Simultaneity in Signed Languages

Signed language users can draw on a range of articulators when expressing linguistic messages, including the hands, torso, eye gaze, and mouth. Sometimes these articulators work in tandem to produce one lexical item while in other instances they operate to convey different types of information simultaneously. Over the past fifteen years, there has been a growing interest in the issue of simultaneity in signed languages. However, this book is the first to offer a comprehensive treatment of this topic, presenting a collection of papers dealing with different aspects of simultaneity in a range of related and unrelated signed languages, in descriptive and cross-linguistic treatments which are set in different theoretical frameworks. This volume has relevance for those interested in sign linguistics, in teaching and learning signed languages, and is also highly recommended to anyone interested in the fundamental underpinnings of human language and the effects of signed versus spoken modality.

Josep Quer, ICREA, Universitat de Barcelona:
A collection of novel descriptions and analyses of simultaneous phenomena beyond the phonological level in a wide range of sign languages. Next to their inherent interest, they will certainly provide the thrust for additional investigations into such a central aspect to our understanding of the human faculty of language and its interaction with other cognitive modules.