Bøger i Sign Languages and Deaf Communities serien

Person and number are two basic grammatical categories. However, they have not yet been exhaustively documented in many sign languages. This volume presents a thorough description of the form and interpretation of person and number in Catalan Sign Language (LSC) personal pronouns. This is the first book exploring together the two categories (and their interaction) in a sign language.Building on a combination of elicitation methods and corpus data analysis, this book shows that person and number are encoded through a set of distinctive phonological features: person is formally marked through spatial features, and number by the path specifications of the sign. Additionally, this study provides evidence that the same number marker might have a different semantic import depending on the person features with which it is combined.Results of this investigation contribute fresh data to cross-linguistic studies on person and number, which are largely based on evidence from spoken language only. Furthermore, while this research identifies a number of significant differences with respect to prior descriptions of person and number in other sign languages, it also demonstrates that, from a typological standpoint, the array of distinctions that LSC draws within each category is not exceptional.

The domain of evaluative morphology is vast and complex, as it requires the combination of morphological, semantic and pragmatic information to be understood. Nevertheless, cross-linguistic studies on spoken languages show that languages share some patterns in the way they encode evaluative features. It follows that investigating evaluative morphology in sign languages (SLs) can enrich the literature and offer new insights. This book provides descriptive and theoretical contributions by considering Italian Sign Language (LIS) as empirical ground of investigation. At the descriptive level, the analysis of corpus and elicited data improves the description of morphological processes in LIS, as well as typological studies on evaluative morphology by adding the patterns of a visuo-gestural language. At the theoretical level, the study shows the benefit of combining different approaches (Generative Linguistics, Linguistic Typology, Cognitive Linguistics) for the exploration of evaluative constructions in SLs, as it allows to identify both modality-specific and modality-independent properties.In sum, this book encourages the readers to rely on different data types, analyses and theoretical perspectives to investigate linguistic phenomena in SLs.

Research on nonmanual elements - or 'nonmanuals' - in sign languages has focused on both the possible functions and the occurrence (frequency and form) of these elements in recent years. As a matter of fact, research on nonmanuals is still a quite uncharted territory in Austrian Sign Language (OGS) today, which has also initiated the study given. In order to identify head and body movements in OGS, these nonmanuals were determined and analyzed functionally via a new user-oriented methodology. Getting feedback of multiple native signers was a main part of this method. Accordingly, you will find the findings of this study in this volume: various functions such as negation, assertion, interrogativity, conditionality, and many more can be expressed nonmanually. Brand new insights into sign language research are given, as well as astonishing results: even (epistemic) modality can be expressed by particular head and body movements.

Since the recent creation of a large-scale corpus of Italian Sign Language (LIS), a new research branch has been established to study the sociolinguistic variation characterizing this language in various linguistic domains. However, for nominal modification, the role of language-internal variation remains uncertain. This volume represents the first attempt to investigate sign order variability in this domain, examining what shapes the syntactic structure of LIS nominal expressions. In particular, three empirical studies are presented and discussed: the first two are corpus studies investigating the distribution and duration of nominal modifiers, while the third deals with the syntactic behavior of cardinal numerals, an unexplored area. In this enterprise, three different theoretical dimensions of inquiry are innovatively combined: linguistic typology, generative linguistics, and sociolinguistics. The research setup involves both quantitative and qualitative data. This mixed approach starts from corpus data to present the phenomenon, examine linguistic facts on a large scale, and draw questions from these, and then looks at elicited and judgment-based data to provide valid insights and refine the analysis. Crucially, the combination of different methods contributes to a better understanding of the mechanisms driving nominal modification in LIS and its internal variation.

Bringing together the research fields of sign language linguistics and information structure, this bookfocuses onthe realization of modal particles and focus particles in three European sign languages: German Sign Language, Sign Language of the Netherlands, and Irish Sign Language. As a cross-linguistic investigation based on a systematic methodological approach, thestudy analyzes the results particularly with regard to nonmanual features expressed by articulators such as the body, head, and face. The analyses of the data provide interesting insights into the syntax-prosody interface in sign languages and the interaction of syntax and prosody in general. Modal and focus particles have not been thoroughly investigated in sign languages. This volumepresents the first studyon this phenomenonand is thus an innovative contribution to the field. From a methodological and theoretical perspective, it draws onup-to-date linguistic tools and provides professionally elicited and annotated data. The bookaccounts for theresultswithin existing theoretical models. Given its specific focus on nonmanuals, the book contributes to recent debates on information structure and the syntax-prosody interface and will be of special interest to both sign and spoken language linguists.

The uses and practices of sign languages are strongly related to scientific research on sign languages and vice versa. Conversely, sign linguistics cannot be separated from Deaf community practices, including practices in education and interpretation. Therefore, the current volume brings together work on sign language interpreting, the use of spoken and sign language with deaf children with cochlear implants and early language development in children exposed to both a spoken and sign language, and reports on recent research on aspects of sign language structure. It also includes papers addressing methodological issues in sign language research. The book presents papers by "more seasoned" researchers and "new kids on the block", as well as papers in which the two collaborate. The contributions will be of interest to all those interested in linguistics, sociolinguistics, cultural studies, interpreting and education. It will have particular relevance to those interested in sign linguistics, sociolinguistics of deaf communities, Deaf studies, Deaf culture, sign language interpretation, sign language teaching, and (spoken/signed) bilingualism. Given the scarcity of literature on "Deaf studies", the book will also appeal widely beyond the traditional academic milieu. As a result, it has relevance for those teaching and learning sign languages, for professional and student interpreters and for teachers of the deaf.