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Hi Louise and all,<br><br>
These are extremely interesting data! If I remember correctly, Adam
Schembri also indicated at his Cologne talk that the agreement mostly
appeared to be with 1st person, and that "3rd to 3rd" person
occurred far less. (If you have any statistics on that, I'd be happy to
know). And I completely agree with you that more work, especially on
spontaneous data, will learn us a lot more about the agreement properties
of SL verbs. For that, of course, such data should be available. B.t.w.
For those who are interested in setting up a SL corpus, there will be a
workshop on this topic on June 1st in Marrakech (Morocco). See
<a href="http://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/lrec2008/cfp.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/lrec2008/cfp.html</a>.<br>
Cheers,<br>
Inge<br><br>
At 03:40 10-1-2008, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font face="Verdana">Hi Robin
and all,<br><br>
> Overall- my recollection of the data we collected is that plain
verbs which could be displaced in space (i.e., are not are produced on
the body) ARE with (fairly) high frequency. <br><br>
Actually, as part of my post-doc into the use of space in Auslan, we
(Trevor Johnston, Adam Schembri, several research assistants and I) have
annotated and analysed about 70 texts in Elan. As Adam Schembri said, we
defined these verbs that could be located in space (but do not either
move through space or use a change of orientation meaningfully) as
locatable indicating verbs (such as the Auslan verb HAVE which is a
clench of the fist, usually in front of the body). We defined directional
indicating verbs as those verbs that have a beginning and ending location
or orientation associated with agent/source and patient/goal (such as the
Auslan sign SAY/TELL – a finger from mouth to another location - or LOOK
–two fingers from next to the eye to another location. And plain verbs
were body anchored in some way and unable to be either moved through
space or located in space (such as the sign for EAT in Auslan (hand to
mouth), or LOVE (arms across body hugging oneself). About a quarter of
the data were plain verbs (body anchored in some way and unable to be
located in space), and a quarter were depicting verbs (classifier signs,
polycomponential signs etc etc), and half were indicating verbs.<br>
<br>
In an analysis of the first 50 texts (which included 8, 534 tokens or
signs and gestures (and about 40,000 individual annotations)), we found
that <b>19 - 33% of locatable indicating verbs were actually located in
space</b> or modified in some way (depending on different criteria for
recognising a modification). Also <b>53 to 70% of directional signs were
actually modified</b>. So indeed, there were MANY instances of verbs
which COULD be modified in some way that were not. Further, approximately
half of the examples of verbs that were modified were just 10 frequently
occurring verbs. So many modifiable verbs modified hardly at all or
never.<br><br>
This is a fascinating area that obviously needs a lot more work on large
numbers of naturally occurring texts. We are still increasing the number
of annotated texts and looking at various factors which might influence
the spatial modification. <br><br>
Louise<br><br>
<br>
-- <br>
Dr Louise de Beuzeville BA(hons) GradDipEd
MspecEd(Deafness) PhD <br>
Signed Languages & Linguistics<br>
___________________________________________________________<br>
Department of Linguistics, C3B 401<br>
Macquarie University, Sydney<br>
NSW Australia 2109<br><br>
phone: +61 (0)2 9850 8635<br>
fax: +61 (0)2 9850 9199<br>
mobile: +61 (0)433 704 794<br>
email: louise.debeuzeville@ling.mq.edu.au<br><br>
<br><br>
On 10/1/08 1:52 AM, "Robin Thompson"
<robin.thompson@ucl.ac.uk> wrote:<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>For my dissertation work (with Karen Emmorey) we looked at eye gaze
occurring with plain verbs as well as eye gaze with verbs that move in
space to indicate location (spatial verbs) or person (agreeing verbs). We
found that for plain verbs eye gaze was not directed toward locations
associated with referents whereas for agreeing and spatial verbs it was.
<br>
<dd>Crucially- this was true whether or not the plain verb was spatially
modified-- This (at a minimum) suggests that the two types of
movement/spatial displacement are not the same. If you want to think of
it in terms of morphemes, Carol Padden suggested that plain verbs that
indicated either the subject or object (e.g., WANT produced on the right
could mean "She wants something" , or "Someone want that
thing" -it is ambiguous ) were occurring with clitics. <br>
<br>
<dd>Overall- my recollection of the data we collected is that plain verbs
which could be displaced in space (i.e., are not are produced on the
body) ARE with (fairly) high frequency. <br><br>
<dd>Happy New Year to all!<br>
<dd>Robin<br><br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>Robin Thompson, Ph.D.<br>
<dd>Research Fellow<br>
<dd>Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre (DCAL)<br>
<dd>University College London<br>
<dd>49 Gordon Square, London, WC1H 0PD<br>
<dd>Web:
<a href="http://www.dcal.ucl.ac.uk/" eudora="autourl">
www.dcal.ucl.ac.uk</a>
<<a href="http://www.dcal.ucl.ac.uk/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.dcal.ucl.ac.uk</a>> <br>
<dd>robin.thompson@ucl.ac.uk<br><br>
<br>
<dd> <br><br>
<dd>On 9 Jan 2008, at 13:56, Bencie Woll wrote:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd> <br>
<dd><font size=4 color="#000080">In the following paper we discuss
optionality in relation to agreement in the input to children acquiring
BSL as a first language. </font><font face="Verdana" size=4>Morgan G,
Barričre I, & Woll B (2006) The influence of typology and
modality on the acquisition of language. First Language 26: 19-43.<br>
</font>
<dd><font size=4 color="#000080"> <br>
<dd> <br>
</font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font>
<dd><font face="Verdana" size=4 color="#000080">Bencie Woll, BA, MA,
PhD<br>
<dd> Chair of Sign Language and Deaf Studies<br>
<dd> Director, UCL DCAL Research Centre<br>
<dd> 49 Gordon Square<br>
<dd> London WC1H 0PD<br>
<dd> +44 20 7679 8670 (voice)<br>
<dd> +44 20 7679 8691 (fax)<br>
<dd> +44 20 7679 8693 (textphone/minicom)
<a href="http://www.dcal.ucl.ac.uk/" eudora="autourl">
www.dcal.ucl.ac.uk</a>
<<a href="http://www.dcal.ucl.ac.uk/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.dcal.ucl.ac.uk</a>> <br>
</font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font>
<dd><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#000080"> <br>
</font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font>
<dd><font size=4 color="#000080"> <br>
</font><font face="Verdana"><br>
<dd> </font><br><br>
<div align="center"><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5><br>
<hr>
</font>
<dd><font face="Tahoma" size=4>From:</b>
slling-l-bounces@majordomo.valenciacc.edu
[<a href="mailto:slling-l-bounces@majordomo.valenciacc.edu]">
mailto:slling-l-bounces@majordomo.valenciacc.edu]</a> On Behalf Of
</b>I.Zwitserlood<br>
<dd> Sent:</b> 09 January 2008 08:26<br>
<dd> To:</b> A list for linguists interested in signed
languages<br>
<dd> Subject:</b> Re: [SLLING-L] Plain verbs in signed
languages<br>
</font><font face="Verdana"><br>
</font>
<dd><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5> <br>
<dd>Dear Scholastica,<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd> Uou touch on an important issue here. It seems as if
"plain verbs" in a sign language are taken to be a fixed group
of verbs that never show any agreement, whereas "agreement
verbs" do show agreement and "spatial verbs" also show
agreement, though in a different way from agreement verbs. However, it is
also observed that verbs that are reported (e.g. in the literature or
dictionaries) to be "agreement verbs" are used without showing
agreement (viz. there is a lot of variability in the use of agreement).
E.g. In discourses in Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT) we sometimes
see verbs that can show agreement, used without agreement or only
carrying a subset of the possible agreement markers. Sometimes they are
accompanied by an auxiliary carrying the agreement marking, but not
always. Also we see that verbs that are reported to be "plain
verbs" sometimes do show agreement. It is by no means clear when,
how and why the agreement marking varies, no systematic studies have been
done on NGT so far. During the CISLR conference in Cologne last year
Diane Lillo-Martin and Adam Schembri also report unexpected agreement
patterns in ASL (children) and Auslan (adults), respectively.<br>
<dd> I'm not sure whether this answers your question, but I think it
is important to notice that the issue of sign language agreement is by no
means clear yet and needs a lot more study. As you plan to do. Good
luck!<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd> Inge Zwitserlood<br>
<dd> Radboud University Nijmegen<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd> <br>
<dd> At 17:53 8-1-2008, you wrote:<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>Hi everyone,<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd> I think I need to rephrase my question. Sorry for any
misunderstandings caused. <br>
<dd> <br>
<dd> I tried to adopt Padden's (1983, 1988) verb classification for
my HKSL data. Yet I want to clarify the notion plain verbs. I wonder if
what have been called plain verbs may not be really "plain" in
terms of morphology (e.g. verb agreement, aspect, etc) when more studies
are done on ASL and other signed languages. <br>
<dd> <br>
<dd> Did anyone observe that the so-called plain verbs may actually
be marked with morphemes in signed languages?<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd> Scholastica <br>
<dd> <br>
<dd> "Mark A. Mandel"
<mamandel@ldc.upenn.edu></i></b> wrote:<br>
<dd>"Scholastica" (Nini Hoiting?) wrote:<br>
<dd>#I am a research student who works on Hong Kong Sign Language. My
focus of <br>
<dd>#study is verbs. I would like to confirm if plain verbs are
generally<br>
<dd>#unmarked for verb agreement and spatial locations.<br>
<dd>Dan Slobin answered:<br>
<dd>#By defnition, a "plain verb" is one that cannot move in
space, and so it<br>
<dd>#cannot mark agreement and spatial locations in itself. But in many
sign<br>
<dd>#languages (including Sign Language of the Netherlands, Taiwanese
Sign<br>
<dd>#Language, and others), there are "auxiliary" verbs that
accompany a "plain"<br>
<dd>#verb. Such accompanying verbs do move in space to indicate relations
such<br>
<dd>#as source-goal, agent-patient, and so forth.<br>
<dd>Denise Wetzler added:<br>
<dd>#In American Sign Language, verbs move. The movement itself contains
a great<br>
<dd>#amount of information. If want to show that I will go from my house
to the<br>
<dd>#bank and then to the library, these three locations are first
established in<br>
<dd>#the signing space. How I sign the verb 'go-to' then will show where
I<br>
<dd>#started from; went to; and where I ended up. [...]<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>It's essential to know what Scholastica means by "plain
verb". Dan is evidently <br>
<dd>assuming that S. has the same definition for it that he does. <br>
<dd>A sign that does not move in space can nevertheless mark agreement
with a <br>
<dd>spatial location, by its orientation and possibly its location as
well. Example: <br>
<dd>ASL PITY (open-8 handshape, palm toward object, middle finger
repeatedly <br>
<dd>bending).<br>
<dd>Clarification of Denise's answer: in ASL, *many* verbs move [in
space], but by <br>
<dd>no means all of them.<br>
<dd>-- Mark A. Mandel<br>
<dd>Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania<br>
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