Overview No agreement on agreement in signed languages: Are we • Agreement: definition • The indicating verb analysis and agreement missing the point? • Re-examining arguments against the indicating verb analysis (e.g., Meier, 2002): Adam Schembri speech, gesture & sign Deafness Cognition and Language (DCAL) Research • The ‘paradox’ of morphology? Centre, University College London • Conclusion

Agreement: a definition Defining terms • ‘Syntactic’ versus ‘morphological’ agreement • Corbett (2006: 4-5) – some linguistic theories assume that a verb ‘agrees’ – The element that controls the with its subject, for example, regardless of the agreement is the controller: here, it is presence of agreement morphology (cf. Aronoff & the NP ‘the system’ Fudeman, 2005) – The element whose form is determined by the controller is the – focus here on overt morphological expression of target: here the verb ‘works’ shows agreement only agreement in number features • Drawing on typological work by Greville Corbett – The domain of agreement is the clause, and there are no conditions for (2006), using a working definition proposed by this agreement to take place Susan Steele (1978: 610): • Corbett (2006: 264) argued that “ …agreement commonly refers to some systematic indicating verbs in signed co-variance between a semantic or formal property languages do not show co- of one element and a formal property of another.” variance between controller and target

1 Agreement vs indicating Indicating verb analysis & verbs? agreement 1

• Padden (1983, 1988): original proposal that • Liddell (2000, 2003, 2007): directionality of signed language indicating verbs may be controlled by real or imagined of the referent, not agreement verbs/agreeing verbs, by being formal or semantic properties of a controller noun phrase directed towards locations associated with the – British-Australian-New Zealand Sign Language (BANZSL) PRO-1 ASK →y MOTHER: the sign MOTHER produced on ipsilateral subject and/or object arguments, are marking forehead but ASK may be directed to a contralateral location away for person agreement from the signer ≠formal property of controller NP – Location and height properties of the referent represented in • Liddell (2000): proposed that such signs are different forms of (ASL) ASK→y (e.g., a. not marking person agreement, but signal versus b.) ≠ semantic property of controller NP reference tracking by pointing, and thus introduced the alternative term indicating verb

Indicating verb analysis & Indicating verb analysis & agreement 3 agreement 2 • The use of indicating verbs that most closely approaches Corbett’s definition is: • Consider another example (cf. Johnston, ______br y y 1991; Liddell, 2007), produced in BSL: – MOTHER PT → PRO-1 GIVE → BOOK – “I gave mother the book” ____bf y x back-of-head →y – YESTERDAY PRO→ LOOK-AT → WHY • Here, the location associated with the pointing sign PT after – “Why were you staring at the back of my head yesterday?” MOTHER as part of the controller NP and the directional marking on the target verb GIVE→y are associated: this might be construed as a covariance between a formal property of the NP • Here, the location associated with the and the target • But we still encounter the listability issue (i.e., how is such a use potential controller NP and the verb of space listed in the mental lexicon?) (Liddell, 2000), and not LOOK-AT x→back-of-head are clearly dissociated clear how it is distinct from abstract uses of deictic gesture (e.g., Kendon, 2004) • Even this use may be controlled by the imagined location and height properties of the referent (e.g., ASK →y might be directed towards a higher location)

2 First person versus non-first Pointing in sign and gesture is person conventionalised • Note that arguments by Meier (1990) for a first- • Agreement verbs are constrained: for person versus non-first-person distinction in ASL are example, ASL GIVE points to locations persuasive: associated with the ‘indirect object’ and • fixed form for first vs. variable pointing/gaze for non-first • idiosyncratic forms for first person indicating verbs ‘subject’ referents, but not to ‘direct object’ • Here, focus is on indicating non-first person roles and (Aronoff, Meir & Sandler, 2000; Meier, 2002) the lack of a relationship between controller NP – This reflects semantics of GIVE: transfer of properties and directionality ownership between donor and recipient • There may be a case for ‘agreement’ with first – Spatial verb in ASL CL:PASS-BY-HAND not so person: however, research needed to show how the constrained use of a fixed first-person versus variable non-first – This argument assumes that adult pointing person differs from pointing gestures in which there gestures are themselves not conventionalised, appear to be similar fixed versus non-fixed forms contra Kita (2003) and Kendon (2004)

Pointing in sign and gesture Singular versus plural varies cross-linguistically • Meier (2002) pointed out that the set of • Meier (2002) and Cormier (2002, 2007) indicating verbs differ cross-linguistically (e.g., explained that expressions of numerosity in EXPLAIN is an indicating verb in BANZSL but the verbal and pronominal systems of ASL not in ASL, (DGS) uses a ‘person agreement marker’ but BANZSL does and BSL affect the interaction with pointing not) • Again, whether an indicating verb can point • Liddell (2003) proposed that the set of indicating verbs and/or auxiliaries and their and/or express numerosity, how it points properties are listed in the mental lexicon, thus and/or shows number are all conventionalised may vary from one signed language to the next aspects of specific lexicalised verbs • Fusion of signs with pointing gesture is conventionalised, just as use of pointing • The issue here is that the directionality of the gestures themselves may vary from culture to pointing itself (i.e, the varying features of the culture (e.g., Wilkins, 2003: Arrernte use of specific pointing gesture meaning ‘motion target) does not reflect semantic or formal towards that location’) properties of a controller NP

3 Grammar and gesture: Indicating verbs and syntax Arrernte • Meier (2002) and Sandler & Lillo-Martin (2006) • But, research has begun to suggest interesting pointed out that the use of indicating verbs has interactions between grammar and co-speech syntactic consequences gesture • Null arguments and constituent order interact • Arrernte (Wilkins, 2003: 195) with the use of indicating verbs in ASL and • ‘…there is no obligatory marking in noun phrases to indicate (LSB): SVO vs. SOV singular or plural … a phrase like arne nhenhe (‘tree this’) can vs. (S)V(O) mean either “this tree” or “these trees.” However, the singular/nonsingular distinction is frequently made gesturally: • In LSB, indicating verbs also interact with the when the one-finger point accompanies the phrase, the order of negative sign (preverbal vs. clause interpretation is “this tree”, whereas when the wide hand point final) accompanies the phrase the interpretation is “these trees”…’ • Thus, these authors suggest that agreement verbs must be represented in the syntax

Grammar and gesture: motion Acquisition evidence 1 verbs and motion gestures • Studies of co-speech gestures in Turkish, English • Meier (2002) claimed mastery of and Japanese narratives suggest that gestures used directionality of indicating verbs to express motion events interact with how features for present referents by age 3 of such events were expressed in the language (Kita • Mastery of this system for absent & Ozyurek, 2002) referents is later still • English speakers used manner & path conflating • This is similar to the acquisition clausal constructions & gestures, whereas Turkish of complex morphological and Japanese speakers used manner-only or path- systems (Slobin, 1985) only manner gestures & clausal constructions • But what about the development • English: she rolled down the hill of the relationship between • Japanese: korogat-te saka-o kudaru (‘roll+connective language and co-speech slope+accusative descend’: she descends the slope, rolling) gesture?

4 Neurolinguistic evidence Acquisition evidence 2 • Meier (2002) listed a number of case studies of deaf aphasics that indicate more left-hemisphere involvement than right-hemisphere for indicating verbs, suggesting these verbs pattern like other linguistic • Gullberg, de Bot & Volterra (2008) explained that abilities development of adult speech-gesture system not yet • Insufficient data on gesture and aphasia: more research needed fully described: more studies are needed • For ASL, some evidence for right-hemisphere involvement in • Mayberry & Nicoladis (2000) followed 5 French- comprehension (Poizner, Klima & Bellugi, 1987), and in syntactic English bilingual children from age 2;0 to 3;6 and processing (Neville et al.,1997) found that the use of iconic and beat gestures • Capek et al. (2001) showed deaf native ASL signers sentences correlated with speech development, whereas containing indicating verb errors. This ERP study found left hemispheric activity in these participants similar to that seen in pointing gestures did not hearing people reading or listening to syntactic violations in English. • Coletta (2004), however, suggested that children • However, indicating verb errors in which the verb was directed to a aged 6 and over use more metaphoric, beat and new location, not previously associated with a referent, elicited abstract deictic gestures than younger children bilateral responses • Neurolinguistic evidence alone, however, cannot lead to definitive conclusions about the nature of the directionality in indicating verbs (cf. Van Lancker Sidtis, 2006)

Indicating verbs and the emergence of signed language Lexicalisation of pointing grammars gesture & verb signs • Indicating verbs develop as pointing gestures are incorporated into verb • Directional verbal gestures emerge in home sign systems and in signs as part of an emerging linguistic system, and may continue to modified forms of used by deaf children develop through analogic processes of language change not exposed to ASL, but appear under-developed compared to • Increasing conventionalisation provides evidence of an emergent ASL (Supalla, 1991; Goldin-Meadow, Butcher, Mylander & subsystem of the grammar, but not necessarily an agreement system Dodge, 1994) • Agreement systems generally emerge by means of a separate but related process: grammaticalisation (Givon, 1976; Corbett, 2006). • Indicating verbs much more frequent and systematic in signed language creoles than pidgins, as seen in first and second – Full pronouns>clitics>inflectional morphology cohort of users (Senghas & • No evidence that this grammaticalisation pathway followed in signed Coppola, 2001) languages (Liddell, 2003): many first person forms clearly not the result of the fusion of PRO-1 and a verb (e.g., BANZSL REMIND-1, • Reports of language change in younger vs. older signers of EXPLAIN-1; ASL ASK→y etc) established signed languages (Engberg-Pedersen, 1993) • Pronouns and indicating verbs instead involve similar uses of gestural • Apparently rare in Al-Sayid Bedouin Sign Language (Sandler & space, and not clear that assimilation in pronouns is part of Lillo-Martin, 2006) a process of grammaticalisation (e.g., Bayley, Lucas & Rose, 2002), although analysed as cliticisation (Sandler & Lillo-Martin, 2006)

5 Indicating verbs as Signed languages as derivational morphology inflectionless? • Liddell (2003) suggested that indicating verbs form a • An overview of processes treated as inflections in the signed derivational system, rather than an inflectional one marking language literature: person agreement – Marking number in nouns: optional, phonologically conditioned • He proposes a cognitive/construction grammar based approach reduplication process (e.g., Pfau & Steinbach, 2006) in which varying indicating verb forms are listed in the mental – Multiple and exhaustive marking in verbs: optional form of lexicon (cf., rule-based analyses in Janis, 1992; Meir, 1998; reduplication, not necessarily agreement with controller NP in Rathmann & Mathur, 2008) number (e.g., Liddell, 2003) • Yet, indicating verbs form the best candidate for an inflectional – Aspect marking in verbs: optional, iconically-motivated system in signed language grammars (Engberg-Pedersen, reduplication (e.g., Rathmann, 2005); ideophonic? (Bergman & 1993), so what are the implications for models of signed Dahl, 1994) language morphology? – Classifier constructions: iconically-motivated lexical • Liddell (2003) and Bergman & Dahl (1994) claimed that ASL subsystem, not marking agreement with gender/noun class and are basically inflectionless (e.g., Schembri, 2003; Nadolske, in progress) languages with well-developed iconic derivational morphology • Not much evidence here of highly-grammaticalised, obligatory inflectional morphology in signed languages (cf. Aronoff, Meir & Sandler, 2005)

What paradox? Indicating verbs and • Morphology: ‘the paradox of signed language morphology’ (Aronoff, (socio-)linguistic variation Meir & Sandler, 2005): sign languages are young languages with variable patterns of transmission, and exhibit certain common grammatical characteristics of ‘young creole languages’ and yet, • The sociolinguistic situation of signing communities mean that they also show morphology that is reminiscent of very heavily there is a lot of apparent idiosyncratic variation with respect to inflecting languages, with verb agreement and classifier all aspects of language use, including morphology - as young constructions, for example languages, many of their morphosyntactic properties are not • Some issues: highly grammaticalised – Morphosyntactic characteristics of creole languages is in • Some of the variation correlates with language-external factors, dispute (McWhorter, 1998; DeGraff, 2003), but claim is that they such whether a signer is deaf or hearing, is a native or non- show little or no inflection, and only semantically regular native signer etc (Lucas & Valli, 1992). derivation • But Engberg-Pedersen (1993:65 ) proposed that these – Inflection vs derivation is problematic (e.g., Spencer, 2006) modifications also interact with language-internal factors such • But revised view of signed language morphology as having minimal as the frequency of a lexical unit and the sign’s formal inflection but complex semantically regular derivational morphology characteristics when modified may bring them more into line with what is known about creolisation and grammaticalisation processes generally

6 Indicating verbs in Alliterative agreement & study indicating verbs • Research from Australian Sign • Aronoff, Meir & Sandler (2005) discussed interesting similarities Language (Auslan) Corpus project on between ‘agreement’ in indicating verbs, and literal alliterative 2,448 indicating verb tokens from 50 narratives supports this claim: different agreement systems, such as those documented for Bainouk: verbs are modified at different rates, – kataːma-ŋɔ in-ka with high frequency forms (LOOK, SAY, COME, ARRIVE, GO) showing – river-DEF this-CV spatial modification significantly more • Like signed languages, the form of the ‘agreement’ morpheme is often (de Beuzeville, Johnston & Schembri, submitted) not fixed, but involves copying the first syllable, apparently • Indicating verbs significantly more addressing Liddell’s ‘listability’ issue (i.e., that there are a very likely to be modified when co-occurring large number of possible directions in which indicating verbs with constructed action may point) • Corpus-based approaches will assist • As Aronoff et al. (2005) recognised, however, this still differs us in identifying these language- internal and external influences and from signed language indicating verbs because literal alliterative thus enable us to more accurately agreement involves co-variance between a target and a formal characterise signed language property of the controller NP (i.e., part of its phonological form) grammars

Zero agreement morpheme analysis Conclusion • Rathmann & Mathur (2008) proposed that non-first person agreement • While recognising that various theoretical approaches make verbs include a zero agreement marking morpheme, which is matched different assumptions about grammar, this review of the with a deictic gesture within an interface between spatio-temporal arguments against the indicating verb analysis suggests knock- conceptual structure and the articulatory-phonetic system, following a down evidence against Liddell’s proposal is still lacking model proposed by Jackendoff (2002) • I would like to suggest that the indicating verb analysis has the • But work on speech and co-speech gesture by Kita & Ozyurek (2002) following strengths: suggested direct interactions between gestural and linguistic systems, – it is part of a unified account of a range of phenomena in and others have argued for a unified account of the speech-gesture signed languages: spatial modifications of nouns, pronouns, system (McNeill, 1992) depicting verbs and other signs; constructed action etc • Zero morpheme analysis motivated by theory-internal considerations, (Liddell, 2003) such as autonomy of language from other cognitive systems? – it draws on increasing evidence of a speech-gesture system • Other researchers also have accepted a role for gesture, while (McNeill, 1992; Kendon, 2004) maintaining an agreement analysis (e.g., Sandler & Lillo-Martin, 2006) – it suggests an alternative analysis of signed languages as • Not clear how to test such claims, as behavioural studies cannot young languages that, like the spoken language creole distinguish between these accounts and Liddellian analysis prototype, lack extensive inflection but have a rich system of iconic derivational morphology (cf. McWhorter, 1998; Aronoff, Meir & Sandler, 2005)

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