Volume 11, Issue 1

Situated language use is influenced by a number of dynamic phenomena that introduce lexical variability and path dependence, such as fluid discourse granularity, priming, and alignment in dialogue. The empirical tradition of usage-based lexicology does not account for such variability. In fact, its primary theoretical approaches appear to presuppose high population convergence on particular lexemes in language production. This is implied in several key concepts of phraseological and constructionist models, notably entrenchment, the principle of no synonymy, and the idiom principle, as well as the dominance of the statistical paradigm in the field. In spite of its relevance for linguistic theory and corpus methodology, this assumption appears to be untested. This study provides an analysis of inter-individual lexical overlap of verbs and nouns in five task-based corpora of (mostly) German. Results indicate that speakers are maximally variable and highly divergent in their lexical use in spite of narrow communicative constraints and group homogeneity. A qualitative analysis links this variability to situational (cognitive, socio-pragmatic, and discourse-level) engagement with the task and material, which results in referential diversity, spontaneous meaning mapping, and abundant word formation. The degree of observed variability raises questions with respect to the stochastic properties and functional mechanics of entrenchment and the role of repetition of identical material, such as lexicalized chunks, in conventionalization. It further emphasizes the need for a better understanding of the distributions that underlie pooled data, without which the validity of frequential extrapolation to individual behavior and system status stands to question. This is of particular relevance to language assessment and other practices of contrastive analysis of speaker productions, e.g., in multilingualism studies.

The aim of this study is to investigate both quantitatively and qualitatively the impact of career-related major life events (MLEs) on patterns of reported linguistic change across the lifespan, with an emphasis on how individual differences relate to differential patterns of MLE-related change. The occupational significant life events scrutinized here include entry into the workforce, job/career change, unemployment, and retirement. We analyzed survey data from 154 German-speaking adults in Austria who experienced (at least) one of these career-related MLEs. Results from Bayesian modeling showed that individual differences in event experiences (e.g., how stressful an MLE is perceived, how damaging an MLE is for one’s social status) alongside social factors such as varietal proficiency affect the degree of perceived MLE-related change in the sociolinguistic repertoire. Qualitatively, the thematic analysis revealed that facets of the linguistic marketplace seemed responsible for occupational MLE-related linguistic change, but also socio-affective drivers such as dialect pride and career-resultant shifts in one’s social networks and contact with other dialects.

This study provides an etymological study of one of the basic lexical items GIVE in a sample of 24 varieties of Huī Chinese, a lesser-known transitional group of Sinitic languages. By the historical-comparative method and phonological reconstruction, this study reveals over ten distinct etyma of GIVE in these geographically adjacent and genetically affiliated Huī dialects, such as ‘distribute’, ‘take’, ‘stretch’, ‘hold’, ‘give’, ‘pass’, ‘provide’, and ‘deliver’. This study questions the basicness and semantic stability of GIVE as one of the basic items and provides empirical support for earlier findings that the resistance to borrowability of the seemingly basic lexical items in the 100 Swadesh list and the Leipzig-Jakarta List is only moderately reliable.

With reference to a dataset of single-word English prepositions in Hong Kong Cantonese, this article re-examines the controversial distinction between single-word code-switches and lexical borrowing. These English prepositions may bring along syntactic structures of English into Cantonese, but they may also be morphosyntactically integrated into Cantonese and behave as verbs or coverbs. Accordingly, it is virtually impossible to pin down these prepositions as borrowing or code-switching based on morphosyntactic integration. Neither are they directly inserted into a sentence morphosyntactically framed in Cantonese, which has postpositions rather than prepositions. Considering that ‘languages’ are not discrete systems and words of different ‘languages’ are connected in a vast mental network, it is suggested that the boundary between lexical borrowing and single-word code-switching must be fuzzy. Freed from such distinction, it is plausible to see degrees of morphosyntactic integration and frequencies in single-word transfer or replication (i.e. borrowing/code-switching) due to word class or even specific properties of a word (e.g. for vis-à-vis other prepositions in Hong Kong Cantonese).

This article investigates aspects of stress assignment in a Jordanian Arabic dialect (JA). Cases of opaque stress are discussed with reference to Harmonic Serialism (HS) within the framework of Optimality Theory (OT). Two sources of opaque stress are under consideration. On the one hand, a syllable in an antepenultimate position is stressed where a Heavy penultimate is expected to receive stress. On the other hand, a light penultimate syllable is stressed where an antepenultimate Heavy syllable is expected to receive stress. All cases of opaque stress in the dialect involve an epenthetic vowel in the penultimate syllable or in the ultimate syllable in the two structures, respectively. An account of such opaque structures requires faithfulness to the location of stress before epenthesis; a scenario perfectly handled with reference to HS.

This study investigates the relationship between literature and poetry reading frequency and participants’ ratings of metaphors on key features: quality, aptness, familiarity, and comprehensibility. Using a set of Serbian poetic metaphors, we explored two main questions: how reading habits correlate with metaphor feature ratings, and whether the type of reading material (i.e., literature vs poetry) influences sensitivity to these features. The sample consisted of 140 native Serbian-speaking students from varied academic disciplines. Participants rated metaphors based on reading frequency (literature and poetry) using a 7-point Likert scale. Analysis showed that frequent readers generally gave higher overall metaphor ratings than infrequent readers, with significant differences noted particularly in familiarity and comprehensibility. Specifically, familiarity ratings yielded the most substantial differences between infrequent and frequent readers, which can indicate the influence of reading experience on the perceived recognition and understanding of metaphors. Aptness and quality ratings showed no significant differences, which suggests that familiarity and comprehensibility are more sensitive to variations in reading habits.

This study examines the acoustic characteristics of fricatives in Arabic-speaking individuals with apraxia of speech (AOS), contributing to cross-linguistic research on motor speech disorders in under-studied languages, such as Arabic. Participants included two Palestinian Arabic speakers with AOS and two healthy controls, each producing 120 repetitions of word-initial /s/ and /ʃ/ followed by long vowels (/a:, u:, i:/). Acoustic analyses focused on fricative duration, formant frequencies (F1 and F2), intensity, the center of gravity (M1), and spectral moments for the fricatives. In contrast to previous findings, AOS speakers in this study exhibited significantly longer segment durations, lower intensity contrast between vowels and fricatives, and reduced spectral distinctiveness of /s/ and /ʃ/ compared to controls. These findings also provide further evidence that M1 is an effective metric for identifying misarticulations in fricatives in AOS. Interestingly, although AOS speakers showed higher formant values, they still produced distinct vowel categories. Together, these results suggest that AOS broadly impacts articulation in Arabic speakers, while vowel production remains relatively preserved – a pattern inconsistent with some previous studies. Clinically, these results highlight potential diagnostic markers for AOS in Arabic-speaking populations. However, given the small sample size, further research is needed to validate these findings and explore AOS characteristics across larger Arabic-speaking groups.

The stylistic shift of personal pronouns is one of the characteristics of the language style used by the Qur’an. Therefore, translation challenges arise due to stylistic differences between the source text (ST) and the target text (TT). This study analyses the translation strategies used in the latest edition (2019) of the Quran translation by applying Newmark’s theory of translation methods and procedures and Baker’s theory of textual equivalence, focusing on the referential element of personal pronouns. Four types of personal pronoun shifts are identified in this study: shifts from first person plural to first person singular and vice versa ; from second person plural to second person singular; and from third person plural to third person singular. The study found that there are eight strategies used in translating these shifts, including literal, extended, idiomatic, compensatory, communicative, cohesive, functional, and combination strategies. These strategies can potentially be applied to translate personal pronoun shifts into other languages that have linguistic features like Indonesian. Although successful in translating the main message of the ST, these strategies cannot translate the stylistic impact of the style into the TT, except in the case of translating the stylistic shift of first person plural.

Research has shown that bilingual speakers of languages that differ in categorisation concepts experience mediation between the two languages. This phenomenon extends to colour categorisation. Previous research has focused on studying bilingual speakers from a migratory background. This study takes an alternative approach and looks at speakers who live in a bilingual community, namely Tatar–Russian bilingual speakers in Tatarstan, and employs an experimental methodology using the salience criterion. The data show that Tatar has 6 basic colour terms (in contrast to 12 basic colour terms in Russian). The results further reveal that whilst Tatar–Russian speakers are able to maintain a distinction between the colour categorisation systems of each language, they nevertheless experience interference in their categorisation of colour terms in Russian when compared to monolingual Russian speakers.

This article introduces argumentation in recommender dialogue agents (ARDA), a novel theoretical and practical framework for designing advanced argumentative dialogue systems. Grounded in principles of pragmatics and argumentation theory, ARDA integrates linguistic theory and graph-based representations to model pragmatic dialogue acts such as clarification requests, explanations, and argumentation. The framework bridges the gap between theory and implementation by providing graph-based computational models that translate these formalised concepts into functional dialogue system components. The contributions of this article are twofold: (1) providing an overarching view of the theoretical approaches applied in our prior studies and (2) offering computational models that more effectively represent linguistic phenomena within dialogue systems. Furthermore, the article explores the application of ARDA in the context of movie recommendation systems, providing previously collected results that illustrate how these models enable natural, persuasive, and logically coherent interactions between humans and intelligent agents.

This study establishes a comprehensive framework for analyzing tone as an important but complex mechanism in East and Southeast Asian tonal languages. The Yangru tone in Southern Min is taken for an in-depth case study for its significant historical, ethnolinguistic, and typological implications. The scientifically grounded analysis reveals severe issues of inconsistency, inadequacy, and inaccuracy in conventional studies, and the complexity of tonal behaviors across linguistic contexts that incorporate tonal realization, tone sandhi, tonal coarticulation, segmental-tonal interactions, and segmental-tonal alignment constraints. This exploration has substantially extended our knowledge of tonal phonetics (tonetics), tonal phonology (tonology), and tonal phonotactics (tonotactics). It has empirical and typological significance to serve as an analytical model to sophisticatedly, adequately, and accurately analyze tone and sheds important light on exploring the complexity of human speech beyond the category of tone and decoding complexity using scientifically testable methodology and theoretical perspectives, thereby advancing our understanding of human languages.

Unlike previous studies on Nigerian English (NigE) that consistently report mid-point analysis to describe NigE vowels, this study employs spectral changes because it reveals inherent changes, which characterize vowel formants over time. Earlier research, for example, claims that a sub-variety of NigE (e.g., Western Nigerian English – WNigE) does not have phonetic differences between tense and lax. This study, therefore, examines the nature of the dynamic spectral changes of WNigE high and low lexical sets (such as TRAP/BATH, KIT/FLEECE, and FOOT/GOOSE) produced by 75 WNigE speakers who are born and raised, and currently reside in the west, east, and north of Nigeria. Two- and nine-point vowel measurements were employed to estimate the formant dynamics with F 1 and F 2 vector length, trajectory length (TL), formant velocity, and formant trajectories with the Generalized Additive Mixed Model. The results show the importance of examining the WNigE vowel using nine-point measurements rather than the two-point or mid-point. Our results reveal that WNigE vowels have phonetic differences, evidenced in formant trajectories. Social and linguistic factors also affect WNigE vowel production. Regions influence the TL of vowels, with WNigE speakers in the north and west regions showing longer TL than those in the east.

This study explores the cognitive effects of L2 Spanish acquisition on L2 speakers’ categorization of nouns. We compared monolingual English speakers, L2 Spanish speakers who learned Spanish abroad, and L2 Spanish speakers who learned Spanish in the United States in a task where they assigned adjectives that are stereotypically associated with males or females to nouns of different types. We find effects for both group and noun type; however, contrary to expectations, monolingual English speaker responses were statistically more likely to exhibit a gender-congruence effect than L2 Spanish speaker responses in two groups of nouns, and there was no difference in gender-congruence between the responses of the two L2 Spanish groups. Our results suggest that a speaker’s linguistic knowledge of a language with grammatical gender can affect how they categorize nouns in their native language, but that the direction and strength of the effect may differ across groups and tasks. These results contribute to the ongoing discussion on linguistic relativity and the extent to which one’s linguistic experience influences their perception of the world, including whether learning a second language always increases gendered effects and to what extent such effects are reliable across experimental tasks.

There has been growing debate about the special status of object marking in sign languages. In this article, we contribute evidence for the existence of a differential object marker in DGS (German Sign Language). Based on data from the Public DGS Corpus, we investigate the behavior of this sign, glossed as pam , in different morphosyntactic environments to understand its interaction with different morphosyntactic phenomena involved in marking argument structure. We focus on constituent order, verb modification, and argument realization as phenomena sensitive to relations of prominence among arguments. Although the accumulation of different markers of prominence, e.g., argument marking with pam and through verb modification, may occur, we argue that pam occurs primarily when other markers of object prominence – in particular, changes in constituent order and verb modification – do not occur, and see the main motivation for the use of pam in the prominence-lending semantic properties in the nominal and verbal domains. In addition, based on our analyses, we argue against the existence of two related pam signs, with distinct agreement marking and differential object-marking function. We also argue against an analysis of pam as a preposition-like element. Instead, we propose an analysis of pam in terms of differential argument indexing, sensitive to semantic and pragmatic features of both subject and object arguments.

This article investigates modality as a central linguistic category in Albanian, arguing that it is a foundational element in how institutional authority, obligation, and procedural certainty are codified and framed linguistically in administrative discourse. Modality, which expresses the speaker’s stance toward a proposition – covering obligation, possibility, necessity, permission, and evidentiality – is examined through both theoretical and empirical lenses. Building on frameworks from Jespersen to Kratzer and Palmer, the study traces the evolution of modality from mood-based approaches to formal semantic and discourse-functional models. The empirical analysis draws on ALDOC (Albanian Documents Corpus), a 1.5-million-token collection of institutional texts. Using LancsBox 6.0, the article examines modality as realized through verb moods (indicative, subjunctive, and imperative), modal verbs (duhet, mund, and do), modal particles (nuk, mos, po, and jo), and fixed modal expressions (e.g., është e nevojshme and është e pamundur ). Findings show a strong preference for deontic and epistemic modality, reflecting the legalistic and depersonalized nature of administrative discourse. The study reveals that Albanian institutional texts employ a narrow, formal set of modal resources to ensure objectivity and clarity. Informal or subjective expressions are systematically avoided. This corpus-based analysis contributes to Albanian linguistics and cross-linguistic modality studies, emphasizing the need for typological and pragmatic integration in the study of institutional language.

This article examines the stage of language shift in Tlaxco (Santiago Tlaxco), a bilingual Nahuatl-Spanish-speaking community in Puebla, Mexico. We employ the theory of ecology of pressure framework to identify and analyze the pressures that favor or deter language maintenance of Nahuatl and categorize the level of language shift. The research data were drawn from 207 completed census questionnaires in 50 homes. Our findings show that Nahuatl is vigorous and used in the home and the community. Nahuatl is the preferred language of communication with adults and the older generation, while Spanish is commonly used with and among the youth. Based on these results, we conclude that Nahuatl continues to thrive in the community, with the risk of Spanish gradually replacing Nahuatl as the preferred language of communication across all age groups if the current youth population does not follow the current language use pattern as they enter adulthood. This study is one of the first to analyze the sociolinguistic situation of Tlaxco (Santiago Tlaxco). The findings, which are discussed in conjunction with other qualitative and observational studies, also provide a snapshot of a community at the potential early stage of language shift.

Signers of Deaf community signed languages negate clauses via manual negating signs and/or non-manual movements such as headshakes. Several claims about the dominance of manual versus non-manual negation across signed languages have been made, mostly based on survey responses and elicited data. Here, we describe how clause negation was signalled in 420 clauses identified in dyadic conversations between 40 deaf signers of British Sign Language (BSL) documented in the BSL Corpus. Signers tended to use between two and three strategies to negate clauses, typically including one or more manual negating signs. Clause negation signalled via headshakes most often co-occurred with manual negating signs, mouthings of English negating forms, and/or conventionalised mouth gestures. Headshake-only clause negation was rare. Overall, corpus data suggests that BSL signers prefer to combine manual and non-manual strategies, especially headshakes and mouthings of English negating forms, when signalling clause negation. The exact manifestation depends on both discourse-pragmatic factors and socio-demographic factors such as region, age group, and BSL teaching experience. This investigation demonstrates how signed language corpus studies can further our understanding of signed language variation and linguistic diversity, while also supporting applied linguistic contexts such as language teaching.

Proverbs have long been an essential component of both formal and informal discourse, often serving as vessels for cultural wisdom and values. Given that the human body serves as a primary source for conceptualizing abstract ideas, paremiology – the study of proverbs – has demonstrated the widespread use of figurative expressions involving body parts across languages. This study investigates embodiment in colloquial Arabic proverbs through the lens of cognitive linguistics, applying the frameworks of image schema and conceptual metaphor theory as developed by Johnson (1987) and Lakoff (1987). Specifically, it adopts Gibbs (2005, 2008) notion of “image schemas” as “experiential gestalts” to analyze the figurative meanings associated with the hand, head, and heart in Arabic proverbs. Using a descriptive–analytical method, the study identifies five key image schemas – PATH, FORCE, SUPPORT, PART FOR WHOLE, and CONTAINMENT (with the head, hand, and heart functioning as both CONTAINERS and CONTAINED). These body parts serve as source domains for metaphors and metonymies that express complex abstract concepts and transmit cultural models. The findings demonstrate that cognition and everyday experience are deeply embedded in Arabic proverbs, producing dynamic image schemas that reflect the values, emotions, and wisdom of Arabic culture.

While most studies on sound symbolism have examined the meaning of consonants and vowels, suprasegmentals can also have meaning. English and Japanese speakers rated systematically created novel words (e.g., /ába/) pronounced in four types of voice quality (modal voice, creaky voice, falsetto, and whisper) on three visual scales: size, roundness, and brightness. It was found that voice quality tended to have stronger sound-symbolic effects than segmental features (vowel type and the voicing and place of articulation of consonants). Moreover, speakers of the two languages showed better agreement in the sound symbolism of voice quality (e.g., the roundness of whisper, the brightness of falsetto) than in that of segments, which exhibited more language-specific patterns (e.g., the roundness of voiceless stops and the brightness of /a/ in Japanese). These findings suggest that non-distinctive voice quality categories tend to be freer from language-specific conventions in sound–meaning associations than consonants and vowels that are phonemic components of the lexicons of individual languages.

This study provides the first comprehensive analysis of the Mandarin particle lai across its diverse syntactic structures and functions, with a particular emphasis on its interaction with the verb phrase (VP). The study examines three distinct constructions of lai , within the Cartographic Theoretical framework: (1) preverbal lai (lai 1 ), (2) sentence-final particle lai (lai 2 ), and (3) lai + VP + lai (lai 3 ). Data from various sentence types reveal that spatial lai 1 indicates physical displacement, while non-spatial lai 1 functions as an aspect marker. Sentence-final lai 2 denotes both physical and abstract displacement, whereas lai 3 combines a focus-marking function with the marking of physical movement. Syntactically, spatial lai 1 occupies the head of VP, non-spatial lai 1 is located at AspP 1, sentence-final lai 2 is positioned at the head of the Event Phrase, and lai 3 moves from the Event Phrase to the head of the Focus Phrase for feature checking. The study offers a holistic view of syntactic structures and functions of lai , particularly in VP combinations, and provides a foundational reference for future research on Mandarin particles.

This study aims to investigate rhetorical questions (RQs) from the perspective of epistemic stance. The quantitative and qualitative analysis was conducted on a corpus consisting of a set of comments extracted from the Facebook page of a major Italian newspaper ( Il Corriere della Sera ) regarding the news of the suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine in March 2021. The theoretical framework for analysing the comments containing RQs was the KUB (Knowing, Unknowing, Believing) epistemic model. The main objectives of the study were (1) to analyse the linguistic and epistemic structure of the 75 RQs present in the corpus; (2) to identify the epistemic stance of the questioner, focussing on the implicit assertion of the RQs and demonstrating how it can be not only strong (i.e. from a Knowing/Certain position), as commonly claimed in the literature, but also mitigated (i.e. from a Believing/Uncertain position), without losing its rhetorical value. Besides addressing these research questions, the study identified three specific types of RQs in addition to the common type (the most studied in the literature): adynatic (or RQs of impossibility), deontic (or RQs of duty/obligation), and epistemic (or RQs of belief).

Simply stated, producing a shorter format of a given sentence is the task of sentence compression. The challenging part of this process is preserving the most important information as well as grammaticality in the compressed version. There are different ways of achieving this purpose, among which, we try to come up with a rule-based extractive method for the Persian language. Our approach involves identifying removable constituents within a sentence and eliminating them in the order of insignificance until the desired compression rate (CR) is achieved. To develop this method, we created a compression corpus of 600 sentences from two available tree-banks in the Persian language. About 300 sentences are used for extracting deletion rules as training data, and the remaining 300 are used for testing the system. Its applicability, even using a limited training corpus and user’s authority over the input CR are the benefits of the presented method in this article. Additionally, our compression system is open-ended, enabling the addition or removal of deletion rules to refine its performance. The results suggest that applying rule-based methods for language processing tasks can be quite efficient in syntactically rich languages such as Persian, yielding desirable outcomes and offering distinct advantages.

The study analyses the use of a bipartite construction that serves as a resource for the ad hoc establishment of personal categories, and thus, for social positioning. In particular, it examines the Spanish construction “hay gente que …” and the German equivalent “es gibt Leute, die …,” which translate into English as “there are people who …”. The first conjunct asserts the existence of a social category, which is then specified attributively in the second conjunct. After a short characterisation of the construction, the analysis focuses on its functions from an interactional-linguistic perspective. Two ways of using the construction for positioning are identified: (1) to relate individuals to categories, i.e. oneself or others can be ‘ascribed to’ or ‘distanced from’ a certain category; (2) to modify presupposed categories by reevaluating or deconstructing them. The study is based on Spanish and German conversation data, taking a cross-linguistic perspective.

This article describes conversational functions of the turn-constructional-unit-initial (TCU-initial) German genau ‘exactly’ in relation to its prosodic realization. Prior research has shown that genau is prominently used as a confirming response particle or marker of recipiency. In its confirmatory function, it may also occur as a sequence-structuring device in that it closes disaligned sequences in order to foster the transition to the main line of talk. Based on an interactional study of 113 instances of genau in a range of mundane and institutional contexts taken from the Research and Teaching Corpus of Spoken German (FOLK), this contribution shows that the confirmatory function of genau in contexts of sequential disruption may be shifted to using it as an initial discourse marker. In this use, genau does not confirm a proposition in question but connects a suspended sequential path to the upcoming line of talk. We show that this resumptive function of genau is transferred to sequential contexts where no side sequences occur, leading to a connective use of the element. This process of integration from a response particle to a TCU-initial discourse marker is linked to prosodic changes in the realization of genau : It will be shown that differences in the perceived prosodic (dis)integration reflect the speakers’ practices of signalling if genau should be understood as either confirming a prior turn or rather projecting the upcoming turn to be complementing an established path of action. Perceptual ambiguity and variation are discussed to be an integral part of participant-focused conceptions of prosodic units.

This article analyzes request for confirmation (RfC) sequences in spoken Castilian Spanish. RfCs are conversational turns that present a proposition for which the speaker claims some knowledge but at the same time asks for an informed co-participant’s (dis)confirmation. Adopting an Interactional Linguistics perspective, the article examines the linguistic resources used to design RfCs and their responses. The analysis is based on a collection of 250 sequences extracted from spontaneous face-to-face conversations. The article reveals that RfCs in Spanish frequently lack explicit modalization markers. It is proposed that lower epistemic access is also indexed by the use of inference markers and the sequential positioning of the request. Furthermore, the article shows that Castilian Spanish RfCs are frequently prefaced by connectives that establish links to prior talk in various ways. Responses to RfCs in Spanish are predominantly confirming. While responding by using a response token alone is possible, responses are typically expanded and do additional interactional work apart from mere (dis)confirmation. The findings of the study demonstrate that RfCs are sensitively designed to answer to local requirements in interaction, and that further (crosslinguistic) research is needed on the functional potential of specific resources and their interplay.

This article is part of a special issue on cross-linguistic analyses of request for confirmation (RfC) sequences in ten languages. It presents the coding scheme that forms the basis of the comparative study of RfCs in mundane conversation. First, we outline the criteria applied to ensure comparability of data and describe the procedures for building a collection of 200 RfC sequences for each language. We then introduce the coding categories for the RfC turn and the subsequent response. The article also reports on the methods for testing and securing inter-coder reliability in our cross-linguistic project.

Classifier predicates, also known as depictive verbs, are complex signs used to describe motion or localization events in sign languages. Every component of the classifier predicate bears its own meaning: the handshape refers to the semantic class of the referent (e.g., human, car, a round object, etc.), while the trajectory of the motion, its manner and the localization of the sign iconically represent the described event. In this exploratory study, we compare the factors influencing the choice between classifier 1- and 2-handshapes for anthropomorphic referents in two sign languages – Russian Sign Language and Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT), by comparing data from two parallel subcorpora of cartoon retellings. The findings of this research reveal that both languages use both classifiers for human(-like) referents but the proportion of the use of 1-handshape and 2-handshape is different. Additionally, we identified various morphological, syntactic, and semantic factors that might influence the choice between the two handshapes. Some of these factors have a similar effect in both sign languages, and others influence the choice between the handshapes in the two sign languages in different, often contrasting ways. This observation highlights the linguistic status of whole-entity classifier handshapes for anthropomorphic referents despite the high level of iconicity of classifier constructions.

Traditionally so-called classifiers in productively formed verbs of motion and location in sign languages are said to reflect the semantic class of the moving or located entity. The verbs can include one of several different classifiers about humans and anthropomorphic beings. In this article, we examine phonological and semantic factors that influence the choice of classifier in elicited narratives in two sign languages, Danish Sign Language and American Sign Language. An analysis of classifiers expressed by handshapes of different phonological complexity shows quantitative differences between the two languages, but no influence on the choice of classifier depending on their phonological features. By contrast, a comparison of classifiers used about types of events in the languages reveals that the seemingly identical classifiers have language-specific meanings despite their iconicity. Nevertheless, they share features: hand-internal movement turns out to be statistically significantly correlated with voluntary actions in both languages. Two analyses of the verbs’ sequential behavior, in serial verb constructions and in verb doubling, show no differences between the classifiers used in either language as well as many structural similarities between the languages. The clearest difference between the languages is found at the lexical (unpredictable) level.

This study investigates choice of classifier handshape in the placement verbs MOVE and PUT in American Sign Language (ASL), analyzing data from two deaf ASL signers describing placement events elicited via a semi-structured task. Two questions are addressed in the study: 1) which (handling) handshapes are used with PUT and MOVE for different types of entities, and 2) whether object classifiers can occur with transitive, causative predicates in ASL. The results show that the two signers primarily use three handling handshapes (flat-O, S, and C). Consistent with findings from previous research, these handshapes are generally used to represent entities in an iconic manner based on entity characteristics. Usage of the flat-O handshape extends beyond strictly iconic representation, confirming previous suggestions that it may serve as a generic classifier for handling objects. The study also reports a finding not previously observed for ASL, namely two instances of object classifiers used in transitive predicates, which parallels recent evidence from other sign languages that the relationship between classifier type and argument structure is not categorical. Assimilation and language-specific handshape bias are discussed as factors influencing classifier choice, and the findings are situated within broader principles of body partitioning, perspective, and type of representation in sign languages.

Iconicity studies in the field of sign language linguistics, and in other disciplines, have predominantly been visuocentric, emphasising vision over other senses. This qualitative, experimental study investigates whether bodily or somatosensory senses contribute to the formation of iconicity. The research compares a group of five sighted signers with a group of two congenitally blind gesturers using elicitation and interview methods. The observed similarities in iconic descriptions suggest a role for somatosensory iconicity. Results indicate that both groups use their hands motivated by manual actions and exploratory procedures, which are essential for the haptic perception of objects. Moreover, because both the hands and the world are tangible, touchable, and sometimes touched, the hands iconically represent the world based on these experiences. In contrast, the sighted group also utilises visual feedback to adjust their articulators, making them visually iconic while exhibiting varying degrees of somatosensory iconicity. This suggests a sensory/semiotic ratio. The findings expand the concept of linguistic and semiotic signs to include somatosensory perception, encouraging recognition of the previously overlooked aspects of iconicity and semiotic signs.

This article presents an exploration of the usage and distribution of the 1-handshape classifier (Cl-1) and the 2-handshape classifier (Cl-2), both diachronically and synchronically, tracking classifier development in a detailed dataset of Nicaraguan individual homesigners and two groups of Nicaraguan Sign Language signers. Both phonological and semantic dimensions are analyzed in service of discerning what factors impact the choice and phonological production of the relevant classifiers. Phonologically we find that the distribution of Cl-1 and Cl-2 is quite different than would be expected were articulatory complexity the main motivating factor. We suggest also that this dataset is a microcosm of the system as a whole, and patterns of 1-handed and 2-handed signs vary across groups. Semantically, we find that (1) classifier use is more semantically restricted among individual homesigners. (2) As classifiers become more semantically frequent and flexible in the earliest cohort of Nicaraguan signers, constraints on production emerge. (3) Vertical transmission of those classifiers and constraints leads to more flexible usage in subsequent cohorts.

In this article, we explore the distribution of handshapes used in depicting constructions (also known as classifier predicates ) representing animate referents in Swedish Sign Language (STS). Using data from the STS Corpus, the analysis is focused on factors influencing the choice of handshape with regard to the 1-handshape vs 2-handshape variants, exploring their usage in different functions and contexts. The results demonstrate patterns in how signers use specific handshapes to depict motion and location events involving human(-like) and animal referents. The findings suggest that the event type, textual context and animacy of the depicted referent influence the choice between the 1- vs 2-handshape categories in STS, and that the 2-handshape category is used far more often than the former in our data. Furthermore, some of the analysed signs seem to have a limited depicting function in certain uses, suggesting possible grammaticalisation into a general [motion + VERB] construction, expressing an action being carried out at another location. The article contributes new insights into the nuanced use of handshapes in depicting constructions in STS and describes language-specific patterns in addition to pointing out cross-linguistic similarities/differences with regard to the expression of motion and location.

Across sign languages, classifier predicates depict the movement, location, or manipulation of (in-)animate entities. Each classifier predicate contains a classifier handshape that represents a referent based on one or more of its salient semantic and/or visual properties. In this article, we focus on a subset of entity classifiers in German Sign Language (DGS) that depict the movement and/or position of animate referents: The ‘1’-classifier, the ‘V’- or inverted ‘2’-classifier, and a general entity classifier. The distribution of these classifiers has been claimed to be determined by semantic and pragmatic factors in other sign languages. Looking at 16 re-tellings of the Canary Row cartoons, we perform an exploratory analysis showing that syntactic, semantic, and discourse-pragmatic factors influence the choice of one classifier over another when the basic set of entities depicted – anthropomorphized animates – is held constant.

Classifier predicates are sign language modality specific constructions that are widely spread in all attested sign languages. Extended research has been devoted to the study of these structures, but many aspects related to their nature remain unclear. This article examines the factors that influence the choice of handshape in classifier predicates referring to anthropomorphic entities in Catalan Sign Language (LSC). We present the results of a corpus study investigating the choice between the 1- and the 2-handshape. Our findings indicate that the choice between these two handshapes is affected by the discourse status of the referent, whether the event encodes manner of motion and whether the action is (un)controlled by the moving referent. Moreover, our study shows that, in LSC, handshapes that are articulatory more complex (e.g. the 2-handshape with respect to the 1-handshape) are used to convey more detailed information about the events and the discourse referents. This accounts for the use of the 2-handshape when manner of motion, in addition to path, is expressed, when referents are maintained in the discourse and when controlled actions expressing the controlled movement of the body and the legs are conveyed.