Adverbial Morphemes in Tactile ASL - Gallaudet University

More documents

Recommendations

Info

PDE – Steven D. Collins Intellectual Context and Literature Review _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Figure 11 VERY-CLOSE Figure 12 CLOSE Figure 11 shows the sign glossed as VERY-CLOSE. The non-manual component is described as “EE” with clenched teeth and a slightly turned head. The NMS is an intensifier similar to the English word very. The sign and NMS in Figure 11 means that the location is not far away. Figure 12 is a similar sign glossed as CLOSE without the intensifier. Thus the location is “close by” and not “very close by”. In addition to providing semantic content, non-manuals also play a key role in syntax. ASL verbs are divided into several classes determined by their morphological properties (Fischer and Gough 1979; Padden 1988). These classes include ‘spatial/locative verbs’ which contain a classifier, ‘plain verbs’ which cannot inflect for subject or object agreement, and ‘agreement verbs’, which can inflect for subject and/or object agreement (Padden 1988). With agreement verbs, the beginning point, end point, and/or orientation of the verb changes to reflect subject and/or object agreement. In ASL, locations in the signing space can be associated with different entities and, later reference to that location is taken to be co-referential with the entity. For instance, after signing, B-O-B, a signer can point to a location on their left. In a sense, the location is now associated with Bob. If, in the articulation of the agreement verb INFORM, the hand starts pointing to the space to the signer’s left (the same as indicated by IX-lf), the verb is inflected for third person subject agreement and has the meaning “He/Bob informed me.” B-O-B IX-lf… (left) INFORM (PRO1) 17
PDE – Steven D. Collins Intellectual Context and Literature Review _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Null arguments are missing subjects or objects which are not needed in some usages because either the context or a verb ending has a specific meaning that makes it clear what the missing subject or object would be. These null arguments i.e., deleted subjects and/or objects in both subject and object position, can occur with agreement verbs as in the example above and with plain verbs in ASL. Examining data from syntactic islands within a Government and Binding (GB) framework, Lillo-Martin (1986) proposed that the null arguments with plain verbs were licensed or, controlled, differently from those with agreement verbs. She argues that null arguments with agreement verbs are licensed through agreement, similar to the licensing in other agreement languages such as Spanish. However, null arguments with plain verbs are licensed through discourse in a manner similar to the discourse licensing in non-agreement languages such as Japanese and Chinese. Following this work, Lillo-Martin (1986) proposed this discourse licensing occurred through the mechanism of topic chaining. More recently, and of relevance to this study, Bahan (1996), proposed an alternative analysis, which employs the interactions of non-manual eye-gaze, and head tilts with spatial locations. In this proposal, agreement, (the head of the AGR phrase), licenses the null arguments that occur with both agreement and plain verbs. Therefore, in addition to the null argument being licensed through verbal agreement, it can also be licensed by ‘agreement’ that occurs by eye gaze and/or head tilt directed toward a specific location. In a large-scale study of sociolinguistic variation in ASL, Lucas et al, (2001) looked at variation that occurs with null arguments. Variation studies on null arguments can provide further data to be considered by the two very different analyses, and potentially provide support for one analysis over the other. Though null arguments were not a focus of this study, the fact that they may be at least partially licensed by eye gaze demonstrates once again that some critical elements of ASL are nonmanual. Furthermore, the function of eye gaze must be executed by some means that can be perceived tactually for users of TASL. The underlying word order of ASL is subject-verb-object (SVO). However, as a result of phrase and clause organization and the use of null arguments, other word orders are made possible. Word orders other than SVO tend to require non-manual grammatical markers. Nonmanuals also mark such structures as: topics, yes/no questions, wh-questions, rhetorical 18
Page 1 and 2: ADVERBIAL MORPHEMES IN TACTILE AMER
Page 3 and 4: PDE - Steven D. Collins Acknowledge
Page 5 and 6: PDE - Steven D. Collins Table of Co
Page 7 and 8: PDE - Steven D. Collins Introductio
Page 15 and 16: PDE - Steven D. Collins Intellectua
Page 21: PDE - Steven D. Collins Intellectua
Page 43 and 44: PDE - Steven D. Collins Methods ___
Page 49 and 50: PDE - Steven D. Collins Findings an
Page 73 and 74:
PDE - Steven D. Collins Findings an
Page 75 and 76:
PDE - Steven D. Collins Findings an
Page 77 and 78:
PDE - Steven D. Collins Summary, Co
Page 79 and 80:
PDE - Steven D. Collins Appendix A
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86:
PDE - Steven D. Collins Appendix B
Page 87 and 88:
PDE - Steven D. Collins Appendix C
Page 89 and 90:
Page 91 and 92:
Page 93 and 94:
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99:
Page 102 and 103:
PDE - Steven D. Collins Appendix D
Page 104 and 105:
Page 106 and 107:
Page 108 and 109:
Page 110 and 111:
Page 112 and 113:
Page 114 and 115:
Page 116 and 117:
Page 118 and 119:
Page 120 and 121:
Page 122 and 123:
Page 124 and 125:
PDE - Steven D. Collins Appendix E
Page 126 and 127:
PDE - Steven D. Collins Appendix E
Page 128 and 129:
PDE - Steven D. Collins Appendix F
Page 130 and 131:
PDE - Steven D. Collins Appendix F
show all

Adverbial Morphemes in Tactile ASL - Gallaudet University

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?