11.2318, Review: Neidle et al.: The Syntax of ASL

Fri Oct 27 12:12:45 UTC 2000

Forwarded from the Liguist list.

Nobukatsu MInoura

>Date:  Fri, 20 Oct 2000 18:25:58 +0200
>From:  Pius ten Hacken <Pius.Tenhacken at unibas.ch>
>Subject:  Review Neidle et al. Syntax of ASL
>
>Neidle, Carol; Kegl, Judy; MacLaughlin, Dawn; Bahan, Benjamin & Lee, Robert
>G. (2000), The Syntax of American Sign Language: Functional Categories and
>Hierarchical Structure, Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press, Hardcover $35.
>
>Reviewed by Pius ten Hacken, Universität Basel (Switzerland)
>
>American Sign Language (ASL) is the language used by the Deaf community in
>the USA. [Note that "Deaf" with a capital refers to the cultural adherence,
>"deaf" to the physiological property.] While even as recently as less than
>half a century ago, ASL was not recognized as a real language, it is now
>generally accepted in linguistics that signed languages are natural
>languages as much as spoken languages are. In the book under review, ASL
>data are analysed in terms of Chomsky's (1995) Minimalist Program. The main
>focus of the research are functional categories, their projections and
>their hierarchical organization in the tree structure. The research was
>carried out as one of the projects within the American Sign Language
>Linguistic Research Project (ASLLRP) at Boston University
><http://www.bu.edu/asllrp>.
>
>
>Synopsis
>
>After a brief introduction sketching the context of the research, chapter 2
>addresses the specific problems of collecting data for a sign language such
>as ASL. These problems are caused by the status as a minority language, by
>the special language acquisition context, and by the fact that it is much
>less clear than in spoken languages which aspects of the visual performance
>of the signer are part of the language system. Since only a small minority
>of deaf children have Deaf parents, sign language acquisition is often
>complicated by the lack of native input in the critical phase, often
>leading to less than complete mastery of the language. As a consequence,
>signers are in general very tolerant to interlocutors using signs in a way
>they would never use them themselves. In addition, interference from
>English in such features as word order tends to occur because in many
>contexts signers have to use the majority language. The problem of getting
>genuine ASL data is addressed by concentrating on signers who share their
>primary language with their parents and creating an elicitation context in
>which signing is performed as naturally as possible. Thus, native signers
>act as elicitors wherever possible. The problem of not losing information
>about the data collected by storing them only in a partial representation
>is solved by working with videotapes and making these videotapes generally
>available at the project's website. In this way, if features of utterances
>remain unnoticed at first, other researchers may still discover them.
>
>In chapter 3, the use of the hands (handshapes, orientation, movement), the
>signing space, and nonmanual markings (facial expression, head movement,
>etc.) in ASL are presented. Phi-features (e.g. person, number) are
>represented spatially. Other heads of functional projections, e.g. Neg, are
>expressed by a nonmanual marking which may spread over the entire c-command
>domain.
>
>Starting from chapter 4, aspects of the syntactic structure of ASL are
>analysed. First, chapter 4 addresses the delimitation of CP. It is argued
>that two topic positions are available to the left of the CP and one
>position each for dislocation of pronouns and tags to the right of the CP.
>If these external positions are disregarded, the remaining CP in ASL shows
>a clear SVO word order. Chapter 5 is concerned with agreement and tense. It
>is shown that the CP in ASL has a structure closely following Pollock's
>(1989) proposal for French and English. The hierarchical order of
>functional projections between CP and VP is TP, NegP, AspP (aspect), AgrSP,
>AgrOP. Chapter 6 discusses noun phrases. Assuming Abney's (1987) DP
>analysis, it is shown how agreement between determiner and NP and of the
>possessive with possessor and possessee is expressed. The nonmanual
>markings involved exhibit a striking similarity to the ones used for
>agreement in the clause.
>
>On the basis of the structure and the methodology established in the
>preceding chapters, chapter 7 proposes an account of wh-movement in ASL.
>The central point of this account is that the wh-phrase in ASL moves
>rightward to [Spec, CP]. This point is supported by an analysis of a wide
>variety of data. It goes counter to Kayne's (1994) general theory of
>antisymmetry, which allows only leftward movement in any language, and more
>specifically to Petronio & Lillo-Martin's (1997) account of wh-movement in
>ASL in terms of leftward movement. The disagreement with Petronio &
>Lillo-Martin (1997) in terms of data and their analysis is treated in
>detail.
>
>Finally, chapter 8 gives an overview of the conclusions, divided into
>findings contradicting earlier claims about ASL, findings consistent with
>theoretical assumptions in the Minimalist Program, and findings which
>provide evidence for one of two sides in current theoretical debates. In
>the first category, it is listed that ASL has grammatical tense, definite
>and indefinite determiners, a uniform licensing mechanism for null
>arguments (syntactic agreement with an overt expression), extraction out of
>embedded clauses, and basic SVO word order in TP. In the second category,
>ASL was shown to provide evidence for functional projections, abstract
>syntactic features, feature checking rather than aggregation, and the
>parallelism of clauses and noun phrases. Finally, as contributions to
>current debates, ASL data are argued to provide arguments in support of the
>existence of Agr-projections and of a structure in which they are dominated
>by TP. They cast doubt on the universality of leftward movement as proposed
>by Kayne (1994).
>
>
>Evaluation
>
>Until recently, the literature on sign languages could be divided into two
>types of work. The first is concerned with proving that sign languages are
>natural languages and exploring the consequences of this insight for the
>general nature of human language. The second is concerned with describing
>aspects of the phonology and morphosyntax of individual sign languages. The
>book under review represents a third type of research, which only emerged
>in the last couple of years. It takes data from a sign language as evidence
>for deciding on theoretical issues in a general framework also used for
>spoken languages. As such, it continues and extends a tradition within
>Chomskyan linguistics represented by such works as Kayne (1975) and Rizzi
>(1982), consisting of considering further languages in order to strengthen
>the basis of the existing theory and provide evidence for choosing between
>alternative analyses.
>
>As a consequence, the shortened form of the title, which is the most common
>form to refer to a book (including on the spine of the book itself and in
>the announcement, http://linguistlist.org/issues/11/11-1724.html), is
>slightly misleading. The book is not a general, descriptive overview of ASL
>syntax but treats chosen aspects in a highly specific theoretical framework.
>
>There are two ways to read this book. The first way is as an example of the
>issues arising when sign languages, in particular ASL, are treated in the
>Minimalist Program. The second way is as an extended argument against
>Petronio & Lillo-Martin's (1997) analysis of wh-movement. The same chapters
>get a rather different load depending on whether they are read from one
>angle or from the other. While the present reviewer has approached the book
>with the first perspective in mind, it is hardly possible to ignore the
>scattered remarks attacking the work of Lillo-Martin and collaborators in
>the chapters on methodology and structure, and the last 22 pages (15% of
>total text) are devoted entirely to refuting their analysis of leftward
>wh-movement.
>
>The primary readership seems to consist of linguists with a certain
>background in Chomsky's Minimalist Program and little or no previous
>knowledge of ASL. For this readership, the book is an excellent
>introduction to the field of sign language linguistics. Assuming only the
>level of knowledge of the Minimalist Program which can be expected to be
>taught in an undergraduate course, the text is clearly structured and
>provides many references. The consistent use of clear summaries makes the
>book accessible also to graduate students. The abundance of references to
>many of the controversial issues mentioned makes it an excellent starting
>point for a more profound study of the existing literature on a chosen
>topic.
>
>A practical disadvantage of this book is the large number of endnotes,
>taking up 35 pages in a smaller font for 152 pages of text. These endnotes
>are used for different purposes, giving further references, making
>background assumptions explicit, noting unsolved problems, refuting
>analyses not treated in the main text, etc. Since it is often difficult to
>foresee the type of information provided in a particular endnote, most
>readers will find themselves paging back and forth much of the time.
>
>A further practical point to note concerns the representation of example
>signs and utterances. They are given as annotated English glosses or
>photographs. The former only specifies chosen aspects of the form. The
>conventions used are described explicitly in an appendix. What is necessary
>in terms of syntactic analysis, e.g. indexes and nonmanual markings, is
>clearly indicated, but it is impossible to get an impression of the actual
>signed form. The photographs are frozen states of videotapes. In cases
>where movement is to be illustrated, two photographs representing initial
>and final states are given. Still, they are less informative than the usual
>drawings with arrows, a representation which is never mentioned in the
>book. Of course, the ASLLRP website gives access to downloadable video
>files, but if the purpose is only to get a quick impression of the signed
>form, downloading is inefficient. Moreover, for the non-specialist the
>videos are difficult to interpret. The analogy which comes to mind is that,
>in a discussion of an unknown spoken language, data are given only as
>English glosses and downloadable audiotapes.
>
>
>Conclusion
>
>I can recommend this book to anyone with a basic background in the
>Minimalist Program. It is well-written, clearly structured, and makes
>interesting points both on theoretical issues in the Minimalist Program and
>on the analysis of ASL. In addition the book has a strong methodological
>foundation, raising issues on data collection which are also of a more
>general relevance in the study of minority languages.
>
>
>References
>
>Chomsky, Noam (1995), The Minimalist Program, Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.
>
>Kayne, Richard S. (1975), French Syntax: The Transformational Cycle,
>Cambridge (Mass.): MIT Press.
>
>Kayne, Richard S. (1994), The Antisymmetry of Syntax, Cambridge (Mass.):
>MIT Press.
>
>Petronio, Karen & Lillo-Martin, Diane (1997), 'WH-movement and the position
>of spec-CP: Perspectives from American Sign Language', Language 73:18-57.
>
>Pollock, Jean-Yves (1989), 'Verb Movement, Universal Grammar, and the
>Structure of IP', Linguistic Inquiry 20:365-424.
>
>Rizzi, Luigi (1982), Issues in Italian Syntax, Dordrecht: Foris.
>
>About the reviewer
>Dr. Pius ten Hacken completed his Ph.D. in English linguistics and his
>Habilitationsschrift in general linguistics at the Universität Basel
>(Switzerland). His research covers philosophy and history of 20th century
>linguistics, morphology, translation, and computational linguistics.
><http://www.unibas.ch/LIlab/staff/tenhacken>
>
>
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--
Nobukatsu Minoura
Institut fuer Deutsche Gebaerdensprache
Universitaet Hamburg
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D-20146, Hamburg
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