Code-blending with depicting signs

Abstract

Bimodal bilinguals sometimes use code-blending, simultaneous production of (parts of) an utterance in both speech and sign. We ask what spoken language material is blended with entity and handling depicting signs (DS), representations of action that combine discrete components with iconic depictions of aspects of a referenced event in a gradient, analog manner. We test a semantic approach that DS may involve a demonstration, involving a predicate which selects for an iconic demonstrational argument, and adopt a syntactic analysis which crucially distinguishes between entity and handling DS. Given this analysis and our model of bilingualism, we expect DS to be blended with restricted structures: either iconic vocal gestures/demonstrations or with spoken language predicates. Further we predict that handling, but not entity, DS may occur in blends with subjects. Data from three hearing native bimodal bilinguals from the United States and one from Brazil support these predictions.

Processing code-blending beyond the lexical level: evidence for a double syntactic derivation?

“…A number of functional elements that can typically surface in spoken languages, such as auxiliaries, prepositions, articles, clitics, and conjunctions, do not exist in sign languages as documented so far, and are therefore never «paired» in sign when uttered in a code-blend. The same holds, on the other hand, for so-called classifiers in sign languages, i.e., « morphemes with a non-specific meaning, expressed by particular configurations of the hands and which represent entities by denoting salient characteristics » (Zwitzerlood, 2012, p. 158), which have no grammatical equivalent in spoken languages (see de Quadros et al (2020) for an interesting analysis of what happens when blending involve depicting classifiers).…”