Book
Open Access
Iconicity and Verb Agreement
A Corpus-Based Syntactic Analysis of German Sign Language
-
Marloes Oomen
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2022
About this book
In many sign languages around the world, some verbs express grammatical agreement, while many others do not. Curiously, there is a remarkable degree of semantic overlap across sign languages between verbs that do and do not possess agreement properties.
This book scrutinizes the interaction between semantic and morphosyntactic structure in verb constructions in German Sign Language (DGS). Naturalistic dialogues from the DGS Corpus form the primary data source. It is shown that certain semantic properties, also known to govern transitivity marking in spoken languages, are predictive of verb type in DGS, where systematic iconic mappings play a mediating role. The results enable the formulation of cross-linguistic predictions about the interplay between verb semantics and verb type in sign languages. An analysis of the morphosyntactic properties of different verb types leads up to the conclusion that even ‘plain’ verbs agree with their arguments, where iconicity again plays a crucial role.
The findings motivate a unified syntactic analysis in terms of agreement of constructions with verbs of all types, thus offering a novel solution to the typological puzzle that supposedly only a subset of verbs agree in DGS and other sign languages.
This book scrutinizes the interaction between semantic and morphosyntactic structure in verb constructions in German Sign Language (DGS). Naturalistic dialogues from the DGS Corpus form the primary data source. It is shown that certain semantic properties, also known to govern transitivity marking in spoken languages, are predictive of verb type in DGS, where systematic iconic mappings play a mediating role. The results enable the formulation of cross-linguistic predictions about the interplay between verb semantics and verb type in sign languages. An analysis of the morphosyntactic properties of different verb types leads up to the conclusion that even ‘plain’ verbs agree with their arguments, where iconicity again plays a crucial role.
The findings motivate a unified syntactic analysis in terms of agreement of constructions with verbs of all types, thus offering a novel solution to the typological puzzle that supposedly only a subset of verbs agree in DGS and other sign languages.
Author / Editor information
Marloes Oomen, Institute Jean Nicod, CNRS-ENS-EHESS, PSL University, Paris, France.
Topics
|
Open Access Download PDF |
I |
|
Open Access Download PDF |
V |
|
Open Access Download PDF |
XI |
|
Open Access Download PDF |
XIII |
|
Open Access Download PDF |
XVII |
|
Part I: Background
|
|
|
Open Access Download PDF |
1 |
|
Open Access Download PDF |
27 |
|
Part II: Verb semantics and iconic mappings
|
|
|
Open Access Download PDF |
57 |
|
Open Access Download PDF |
90 |
|
Open Access Download PDF |
119 |
|
Part III: Morphosyntactic properties of verb forms
|
|
|
Open Access Download PDF |
131 |
|
Open Access Download PDF |
151 |
|
Open Access Download PDF |
185 |
|
Open Access Download PDF |
221 |
|
Part IV: Theoretical analysis and implications
|
|
|
Open Access Download PDF |
237 |
|
Open Access Download PDF |
251 |
|
Open Access Download PDF |
294 |
|
Open Access Download PDF |
308 |
|
Open Access Download PDF |
311 |
|
Open Access Download PDF |
326 |
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
December 6, 2021
eBook ISBN:
9783110742787
Hardcover published on:
December 6, 2021
Hardcover ISBN:
9783110742749
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Front matter:
18
Main content:
328
Illustrations:
75
Tables:
55
Audience(s) for this book
Scholars and students of General and Theoretical Linguistics, Sign Languages, German Sign Language, and Corpus Linguisics.
Creative Commons
BY-NC-ND 4.0
Safety & product resources
-
Manufacturer information:
Walter de Gruyter GmbH
Genthiner Straße 13
10785 Berlin
productsafety@degruyterbrill.com
