL noun (Supalla and Newport, 1978), consisting of two short, straight movements with contact at the cheek, and with a single "8"-handshape. In both conditions, she pointed to and looked at the object while labeling it. ...
Article
Full-text available
Infants are endowed with a proclivity to acquire language, whether it is presented in the auditory or visual modality. Moreover, in the first months of life, listening to language supports fundamental cognitive capacities, including infants’ facility to form object categories (e.g., dogs and bottles). Recently, we have found that for English-acquiring infants as young as 4 months of age, this precocious interface between language and cognition is sufficiently broad to include not only their native spoken language (English), but also sign language (American Sign Language, ASL). In the current study, we take this work one step further, asking how “sign-naïve” infants—hearing infants with no prior exposure to sign language—deploy their attentional and social strategies in the context of episodes involving either spoken or sign language. We adopted a now-standard categorization task, presenting 4- to 6-month-old infants with a series of exemplars from a single category (e.g., dinosaurs). Each exemplar was introduced by a woman who appeared on the screen together with the object. What varied across conditions was whether this woman introduced the exemplar by speaking (English) or signing (ASL). We coded infants’ visual attentional strategies and their spontaneous vocalizations during this task. Infants’ division of attention and visual switches between the woman and exemplar varied as a function of language modality. In contrast, infants’ spontaneous vocalizations revealed similar patterns across languages. These results, which advance our understanding of how infants allocate attentional resources and engage with communicative partners across distinct modalities, have implications for specifying our theories of language acquisition.
... ASL verbs permit a greater amount of spatial and temporal modifications (e.g., path movement) than ASL nouns, which could lengthen the time it takes to name an action in ASL. Indeed, in naturally occurring signed language discourse, verbs have been observed to contain longer, larger, and unrestrained movement compared with nouns (Hunger, 2006;Johnston, 2001;Kimmelman, 2009;Supalla & Newport, 1978). Thus, a longer response duration for single sign responses elicited in this study may reflect the specific phonological or phonetic properties of ASL verbs. ...
Article
Picture-naming tasks provide critical data for theories of lexical representation and retrieval and have been performed successfully in sign languages. However, the specific influences of lexical or phonological factors and stimulus properties on sign retrieval are poorly understood. To examine lexical retrieval in American Sign Language (ASL), we conducted a timed picture-naming study using 524 pictures (272 objects and 251 actions). We also compared ASL naming with previous data for spoken English for a subset of 425 pictures. Deaf ASL signers named object pictures faster and more consistently than action pictures, as previously reported for English speakers. Lexical frequency, iconicity, better name agreement, and lower phonological complexity each facilitated naming reaction times (RT)s. RTs were also faster for pictures named with shorter signs (measured by average response duration). Target name agreement was higher for pictures with more iconic and shorter ASL names. The visual complexity of pictures slowed RTs and decreased target name agreement. RTs and target name agreement were correlated for ASL and English, but agreement was lower for ASL, possibly due to the English bias of the pictures. RTs were faster for ASL, which we attributed to a smaller lexicon. Overall, the results suggest that models of lexical retrieval developed for spoken languages can be adopted for signed languages, with the exception that iconicity should be included as a factor. The open-source picture-naming data set for ASL serves as an important, first-of-its-kind resource for researchers, educators, or clinicians for a variety of research, instructional, or assessment purposes.
... CHANGER et CHANGER-PETIT-A-PETIT(Miller, 1997 : 143) Les pauses, les ralentissements, et autres aspects de périodicité ou de vélocité, relèvent en effet de la structure TEMPORELLE du mouvement. C'est notamment sur ce genre de contraste (un petit mouvement répété vs. un grand mouvement non répété) que repose l'opposition verbo-nominale entre les signes CHAISE et S'ASSEOIR, PORTE et FERMER-LA-PORTE (voirSupalla et Newport (1978) pour l'ASL ouCuxac (1996) pour la LSF). Ces deux types de mouvements s'opposent du point de vue de leur poids (nombre de mores) -et nous revenons sur cette notion dans la section 2.2 en présentant le modèle phonologiquede Miller (1997) pour la syllabe en signes. ...
Thesis
This thesis compares visual-gestural and auditory-oral modalities through the study of children's poetry in sign languages (SL). It highlights the fact that SL has a CHILD poetic register and shows that, as with spoken languages (SpL), the organization of the child poetic sequence in SL is based on its rhythm. Nursery rhymes in SL have a metrical and 'melodic' structure based on regular patterns, composed of units contrasted by their duration, their salience and their relationship to space; the whole poetic structure is furthermore articulated around these regular patterns, including at the morphosyntactic level. In order to highlight the specificities of the relationship between language and deafness, Chapter 1 presents relevant linguistic, sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic facts about SL in general and about French sign language (LSF) in particular. Childhood poetry in SpL is then presented in order to uncover the tools of metrics that are useful for the analysis of rhythm in the sign modality. Chapter 2 presents the field of this research and our investigation into the existence of traditional nursery rhymes in SL. Chapter 3 consists of breaking down the metrical and melodic constructions of rhymes in various SL and explaining their poetic articulation. Chapter 4 shows that the morphosyntactic structure of children's poetry in SL is less simple than it appears and that it contributes to the development of poetic rhythm. This study thus advances our understanding of the influences of modality on the formal structure of a language and thus better identifies what in the structure is not modality-dependent (and thus strictly linguistic). This study also encourages the development of the poetic function in SL education given its likely role in language acquisition.
... ASL verbs permit a greater amount of spatial and temporal modifications (e.g., path movement) than ASL nouns, which could lengthen the time it takes to name an action in ASL. Indeed, in naturally occurring signed language discourse, verbs have been observed to contain longer, larger, and unrestrained movement compared with nouns (Hunger, 2006;Johnston, 2001;Kimmelman, 2009;Supalla & Newport, 1978). Thus, a longer response duration for single sign responses elicited in this study may reflect the specific phonological or phonetic properties of ASL verbs. ...
Preprint
Picture naming tasks provide critical data for theories of lexical representation and retrieval and have been performed successfully in sign languages. However, the specific influences of lexical or phonological factors and stimulus properties on sign retrieval are poorly understood. To examine lexical retrieval in American Sign Language (ASL), we conducted a timed picture naming study using 524 pictures (272 objects and 251 actions). We also compared ASL naming with previous data for spoken English for a subset of 425 pictures. Deaf ASL signers named object pictures faster and more consistently than action pictures, as previously reported for English speakers. Lexical frequency, iconicity, better name agreement, and lower phonological complexity each facilitated naming RTs. RTs were also faster for pictures named with shorter signs (measured by average response duration). Target name agreement was higher for pictures with more iconic and shorter ASL names. The visual complexity of pictures slowed RTs and decreased target name agreement. RTs and target name agreement were correlated for ASL and English, but agreement was lower for ASL, possibly due to the English bias of the pictures. RTs were faster for ASL, which we attributed to a smaller lexicon. Overall, the results suggest that models of lexical retrieval developed for spoken languages can be adopted for signed languages, with the exception that iconicity should be included as a factor. The open-source picture naming dataset for ASL serves as an important, first-of-its-kind resource for researchers, educators, or clinicians for a variety of research, instructional, or assessment purposes.
... She signed the phrase, "LOOK MODI YOU SEE MODI?", producing a pseudosign equivalent for MODI, shown in Fig. 1c. The pseudo-sign was a phototactically well-formed ASL noun (Supalla & Newport, 1978). It consisted of two short, straight movements with contact at the cheek, and with a single handshape throughout, in this case the "8"-handshape. ...
Article
The link between language and cognition is unique to our species and emerges early in infancy. Here, we provide the first evidence that this precocious language-cognition link is not limited to spoken language, but is instead sufficiently broad to include sign language, a language presented in the visual modality. Four- to six-month-old hearing infants, never before exposed to sign language, were familiarized to a series of category exemplars, each presented by a woman who either signed in American Sign Language (ASL) while pointing and gazing toward the objects, or pointed and gazed without language (control). At test, infants viewed two images: one, a new member of the now-familiar category; and the other, a member of an entirely new category. Four-month-old infants who observed ASL distinguished between the two test objects, indicating that they had successfully formed the object category; they were as successful as age-mates who listened to their native (spoken) language. Moreover, it was specifically the linguistic elements of sign language that drove this facilitative effect: infants in the control condition, who observed the woman only pointing and gazing failed to form object categories. Finally, the cognitive advantages of observing ASL quickly narrow in hearing infants: by 5- to 6-months, watching ASL no longer supports categorization, although listening to their native spoken language continues to do so. Together, these findings illuminate the breadth of infants' early link between language and cognition and offer insight into how it unfolds.
... Cardinal numeral expressions have also been documented and explored in the lexicons of sign languages that have emerged in relatively isolated communities with high rates of hereditary deafness (Zeshan et al., 2013). Many sign languages also code cardinality using the morphological process of "numeral incorporation," in which a base lexical item (e.g., HOUR) and a cardinal number handshape (e.g., TWO) are combined into a single sign: Reduplication has also been observed to encode number morphologically in sign languages, and can do so on both nouns and verbs (Supalla & Newport, 1978). Form differences in reduplication have been observed to track cardinal and noncardinal meaning distinctions (Padden, 1988; see Steinbach, 2012 for a recent overview). ...
Article
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Human languages, signed and spoken, can be characterized by the structural patterns they use to associate communicative forms with meanings. One such pattern is paradigmatic morphology, where complex words are built from the systematic use and re-use of sub-lexical units. Here, we provide evidence of emergent paradigmatic morphology akin to number inflection in a communication system developed without input from a conventional language, homesign. We study the communication systems of four deaf child homesigners (mean age 8;02). Although these idiosyncratic systems vary from one another, we nevertheless find that all four children use handshape and movement devices productively to express cardinal and non-cardinal number information, and that their number expressions are consistent in both form and meaning. Our study shows, for the first time, that all four homesigners not only incorporate number devices into representational devices used as predicates , but also into gestures functioning as nominals, including deictic gestures. In other words, the homesigners express number by systematically combining and re-combining additive markers for number (qua inflectional morphemes) with representational and deictic gestures (qua bases). The creation of new, complex forms with predictable meanings across gesture types and linguistic functions constitutes evidence for an inflectional morphological paradigm in homesign and expands our understanding of the structural patterns of language that are, and are not, dependent on linguistic input.
... Pavyzdžiui, Amerikiečių gestų kalba (angl. American Sign Language) pasižymi fonologinių (Perlmutter, 1992;Corina, Sandler, 1993), morfologinių (Supalla, Newport, 1978;Suppalla, 1986) ir sintaksinių (Liddel, 1980; Lillo-Martin, 1991) kalbos sistemų bruožais. Antra, psichofiziologiniai tyrimai rodo, kad kairysis smegenų pusrutulis dominuoja vartojant ne tik tradicines kalbas, bet ir gestų kalbas (Hickok, 1996). ...
Technical Report
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Why do people gesture while talking? What is the function of the gestures that accompany speech? Are they informative? One of the first scholars to raise similar questions was American psychologist David McNeill, who stated that gesturing during speech is determined by a common speech and gesture system. According to McNeill (1985), 90% of gestures used by adults are performed exclusively during speech. In addition, gestures are used not only by adults but also children who are yet to acquire language (McNeill, 1992). Studies confirm that the use of gestures is common in all cultures (Feyereisen, de Lannoy, 1991; Iverson, Thelen, 1999), and the main function of it is to convey information to the interlocutor (Kelly et al., 2003; Goldin-Meadow, 2006; Özyürek et al., 2008; Theakston et al., 2014) and reduce the working memory load (Goldin-Meadow et al., 2001; Wagner et al., 2004). Today, most researchers agree that speech and gesture systems are closely related. The latter is confirmed by many empirical studies in experimental psychology, developmental psychology, psychophysiology, linguistics, and cognitive sciences. Speech-accompanying gestures are studied in children (Bates et al., 1989; Alibali et al., 2000; Iverson, Goldin-Meadow, 2005; Theakston, 2014), adults (Langton et al., 1996; Kelly et al., 2003; Chu, Hagoort, 2014), and during child-adult interactions (Iverson, Goldin-Meadow, 1998; Cartmill 2010). Scientists attempt to understand how gestures and speech interact not only in neurotypical but also neurodiverse individuals affected by blindness (Iverson and Goldin-Meadow, 1998), deafness (Goldin-Meadow, 2006), Down syndrome (Iverson 2003), and aphasia (Hanlon, 1990; Pashek, 1997). Although it is agreed that speech and gestures are closely related components of spontaneous communication, there is no consensus on the psychological, biological, and social aspects of their interactions. Also, there is a lack of a unified theoretical approach to the relationship between speech and gesticulation (McNeill, 1985; Feyereisen, 1987; Krauss et al., 1991; Morrel-Samuels, Krauss 1992; Alibali et al. 2000; Theakston et al., 2014). Thus, this study aimed to discuss the impact of speech-gesture interaction on language production and comprehension in neurotypical children and adults. The theoretical discussion is based on the results and conclusions of studies conducted in various fields of psychology.
Article
As most other sign languages, Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL) makes use of verbal classifiers for the purpose of spatial predication. However, a thorough study of the Asian SignBank shows that these same classifier handshapes occur in 76% of all HKSL nouns. In this paper, I argue that these classifier handshapes embedded in nouns are in fact noun classifiers. Under the framework of Distributed Morphology, classifier handshapes are underspecified roots in root compounds which can be assigned the nominal category when merged with a nominal functional head in syntax. The function of these classifiers is to identify, and categorize a discourse referent, and they are full-fledged classifiers according to standards set by the general linguistic literature on classifiers. In addition to verbal and noun classifiers, I also briefly show how HKSL uses mensural numeral classifiers to intervene between mass nouns and numerals within the NP. Taken together, this means that HKSL employs three different types of classifiers: verbal, noun, and numeral classifiers.
Book
Taboo topics in deaf communities include the usual ones found in spoken languages, as well as ones particular to deaf experiences, both in how deaf people relate to hearing people and how deaf people interact with other deaf people. Attention to these topics can help linguists understand better the consequences of field method choices and lead them to adopt better ones. Taboo expressions in American Sign Language are innovative regarding the linguistic structures they play with. This creativity is evident across the grammar in non-taboo expressions, but seems to revel in profane ones. When it comes to the syntax, however, certain types of structures occur in taboo expressions that are all but absent elsewhere, showing grammatical possibilities that might have gone unnoticed without attention to taboo. Taboo expressions are innovative, as well, in how they respond to changing culture, where lexical items that are incoherent with community sensibilities are 'corrected'.
Chapter
Sign languages show the same range of morphological processes as spoken languages. Linguistic research on many different sign languages has identified various kinds of inflectional and derivational processes. At the same time, morphological processes in sign languages are subject to modality‐specific properties not found in spoken languages. The impact of the visual–spatial modality makes sign languages typologically more uniform than spoken languages. Three modality‐specific properties are especially relevant for the discussion of sign language morphology: (i) the simultaneous realization of morphosyntactic features; (ii) the interaction of morphology with phonology in the overt realization of these features; and (iii) the impact of gestures on morphological processes. This entry does not provide a comprehensive survey of all morphological phenomena attested in sign languages. It discusses instead three prominent and well‐investigated inflectional processes – agreement, classifiers and nominal plural – and shows how different generative theories (minimalist program, Distributed Morphology, and Optimality Theory) can account for the modality‐independent as well as for the modality‐specific properties of inflection in sign languages. Still, we also point out that classical generative theories developed for spoken languages probably need to be supplemented by a gestural component to account for the impact of gestures on sign language morphology. The main goal of this entry is to exemplify how far morphological processes in sign languages can contribute to a broader understanding of morphological typology and theory.
Book
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The book Contributions to Disciplinary Openness coming from Inclusion, History and Philosophy of Science in Chemistry Teaching arises from the intention of researchers to share possibilities with an aim to conceive a more profuse, inclusive and vehemently grounded Chemistry Teaching. In this search, we chose texts with axes in Teacher Education, brought here by the advent of interdisciplinarity, the Inclusion of the Deaf and the History and Philosophy of Science. For that, we count on the grateful participation of collaborators from UFJF, UFOP, UFF, UFOPA and Universidad del Valle who, through their different experiences, find in the classroom their meeting point. Each chapter thus brings a little of its authors, which reflects their academic and professional experiences, whether as builders of more inclusive classrooms or researchers in a diverse, albeit unequal, world. We hope that this book, through the possibilities presented and according to the specificities of each classroom, will serve as a source of inspiration and debates.
Thesis
La représentation de l’espace relève autant d’un ensemble de propriétés universelles que d’une variabilité importante entre les langues. Des travaux en langues vocales ont révélé l’impact des facteurs cognitifs et typologiques sur l’acquisition du langage spatial. En nous appuyant sur une approche tenant compte du rôle fondamental de l’iconicité dans les langues des signes, notre objectif est de décrire l’expression du déplacement en langue des signes française, chez des enfants (entre 5 et 10 ans) et adultes sourds, langue très peu étudiée sous cet angle, afin d’évaluer l’impact de la modalité visuo-gestuelle sur l’acquisition du langage spatial.Les productions, issues de la description d’animations montrant des mouvements volontaires selon plusieurs Trajectoires et Manières, ont révélé, à tous les âges, l’expression fréquente simultanément de la Manière et la Trajectoire au moyen de structures iconiques. Toutefois, ces descriptions tendent à se densifier et se spécifier avec l’âge selon le type d’événements. De plus, les signeurs font usage de constructions en série permettant l’expression séquentielle de différents types de Manière et Trajectoire selon plusieurs perspectives ; le type de combinaison et la fréquence de ces constructions varient selon les âges et le type d’événement. Par ailleurs,contrairement à la Figure, l’introduction et l’expression du Fond dans le procès de déplacement varient également selon l’âge et le type d’événement. L’expression simultanée de la Figure et du Fond au sein d’une même structure est tardive, avec une omission régulière du Fond chez les enfants les plus jeunes. La modalité visuo-gestuelle peut ainsi avoir un impact sur l’expression du mouvement en conférant à l’iconicité un rôle fondamental dans la manière dont les informations sont organisées et exprimées en langue des signes.
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Resumo: Este artigo tem por objetivo analisar sinalizações de canções, em língua de sinais, realizadas por surdos e ouvintes na plataforma YouTube. Foram feitas ponderações com foco nos parâmetros fonológicos da LIBRAS quanto às expressões não manuais, movimento e configuração de mão. Considerou-se a possível recepção do ouvinte usuário e não usuário da LIBRAS, bem como do surdo usuário da língua. Traduzir canções para a Língua Brasileira de Sinais requer reflexões a fim de que sejam reconhecidas a cultura e a identidade surda. Também são necessárias competências tradutórias por parte do intérprete. Propõe-se implementações na sinalização de canções para que tenham sentido para o leitor-expectador. Palavras-chave: Tradução. Canções. Libras. Surdo. Abstract: This article aims analyzed the signing of songs, in Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS), done by deaf and hearing people on the YouTube platform. Analyses were carried out focusing on the Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) phonological parameters regarding non-manual signals (NMS), movement and handshape. We took into consideration the hearing user and non-user of LIBRAS, as well as the deaf user of the language. Translating songs into the Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) requires reflections in order to allow the deaf identity and culture acknowledgement. Interpreters' translational competences are also needed. Implementations are proposed for the signing of songs so that it brings meaning to the reading audience.
Chapter
The realisation that signed languages are true languages is one of the great discoveries of linguistic research. The work of many sign language researchers has revealed deep similarities between signed and spoken languages in their structure, acquisition and processing, as well as differences, arising from the differing articulatory and perceptual constraints under which signed languages are used and learned. This book provides a cross-linguistic examination of the properties of many signed languages, including detailed case studies of Hong Kong, British, Mexican and German sign languages. The contributions to this volume, by some of the most prominent researchers in the field, focus on a single question: to what extent is linguistic structure influenced by the modality of language? Their answers offer particular insights into the factors that shape the nature of language and contribute to our understanding of why languages are organised as they are.
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Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) linguistic studies started from Ferreira-Brito research in 1995. Although there are a social development and a popularization of Libras, in the sense of being more known now a days, this language is not very well described yet. This dissertation intends to describe morphological aspects on the sign formation considering derivational and nominal incorporation (NI) processes. Derivation has been studied by different researchers in different sign languages. The root sign is changed by the addition of at least one parameter to the original sign (QUADROS e KARNOPP, 2004; JOHNSTON, 2006; FELIPE, 2006; XAVIER e NEVES, 2016; PFAU, 2016). That parameter can be understood as a grammatical morpheme (bound or free) which is added simultaneously or sequentially to the root. The NI is seen as the association of the verb and its argument inside the syntactic structure (MITHUN, 1984; ROSEN, 1989; MEIR, 1999; FERREIRA, 2013). Both processes create a new sign. The collected data are form the ENEM 2017 video test in Libras (45 videos). Those signs were described and distributed in descriptive table referring each kind of derivation. To study the nominal incorporation, the data came from Libras dictionary (CAPOVILLA ET AL., 2017) and from videos made according to a field research conducted by the author of this dissertation. All signs were analyzed qualitatively. Results demonstrate two kinds of derivation in Libras: (i) infixal derivation marked by the movement parameter (MOV) (directional derivation of MOV, dynamic derivation of the MOV and reduplication of MOV) and by the productivity of the base morpheme TEXT and (ii) sufixal derivation, made by negative markers -PRONATION OF FOREARM, plus two affixe markers possibly under grammaticalization, -ZERO marker and agentive marker. In NI two groups of verbs were described. Both undergo argument incorporation: manual and simple verbs. Those verbs present compound NI and classifier NI. Manual verbs tend to show cases of double incorporation – object and adjunct can be enrolled by the verb. In conclusion it is possible to say: (i) derivation and NI are productive in Libras; (ii) infixes are more recurrent to form new lexical items in Libras; (iii) Libras verbs tend to incorporate arguments which function as an adjunct in the sentence as instruments.
Article
Adjectives are often identified via notional or even translational criteria in sign language research, which reflects a lack of formal criteria for identifying this part of speech in the field. This paper presents the results of a guided production task investigating the conservative hypothesis that ASL has a small, closed adjective class consisting only of terms for dimension, age, value, and color. Evidence from the syntactic distribution of these core properties compared to non-core properties will be presented to refute the initial hypothesis and show that ASL has an open adjective class. Its members are characterized by their ability to occur as prenominal modifiers without function-indicating morphosyntax. The semantic distinction between core and peripheral adjectives is nonetheless reflected in a significant preference for core adjectives to be used as modifiers rather than as sentential predicates. Postnominal property signs are analyzed as (in most cases) reduced relative clauses. I further suggest that prototypically verbal signs can be used as prenominal modifiers when they are embedded in reduced relative clauses.
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Infants readily extract linguistic rules from speech. Here, we ask whether this advantage extends to linguistic stimuli that do not rely on the spoken modality. To address this question, we first examine whether infants can differentially learn rules from linguistic signs. We show that, despite having no previous experience with a sign language, six-month-old infants can extract the reduplicative rule (AA) from dynamic linguistic signs, and the neural response to reduplicative linguistic signs differs from reduplicative visual controls, matched for the dynamic spatiotemporal properties of signs. We next demonstrate that the brain response for reduplicative signs is similar to the response to reduplicative speech stimuli. Rule learning, then, apparently depends on the linguistic status of the stimulus, not its sensory modality. These results suggest that infants are language-ready. They possess a powerful rule system that is differentially engaged by all linguistic stimuli, speech or sign.
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In our study, we seek to determine for sign languages the conditions under which a predicate can precede all its arguments. We consider data from the sign languages of Australia, Brazil, Britain, the Netherlands, and Sweden, examining interviews (informative dialogues) and narratives (monologues). While pressures of visualization converge to make SOV and SVO the unmarked orders in sign languages for most predicates, existential and presentational predicates may appear in sentence-initial position. In such instances, the predicate is a scene-setter, establishing a broad understanding of how we are to interpret the event we are about to visualize. We argue that pressures of visualization are again at work. Since sign languages are largely iconic – where the articulation itself brings up visual images – there is a stronger pressure for them to align articulation with mental visualization than for spoken languages; the goal of clear communication calls for this alignment whenever possible.
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The focus of this unique publication is on Ethiopian languages and linguistics. Not only major languages such as Amharic and Oromo receive attention, but also lesser studied ones like Sezo and Nuer are dealt with. The Gurage languages, that often present a descriptive and sociolinguistic puzzle to researchers, have received ample coverage. And for the first time in the history of Ethiopian linguistics, two chapters are dedicated to descriptive studies of Ethiopian Sign Language, as well as two studies on acoustic phonetics. Topics range over a wide spectrum of issues covering the lexicon, sociolinguistics, socio-cultural aspects and micro-linguistic studies on the phonology, morphology and syntax of Ethiopian languages.
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O artigo tem por objetivo analisar as referências que Ferreira (2010[1995]) buscou para escrever “Por uma gramática de línguas de sinais” e, a partir das noções da História das Ideias Linguísticas em articulação com a Análise de Discurso materialista, apresentá-la como figura precursora da linguística de língua de sinais no Brasil. Tendo seguido uma trajetória acadêmica contextualizada em parte nos estudos feitos em universidade norte-americana, filiada a teorias vinculadas à virada pragmática dos estudos linguísticos, Ferreira se preocupou com a construção de um arcabouço descritivo das línguas de sinais em geral e da Libras em particular. Além disso, a obra traduz a importância política da afirmação das línguas de sinais (Libras e outras) como línguas em pleno direito no Brasil, e sua divulgação teve um papel seminal na disseminação dessa ideia.
Chapter
The realisation that signed languages are true languages is one of the great discoveries of linguistic research. The work of many sign language researchers has revealed deep similarities between signed and spoken languages in their structure, acquisition and processing, as well as differences, arising from the differing articulatory and perceptual constraints under which signed languages are used and learned. This book provides a cross-linguistic examination of the properties of many signed languages, including detailed case studies of Hong Kong, British, Mexican and German sign languages. The contributions to this volume, by some of the most prominent researchers in the field, focus on a single question: to what extent is linguistic structure influenced by the modality of language? Their answers offer particular insights into the factors that shape the nature of language and contribute to our understanding of why languages are organised as they are.
Chapter
The realisation that signed languages are true languages is one of the great discoveries of linguistic research. The work of many sign language researchers has revealed deep similarities between signed and spoken languages in their structure, acquisition and processing, as well as differences, arising from the differing articulatory and perceptual constraints under which signed languages are used and learned. This book provides a cross-linguistic examination of the properties of many signed languages, including detailed case studies of Hong Kong, British, Mexican and German sign languages. The contributions to this volume, by some of the most prominent researchers in the field, focus on a single question: to what extent is linguistic structure influenced by the modality of language? Their answers offer particular insights into the factors that shape the nature of language and contribute to our understanding of why languages are organised as they are.
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