Iconicity and Verb Agreement: A Corpus-Based Syntactic Analysis of German Sign Language

Marloes Oomen

Published by De Gruyter Mouton 2022

Iconicity and Verb Agreement

A Corpus-Based Syntactic Analysis of German Sign Language

Marloes Oomen

Volume 15 in the series Sign Languages and Deaf Communities [SLDC]

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110742787

Overview
Contents

About this book

In many sign languages around the world, some verbs express grammatical agreement, while many others do not. Curiously, there is a remarkable degree of semantic overlap across sign languages between verbs that do and do not possess agreement properties.
This book scrutinizes the interaction between semantic and morphosyntactic structure in verb constructions in German Sign Language (DGS). Naturalistic dialogues from the DGS Corpus form the primary data source. It is shown that certain semantic properties, also known to govern transitivity marking in spoken languages, are predictive of verb type in DGS, where systematic iconic mappings play a mediating role. The results enable the formulation of cross-linguistic predictions about the interplay between verb semantics and verb type in sign languages. An analysis of the morphosyntactic properties of different verb types leads up to the conclusion that even ‘plain’ verbs agree with their arguments, where iconicity again plays a crucial role.
The findings motivate a unified syntactic analysis in terms of agreement of constructions with verbs of all types, thus offering a novel solution to the typological puzzle that supposedly only a subset of verbs agree in DGS and other sign languages.

Author / Editor information

Marloes Oomen, Institute Jean Nicod, CNRS-ENS-EHESS, PSL University, Paris, France.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	I
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	V
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	XI
Notation conventions Publicly Available Download PDF	XIII
List of sign languages Publicly Available Download PDF	XVII
Part I: Background
1 Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2 Methodology Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
Part II: Verb semantics and iconic mappings
3 Verb types and semantic maps Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
4 Iconic mapping patterns Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	90
5 Synthesis: verb semantics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
Part III: Morphosyntactic properties of verb forms
6 Body-anchored verbs Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	131
7 Neutral verbs Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	151
8 Agreement verbs and spatial verbs Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	185
9 Synthesis: morphosyntactic properties Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	221
Part IV: Theoretical analysis and implications
10 Spatial verbs are demonstration verbs Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	237
11 A unified analysis in terms of agreement Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251
12 Concluding remarks Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	294
A Verb meanings and lexical signs Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	308
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	311
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	326

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
Audience: Scholars and students of General and Theoretical Linguistics, Sign Languages, German Sign Language, and Corpus Linguisics.
Pages
- Front matter: 18
- Main content: 328
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 75
- Tables: 55
Keywords: German Sign Language; Verb Agreement; Iconicity

eBook

Published: December 6, 2021
ISBN: 9783110742787

Hardcover

Published: December 6, 2021
ISBN: 9783110742749