Plain verbs in signed languages

Wed Jan 9 13:56:52 UTC 2008

In the following paper we discuss optionality in relation to agreement in
the input to children acquiring BSL as a first language. Morgan G, Barrière
I, & Woll B  (2006) The influence of typology and modality on the
acquisition of language. First Language 26: 19-43.

Bencie Woll, BA, MA, PhD
Chair of Sign Language and Deaf Studies
Director, UCL DCAL Research Centre
49 Gordon Square
London WC1H 0PD
+44 20 7679 8670 (voice)
+44 20 7679 8691 (fax)
+44 20 7679 8693 (textphone/minicom) www.dcal.ucl.ac.uk

  _____  

From: slling-l-bounces at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
[mailto:slling-l-bounces at majordomo.valenciacc.edu] On Behalf Of
I.Zwitserlood
Sent: 09 January 2008 08:26
To: A list for linguists interested in signed languages
Subject: Re: [SLLING-L] Plain verbs in signed languages

Dear Scholastica,

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.
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!

Inge Zwitserlood
Radboud University Nijmegen

At 17:53 8-1-2008, you wrote:

Hi everyone,

I think I need to rephrase my question. Sorry for any misunderstandings
caused. 

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. 

Did anyone observe that the so-called plain verbs may actually be marked
with morphemes in signed languages?

Scholastica 

"Mark A. Mandel" <mamandel at ldc.upenn.edu> wrote:

"Scholastica" (Nini Hoiting?) wrote:

#I am a research student who works on Hong Kong Sign Language. My focus of 

#study is verbs. I would like to confirm if plain verbs are generally

#unmarked for verb agreement and spatial locations.

Dan Slobin answered:

#By defnition, a "plain verb" is one that cannot move in space, and so it

#cannot mark agreement and spatial locations in itself. But in many sign

#languages (including Sign Language of the Netherlands, Taiwanese Sign

#Language, and others), there are "auxiliary" verbs that accompany a "plain"

#verb. Such accompanying verbs do move in space to indicate relations such

#as source-goal, agent-patient, and so forth.

Denise Wetzler added:

#In American Sign Language, verbs move. The movement itself contains a great

#amount of information. If want to show that I will go from my house to the

#bank and then to the library, these three locations are first established
in

#the signing space. How I sign the verb 'go-to' then will show where I

#started from; went to; and where I ended up. [...]

It's essential to know what Scholastica means by "plain verb". Dan is
evidently 

assuming that S. has the same definition for it that he does. 

A sign that does not move in space can nevertheless mark agreement with a 

spatial location, by its orientation and possibly its location as well.
Example: 

ASL PITY (open-8 handshape, palm toward object, middle finger repeatedly 

bending).

Clarification of Denise's answer: in ASL, *many* verbs move [in space], but
by 

no means all of them.

-- Mark A. Mandel

Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania

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