23.3346, Diss: Pragmatics: Altimira: 'The meaning of space in Catalan Sign Language...'

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LINGUIST List: Vol-23-3346. Wed Aug 08 2012. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 23.3346, Diss: Pragmatics: Altimira: 'The meaning of space in Catalan Sign Language...'

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Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2012 16:52:55
From: Gemma Barberà Altimira [gemma.barbera at upf.edu]
Subject: The meaning of space in Catalan Sign Language (LSC). Reference, specificity and structure in signed discourse.

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Institution: Universitat Pompeu Fabra 
Program: Cognitive Science and Language 
Dissertation Status: Completed 
Degree Date: 2012 

Author: Gemma Barberà Altimira

Dissertation Title: The meaning of space in Catalan Sign Language (LSC).
Reference, specificity and structure in signed discourse. 

Dissertation URL:  http://www.tdx.cat/handle/10803/81074

Linguistic Field(s): Pragmatics


Dissertation Director(s):
Josep Quer

Dissertation Abstract:

This dissertation is concerned with the semantic and pragmatic 
properties of sign space in Catalan Sign Language (llengua de signes 
catalana, LSC). It offers a description and analysis of how spatial 
locations are integrated in the discourse grammar of LSC concerning 
the dynamic nature of discourse and taking into account dynamic 
semantic theories. The dissertation offers new evidence in favour of 
the r-locus view (Lillo-Martin & Klima, 1991), according to which spatial 
locations stand for the representation of discourse referents. My 
working hypothesis is that spatial locations are integrated into the 
grammar of LSC and they need to be analysed with respect to the role 
they play in the denotation of specificity and discourse structure. The 
analysis is framed under the formalisation of Discourse Representation 
Theory, on the basis of a small-scale LSC corpus.

I argue that non-descriptive locations are established in the three 
spatial planes and the grammatical features contained within them are 
comprehensibly described. Spatial locations are morphophonologically 
marked with an abstract point in space which does not have a specific 
direction on the horizontal plane and which is categorically interpreted 
in the linguistic system. Discourse referents attached to narrow scope 
quantifiers, exemplified by non-argumental NPs, donkey sentences, 
distributivity and quantification contexts, genericity and reference to 
kinds, do not occupy a spatial location in LSC. Only discourse referents 
attached to wide scope quantifiers (i.e. those discourse referents not 
bound by any operator) are formally represented by a spatial location 
in actual signing. 

Once strong arguments are provided showing that spatial locations in 
LSC stand only for referential entities, the dissertation also shows that 
the frontal plane is grammatically relevant for specificity marking: lower 
spatial locations correlate with specificity, whereas upper locations 
correlate with non-specificity. The three properties ascribed to 
specificity, namely scope, partitivity and identifiability are associated 
with the two directions on the frontal plane. The analysis is completed 
with instances of discourse referents embedded in modal subordination 
contexts, which are associated with locations established on the lower 
frontal plane. Lower spatial locations correspond to discourse 
prominence, defined as variables with backward looking properties as 
well as forward looking properties, independently of the scope of the 
quantifier attached to the variable. 






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