University of Cologne

 

SFB 1252 Prominence in Language (DFG) (2021-2024) (Phase 2)

(Sonderforschungsbereich (SFB) / Collaborative Research Centre (CRC))

 

Across languages, it has been shown that properties of referents and arguments, in interaction with verb meaning, have an effect on the morphosyntactic marking of arguments to express the relationships between arguments and their verbs. This has been shown in phase 1 for features related to prominence across a range of typologically diverse spoken languages. What has yet to be investigated is the way such features play a role at the morphosyntactic-semantic interface in sign languages (SLs), the natural languages used by deaf communities around the world. These languages share fundamental properties with spoken languages across all levels of linguistic description. Yet, their primary modality of production is visual, which has some effects. In particular, the use of space and the body, and the high potential for simultaneous morphology, influences the grammar of SLs (Meier 2012). In German Sign Language (Deutsche Gebärdensprache, DGS), as in most SLs studied to date, referents are associated with locations in space. These locations in space get (re-)used to refer back to referents, in particular with pointing signs (pronominal signs) and predicates (indicating verbs and auxiliaries) that move in space to indicate arguments (Perniss 2012). With few exceptions, grammatical relations in SLs are thus not marked on arguments, but rather on verbs and other signs that are spatially modified to index arguments, or by constituent order. The spatial modification and simultaneous representation properties of the visual modality, however, lead to very flexible coding and behavioural properties of arguments, such that even a basic constituent order is difficult to determine.

 

In this project, we investigate evidence for morphosyntactic prominence of arguments in DGS and the relationship between morphosyntactic prominence, if any, with prominence lending semantic features like animacy and agentivity. Given the properties of the visual modality, and in particular the lack of marking on nominal arguments (Gil 2014), we focus on the behaviour of signs that index arguments through their spatial modification and on the affordance of mapping referents (human, animate) onto the body. We use corpus analysis and elicitation to investigate the potential for differential argument marking and investigate how prominence features like animacy and agentivity, including more fine-grained features like volition, sentience and control, characterize these constructions. Our project addresses the main Area B questions of exploring and determining prominence-lending features and their interaction, investigating relations in a different language modality. The project contributes to understanding the universality and variability of prominence relations across languages, contributing data from the visual modality of a signed language, DGS. By extending the scope of investigation to a signed language, it is possible to test the applicability of the CRC’s approach to and understanding of prominence in a different modality. 

 

"Prominence in action: Referent representation in German Sign Language (DGS) constructed action sequences“ 

 

Stella von Randow 

 

(This project investigates constructed action (CA) in DGS as a phenomenon that may be sensitive to and participate in prominence distinctions.)

To report or depict a referent’s utterances, thoughts or actions, signers of signed languages often use a device known as constructed action (CA), in which an animate referent is mapped fully or partially onto the body of the signer. This project investigates whether and how prominence relations play a role in CA sequences in German Sign Language (Deutsche Gebärdensprache, DGS). We ask to what extent prominence is relevant with respect to (1) the choice of referent(s) for CA, (2) the number and type of articulators representing referent(s) in CA sequences, and (3) the referential contexts in which CA occurs.