37.3477, Diss: British Sign Language; Language Acquisition, Pragmatics, Text/Corpus Linguistics: Matt Brown: "Conjunction, Disjunction, and Scalar Implicatures in British Sign Language"

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-3477. Thu 22 Oct 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.3477, Diss: British Sign Language; Language Acquisition, Pragmatics, Text/Corpus Linguistics: Matt Brown: "Conjunction, Disjunction, and Scalar Implicatures in British Sign Language"

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Date: 21-Oct-2026
From: Matt Brown [m.brown.13 at ucl.ac.uk]
Subject: Conjunction, Disjunction, and Scalar Implicatures in British Sign Language


Institution: University College London
Program: Deafness, Cognition & Language Research Centre
Degree Date: 2025
Level: PhD

Author: Matt Brown

Dissertation Title: Conjunction, Disjunction, and Scalar Implicatures
in British Sign Language

Dissertation URL: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10209047/

Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition
                     Pragmatics
                     Text/Corpus Linguistics

Subject Language(s): British Sign Language (bfi, brit1235)

Dissertation Director(s): Kearsy Cormier, Richard Breheny

Dissertation Abstract:

This project explores conjunction and disjunction in British Sign
Language (BSL), and the
effects of linguistic context and language acquisition on the relative
strength of exclusivity
inferences from disjunction in BSL (a type of scalar implicature).
Part 1 investigates BSL conjunction and disjunction via an analysis of
spontaneous
conversation data from the BSL Corpus, examining manual, non-manual,
and asyndetic
articulation. Descriptive findings provide relative frequencies of
various ways of expressing
these coordinations. A hierarchical clustering analysis indicates that
contrary to assertions
made for some other sign languages, there is no robust association
between specific
forms of co-occurring non-manual feature and coordination types in the
sample, with the
qualified exception of English mouthings. It is argued that such forms
of non-manual
marking are prosodic.
Part 2 documents a scalar implicature judgement task experiment with a
continuous rating
scale paradigm. Deaf adult BSL users were exposed to short
descriptions of picture stimuli
given by a video “guessing game partner”. Test conditions elicited
exclusivity inferences
from disjunctive statements; control conditions were designed to
verify semantic
understanding and reinforce the accessibility of the stronger scalar
alternatives. The lexical
structure of the coordinations and contrastive non-manual prosody over
the coordinates
were manipulated per trial item; the participants were grouped by age
of BSL acquisition
and English reading accuracy score. Bayesian mixed effects modelling
indicates that for
participants with the most language experience, where the lexical
context is minimal,
contrastive non-manual prosody has a tendency to increase the strength
of exclusivity
inferences, as has been demonstrated in analogous spoken language
experiments. For
those with less language experience, lexical context is more
influential, but readings are
generally more inclusive. These findings are argued to be compatible
with a “probabilistic
pragmatics” account of implicatures, and to further support the
characterisation of
non-manual marking of BSL coordination as prosodic.


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