Syntax and prosodic consequences in ASL

Churng, Sarah

doi:10.1075/sll.14.1.03chu

SL&L

2011

DOI: 10.1075/sll.14.1.03chu

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Syntax and prosodic consequences in ASL

Sarah Churng

Abstract: This study investigates three different multiple wh-question types in American Sign Language (ASL). While the three are strikingly similar, subtle but systematic differences in their prosody make them semantically distinct. I derive these distinctions from their syntax, via extensions of Koopman and Szabolcsi's (2000) remnant movement and Sportiche's (1988) stranded movement, and I propose that multiple wh-questions in ASL involve Parallel Merge structures of the kind proposed by Citko (2005). I also present n… Show more

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Cited by 2 publications

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The interaction of syntax, non-manuals, and prosodic cues as potential topic markers in Austrian Sign Language

Krebs,

Wilbur,

Roehm

et al. 2024

SL&L

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Topic is often marked only by prosody across languages. In sign languages, prosody is expressed by features similar to those in speech: i.e., sign duration, velocity and amplitude of movement (cf. slope and range of pitch). Topicalized signs usually occur sentence-initially, are followed by a pause, and may show longer duration than nontopics. We used pausing and duration characteristics to resolve a puzzle concerning the status of OSV sentences in Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS): are they a nonmanually unmarked variant of non-manually marked topic sentences (O,SV), or are they a within-clause variant of the basic SOV order serving an as-yet-unknown discourse function? We investigated the temporal parameters of prosodic cues of 160 sentences produced by a fluent ÖGS signer: 40 in each of four conditions — SOV, OSV, S,OV, and O,SV. Overt topic marking effects on signing dynamics consisted of (1) lengthening of the sentence-initial topic phrases, causing a delay of the onset of the argument following the topic-marked item, and (2) a shortened duration of the noun phrase following the topic-marked item. Critically, the initial argument of OSV sentences did not show these prosodic cues, indicating that the initial argument O is not treated as being the same kind of topic as in the non-manually marked O,SV sentences. In accordance with the previous literature on pausing and lack thereof, we suggest that OSV might be akin to spoken German scrambling (within-clause movement), although the function performed remains to be investigated. The findings characterize parameters of temporal structure in the physical markers of topic in ÖGS and point to cross-linguistic variability in prosodic marking for topicalized structures.

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The interaction of syntax, non-manuals, and prosodic cues as potential topic markers in Austrian Sign Language

Krebs,

Wilbur,

Roehm

et al. 2024

SL&L

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Discriminant Features and Temporal Structure of Nonmanuals in American Sign Language

et al. 2014

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To fully define the grammar of American Sign Language (ASL), a linguistic model of its nonmanuals needs to be constructed. While significant progress has been made to understand the features defining ASL manuals, after years of research, much still needs to be done to uncover the discriminant nonmanual components. The major barrier to achieving this goal is the difficulty in correlating facial features and linguistic features, especially since these correlations may be temporally defined. For example, a facial feature (e.g., head moves down) occurring at the end of the movement of another facial feature (e.g., brows moves up), may specify a Hypothetical conditional, but only if this time relationship is maintained. In other instances, the single occurrence of a movement (e.g., brows move up) can be indicative of the same grammatical construction. In the present paper, we introduce a linguistic–computational approach to efficiently carry out this analysis. First, a linguistic model of the face is used to manually annotate a very large set of 2,347 videos of ASL nonmanuals (including tens of thousands of frames). Second, a computational approach is used to determine which features of the linguistic model are more informative of the grammatical rules under study. We used the proposed approach to study five types of sentences – Hypothetical conditionals, Yes/no questions, Wh-questions, Wh-questions postposed, and Assertions – plus their polarities – positive and negative. Our results verify several components of the standard model of ASL nonmanuals and, most importantly, identify several previously unreported features and their temporal relationship. Notably, our results uncovered a complex interaction between head position and mouth shape. These findings define some temporal structures of ASL nonmanuals not previously detected by other approaches.

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Syntax and prosodic consequences in ASL

Cited by 2 publications

References 20 publications

The interaction of syntax, non-manuals, and prosodic cues as potential topic markers in Austrian Sign Language

The interaction of syntax, non-manuals, and prosodic cues as potential topic markers in Austrian Sign Language

Discriminant Features and Temporal Structure of Nonmanuals in American Sign Language

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