• Indicating verbs as typologically unique constructions: Reconsidering verb ‘agreement’ in sign languages

    Author(s):
    Adam C Schembri (see profile)
    Date:
    2018
    Group(s):
    Linguistics
    Subject(s):
    Linguistics, Morphology
    Item Type:
    Article
    Tag(s):
    Agreement, British Sign Language, Gesture, Verbs
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6Q814S0R
    Abstract:
    In this paper, we present arguments for an analysis of indicating verbs, building on Liddell (2000), as a typologically unique, unimodal fusion of signs and pointing gestures used for reference tracking. This contrasts with many formalist analyses that assume that directionality in indicating verbs constitutes an agreement marking system. While exploring some of the debate in the literature about these forms, we propose a model of indicating verbs within a Construction Grammar framework that compares them to multimodal constructions in spoken languages. We explain how our model of indicating verbs appear to align with a growing body of research on co-speech gesture and is supported by some recent findings about these verbs from corpus-based studies of sign languages.
    Metadata:
    Published as:
    Journal article    
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    5 years ago
    License:
    All-Rights-Granted
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