Detecting clauses and their dependencies in signed utterances: A syntactico-semantic approach

• Published in: Glossa (London) Vol. 3; no. 1; pp. 1 - 31
• Main Author: Loos, Cornelia
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Open Library of Humanities 20.11.2018; Ubiquity Press
• Subjects: Acceptability; American Sign Language; ASL; clausehood diagnostics; Clauses; coordination; DGS; Embedded constructions; German language; Grammatical subject; Handbooks; Infinitives; Linguistics; Natural language; Negation; Predicate; Pronouns; Research Article; Semantics; Sign language; subordination; Subordination (Grammatical); Syntactic movement; Syntactic structures; Syntax; Hong Kong; Netherlands; sign language; DGS; clausehood diagnostics; ASL; coordination; subordination
• ISSN: 2397-1835; 2397-1835
• DOI: 10.5334/gjgl.633

Investigating the syntactic structure of utterances with multiple predicates in sign languages requires a clear understanding of how many finite and infinitival clauses they contain and which syntactic dependencies exist between them. Since the sign language literature currently lacks a standardized methodology for identifying clause boundaries, this paper discusses syntactico-semantic diagnostics of clausehood and clause size and analyzes their applicability to American Sign Language (ASL) and German Sign Language (DGS). First, I discuss tests that distinguish coordinated clauses from dependent clause structures; specifically negation, A’-movement, and subject pronoun copy. Limitations of wh- and topic fronting as clausehood diagnostics are identified and a modified subject pronoun copy test is proposed. Determining whether a given utterance contains coordinated or dependent clauses is only half the battle, however; we also want to know the approximate “size” of the constituent an embedded predicate projects. The present study takes a first pass at filling this gap by introducing rightward wh-movement and confirming center-embedding as diagnostics that can discriminate between finite and infinitival clauses in signed languages. Based on acceptability judgments from 13 native signers of DGS and ASL, I show that wh-subjects can move across infinitival control complements and the secondary predicates of resultative constructions, but they cannot cross a finite complement clause. The diagnostic thus provides empirical evidence for the existence of various types of embedded clauses in signed languages that differ in their functional structure.