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A Grammatical Sketch of Sivia Sign Language **pre-defense draft** A GRAMMATICAL SKETCH OF SIVIA SIGN LANGUAGE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAIʻI AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN LINGUISTICS DECEMBER 2017 By Brenda Rae Clark Dissertation Committee: James Woodward, Chairperson William O'Grady, Chairperson Lyle Campbell Gary Holton Amy Hubbard Keywords: sign language, Peru, sketch grammar, language documentation, South America ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to the Bilinski Educational Foundation for providing the funding to carry out fieldwork and to complete this dissertation. I truly would not be here without your generosity. I also want to thank James Woodward for always supporting and encouraging me, for many rounds of feedback on drafts and ideas, and for introducing me to sign linguistics in the first place. William O'Grady has also helped to ensure that this text is as clear and scientific as possible. Support from other faculty, friends, and family has been of monumental importance as well. This applies doubly to my mother, who is also the artist responsible for some of my elicitation materials. A mis participantes en Sivia, no puedo expresar cuanto me han ayudado. Gracias por aceptarme en su vida y por compartir tanto conmigo. Espero que esta descripción revele el respeto enorme que siento por su comunidad y su lenguaje. También hay que agradecer a la Asociación de sordos del Perú y la Asociación de sordos de Ayacucho por guiarme a la región de VRAE, y a la Municipalidad de Sivia por informarme sobre la región y la historia. ii ABSTRACT This sketch grammar presents what is currently known about Sivia Sign Language (LSSiv). It is a language native to Sivia, Peru, used by a small population of deaf and hearing people in the region. Data collected in 2015 and 2016 from native signers is used to describe the language's phonology, morphology, and syntax. Findings align well with the typology of sign languages, and generational variations indicate ongoing development. LSSiv uses relatively few distinctions in handshape and handedness, placing more importance on locative and non-manual features. Some free variation patterns lead to the proposal of an 'open' feature for handshapes, and orientations are considered to be largely morphological. Both of these are presented as topics for further investigation. LSSiv's lexicon has a flexible class system in which many signs may be used as more than one part of speech, and only one derivational process has been found. Inflection takes the form of locative agreement for most constituents, as well as shape or directional agreement for verbs with direct or indirect objects. A number of meaningful handshapes are identified, which exhibit some features of 'classifiers'. Simultaneous morphemes which modify signs for size, shape, and intensity marking are also prevalent. Morpho-syntactic patterns relating to role shifts, focus, and phrasing need to be examined more closely. The basic sign order for LSSiv is SOV, with final negation and question signs. A few potential serial verb constructions are also identified. Variations relate to pro-drop, levels of transitivity, and fronting. Observations about contrastive, resultative, and topicalized structures, as well as prosodic patterns, are introduced as areas for future research. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ....................................................................................................ii Abstract ................................................................................................................... iii List of tables ............................................................................................................ xii Abbreviations .......................................................................................................... xxi Transcription conventions...................................................................................... xxii Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1. Previous work on sign languages ..................................................... 3 1.1 Sign language versus spoken language ............................................................................. 3 1.1.1 Legitimacy and complexity .......................................................................................... 3 1.1.2 Structure ........................................................................................................................ 4 1.1.3 Socio-cultural aspects ................................................................................................... 6 1.1.4 Transmission ................................................................................................................. 7 1.2 Typology................................................................................................................................ 9 1.2.1 Creation ......................................................................................................................... 9 1.2.2 Variation and change.................................................................................................. 11 1.2.3 Classification ............................................................................................................... 12 1.2.4 Shared Traits............................................................................................................... 14 1.3 Summary ............................................................................................................................ 14 Chapter 2. Sign Languages of South America and Peru .................................... 15 2.1 Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia............................................. 15 2.2 Sign languages of Peru ...................................................................................................... 17 2.2.1 Peruvian Sign Language ............................................................................................ 18 2.2.2 Inmaculada .................................................................................................................. 19 2.2.3 Other communities ..................................................................................................... 20 2.3 Summary ............................................................................................................................ 21 Chapter 3. Sivia and LSSiv ........................................................................... 23 3.1 The town of Sivia ............................................................................................................... 23 3.1.1 Location, history, and development .......................................................................... 23 iv 3.1.2 General culture ........................................................................................................... 25 3.1.3 Deaf population and culture ...................................................................................... 25 3.2 Sivia Sign Language .......................................................................................................... 27 3.2.1 Development and current use .................................................................................... 27 3.2.2 Foreign influence and endangerment ....................................................................... 28 3.2.3 Comparison to LSP ..................................................................................................... 29 3.3 Summary ............................................................................................................................ 31 Chapter 4. Methodology ............................................................................... 32 4.1 Contact with the community ............................................................................................ 32 4.2 Data collection.................................................................................................................... 33 4.2.1 Consent and compensation ........................................................................................ 34 4.2.2 Equipment and staging .............................................................................................. 35 4.2.3 Elicitation materials ................................................................................................... 37 4.2.4 Narrative and conversational data collection ........................................................... 39 4.2.5 Linguistic interviews and negative evidence............................................................ 39 4.3 Corpus................................................................................................................................. 41 4.3.1 Annotation and transcription .................................................................................... 41 4.3.2 Clips, images, and drawings ...................................................................................... 42 4.4 Methodological challenges ................................................................................................ 43 Chapter 5. Phonetics ................................................................................... 46 5.1 Possible features and segments........................................................................................ 46 5.1.1 Handshape
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