Copyright by Grace Kathleen Neveu 2019 The Dissertation Committee for Grace Kathleen Neveu certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation:

Lexical Conventionalization and the Emergence of Grammatical Devices in a Second Generation Homesign System in Peru

Committee:

Richard P. Meier, Supervisor

David Quinto-Pozos

Danny Law

Patience Epps

J¨urgenStreek Lexical Conventionalization and the Emergence of Grammatical Devices in a Second Generation Homesign System in Peru

by

Grace Kathleen Neveu

DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN August 2019 To my family and the M´a´ıj`un`a. Acknowledgments

Graduate school requires an extensive network of support both aca- demic and personal. No dissertation is complete without a lengthy acknowl- edgements section. I thank my parents, brother and sister, whose support throughout my entire academic career has led to this accomplishment. I am grateful to have parents who nurtured intellectual curiosity from a young age. I have known I wanted to get a PhD in linguistics since I was fifteen years old.

The friendships I made at UT were invaluable to my experience. Laura, Mike, Mackenzie, Paige Erin and Meg, playing WoD with you helped me get through the toughest period of a PhD program. I owe my thanks to the fencing team as well. My teammates were among the first friends I made at UT and having practice at the end of the day was always a motivator to finish up my work. In particular, I thank Megan, Julia, Marigold, Lara, Sonya (Angel), Suraya (Hair Flip), Pooja (Shrimpo), Jack, Henri and Jost. Our car ride discussions were as engaging as those I had in the lab. Vanessa, thank you for listening to all my graduate school woes from afar. Thank you to Glenavin, for the late nights and cafe company.

This work would not have been possible without the contributions of those in the UT Sign Language Lab. Many ideas and versions of this disserta- tion were presented to the professors and students who makeup our research

v group. Their questions and feedback challenged me and no doubt resulted in a better final product. Thank you to Kate, Justin, Lina, Frances, Conni, Elena, Ryan, Dag, Caitie and Austin. I also thank those scholars outside of UT who have influenced this work with their ideas and discussions. Laura Horton and Sara Goico, our extensive discussions about homesign systems allowed me to think about my data in new ways.

I was fortunate to be at a university with such strong programs in documentary linguistics and sign language linguistics. Thank you to all of the professors, in particular Pattie Epps, your course in typology was one of the first I took at UT and it was fantastic, Danny Law, you shaped my ideas about iconicity, and J¨urgenStreeck, thank you for challenging my ideas about visual communication. Thank you especially to David Quinto-Pozos, whose feedback and suggestions shaped many crucial parts of this dissertation. Finally, thank you to my advisor, Richard Meier. I am so lucky to have had such a patient, kind and talented professor and person guiding me through this entire process.

None of this would have happened without Professor Lev Michael, who first brought me to Nueva Vida as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley. It was with Lev that I learned the ins and outs of fieldwork and documentation. Thank you, as well, to Chris Beier. Fieldwork in Nueva Vida isn’t the same without field pancakes.

Thank you to the tireless staff of the linguistics department, who helped navigate the difficult, but necessary, aspects of academia, such as grants and endless paperwork. Ben, even when I came to you with problems that weren’t

vi in your job description, you always knew where I needed to go. Thank you Leslie, Gabby, Liz and Marina. The department would not function without you.

I reserve my final thanks for the M´a´ıj`un`acommunity. This disserta- tion would not have been possible without their willingness to allow my into their community and homes. Thank you to my consultants, who shared their languages with me over these many years. I am indebted to my host family in Totoya, who took care of me when I became extremely ill in the field. My time with the M´ai´ıj`un`awill shape the entirety of my life.

This dissertation was supported by a Tinker Field Summer Research Grant, a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Im- provement Grant (BCS-1551691), a National Institutes of Health Predoctoral Fellowship (F31DC01537902) and a Pan American Round Tabes of Texas Flo- rence T. Griswold Scholarship. The content is solely the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

vii Lexical Conventionalization and the Emergence of Grammatical Devices in a Second Generation Homesign System in Peru

Publication No.

Grace Kathleen Neveu, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2019

Supervisor: Richard P. Meier

This dissertation is the study of a sign system used by the M´a´ıj`un`a, an indigenous community in the Peruvian Amazon. The properties of the signing community are not characteristic of either a prototypical homesigning community or a village sign language. The signing community consists of two deaf individuals (RCM and ST) and their hearing friends and family. The socio-cultural features of this sign system, which fall between that of a homesign system and a village sign language, can inform us of how community structure and the interaction between hearing and deaf signers affect language emergence. This question is explore through a grammatical analysis of RCM’s system and a lexical analysis of both RCM’s and ST’s systems. There are two main goals of this dissertation: 1) To describe the grammatical and lexical features of the sign system and 2) To explore how the socio-cultural features

viii of the community contribute to the emergence and maintenance of the sign system.

These goals were approached through a variety of data collection meth- ods. To describe the grammar and the lexicon, both traditional elicitation methods and conversational data were used to support findings. The gram- matical analysis focussed on argument structure and use of grammatical space in RCM’s system. RCM did not produce consistent word order to mark argu- ments, but he did consistently use spatial modulation for this purpose. The elicitation analysis was supported by the conversational data, showing that this was not a product of the elicitation method. Data from hearing signers in the community were also analyzed. They produced highly consistent word order, but their productions of spatial modulation were less sophisticated than those of RCM, suggesting that RCM innovated the grammatical structure in his system.

The analysis of the lexicon includes detailed assessments of form and consistency between RCM and ST. An in-depth analysis of the consistency between the deaf signers and the hearing signers in the two communities was completed. Through this analysis, additional features of the lexicon are dis- cussed, such as semantic extensions and the role of iconicity in sign form. It was found that, despite living in different villages and having only sporadic contact with each other, RCM and ST were highly consistent with each other and the hearing signers in both villages. These results were then investigated further by exploring the possible shared influences between RCM and ST in

ix order to account for the high lexical consistency. Three experiments were con- ducted on iconicity, gesture and the lexicons of unrelated homesigners. These experiments showed that only a small portion of RCM’s and ST’s shared lex- icon is likely due to these shared influences. The results suggest, then, that the two are signers of a single, multi-generation homesign system, rather than two separate homesign systems.

x Table of Contents

Acknowledgments v

Abstract viii

List of Tables xvi

List of Figures xix

Chapter 1. Introduction 1 1.1 Theoretical Implications ...... 3 1.1.1 Language Development without a Language Model . . .3 1.1.2 Language Development with an Impoverished Language Model ...... 8 1.1.3 The Effect of Community Structure on Language Emer- gence ...... 10 1.1.3.1 Grammatical Space and Directionality . . . . . 11 1.1.3.2 Sub-lexical Structure and Lexical variation . . . 12 1.1.3.3 Socio-cultural Factors ...... 14 1.2 Fieldwork and Data Collection ...... 17 1.3 Overview and Goals ...... 20

Chapter 2. Community Background and Discussion of Ideolo- gies Associated with Signed Communication 24 2.1 Introduction ...... 24 2.2 The M´a´ıj`un`a...... 27 2.2.1 Characteristics of the M´a´ıj`un`aSigning Community . . . 33 2.2.1.1 Size of community ...... 34 2.2.1.2 Age of language ...... 34 2.2.1.3 Distribution of deaf people ...... 35

xi 2.2.1.4 Social status of deaf people ...... 35 2.2.1.5 Exposure to other sign languages ...... 36 2.3 Participants ...... 36 2.4 Deafness and Ideologies in the M´a´ıj`un`aCommunity ...... 38 2.4.1 History and Perception of Deafness ...... 38 2.4.2 Individual Ideologies ...... 45 2.4.2.1 Corrections and Standards of Well-Formedness . 46 2.4.2.2 Simultaneous Communication and Mouthing . . 47 2.4.2.3 Clarification ...... 50 2.4.2.4 Summary ...... 56 2.5 Culture of Gesture Use ...... 58 2.6 Summary ...... 60

Chapter 3. Argument Structure through Word Order and Spa- tial Modulation 62 3.1 Introduction ...... 62 3.2 Methodology ...... 64 3.3 Results ...... 69 3.3.1 RCM sign order productions by partner ...... 70 3.3.1.1 Results with RCM as producer and ACC as partner 70 3.3.1.2 Results with RCM as producer and HMR as part- ner ...... 71 3.3.1.3 Results with RCM as producer and LTN as partner 72 3.3.1.4 Results with RCM as producer and WMR as partner ...... 73 3.3.1.5 Discussion of RCM’s productions ...... 73 3.3.2 ACC orders ...... 75 3.3.3 HMR orders ...... 76 3.3.4 LTN orders ...... 76 3.3.5 WMR orders ...... 77 3.3.6 Discussion of results from hearing signers ...... 78 3.4 Encoding Argument Structure through Space ...... 80 3.4.1 RCM’s Productions ...... 81

xii 3.4.2 Hearing Signers’ Productions ...... 86 3.4.3 Use of space in naturally occurring utterances ...... 88 3.4.3.1 RCM’s use of space ...... 90 3.4.3.2 The Hearing Signers’ Use of Space ...... 94 3.5 Conclusions ...... 96

Chapter 4. Across Signer and Within-Community Lexical Con- sistency 102 4.1 Introduction ...... 102 4.1.1 Methodology and Rationale ...... 102 4.1.2 Stimuli ...... 106 4.1.2.1 The assignment of lexical meaning to gestures . 106 4.1.2.2 Lexical coding ...... 107 4.1.2.3 Measuring consistency ...... 109 4.2 RCM and ST ...... 111 4.2.1 Results ...... 111 4.2.2 Discussion of Sign Form ...... 115 4.2.3 Iconic Mappings ...... 121 4.2.4 Semantic Extensions and Lexicalization ...... 125 4.2.5 Non-manual signs ...... 129 4.2.6 A note on handedness ...... 132 4.2.7 A note on laxness ...... 133 4.3 Hearing signers ...... 134 4.3.1 Consistency with ST in Totoya ...... 135 4.3.1.1 Results ...... 135 4.3.1.2 Discussion ...... 139 4.3.2 Consistency with RCM in Nueva Vida ...... 140 4.3.2.1 Results ...... 140 4.3.3 Discussion ...... 146 4.3.4 Consistency between Nueva Vida and Totoya ...... 150 4.3.4.1 Results ...... 151 4.3.4.2 Discussion ...... 153 4.4 Conclusions ...... 155

xiii Chapter 5. Shared influences on RCM’s and ST’s lexicons 158 5.1 Introduction ...... 158 5.2 Experiment 1 - Iconicity ...... 162 5.2.1 Methods ...... 163 5.2.2 Results ...... 166 5.2.3 Conclusion and Discussion ...... 169 5.2.3.1 Recognition of Patterns ...... 171 5.3 Experiment 2 - Gesture ...... 171 5.3.1 Methods ...... 172 5.3.2 Results ...... 173 5.3.3 Conclusion and Discussion ...... 174 5.4 Experiment 3 - Iquitos homesigners ...... 178 5.4.1 Methods ...... 179 5.4.2 Results ...... 180 5.4.3 Conclusion and Discussion ...... 181 5.5 Discussion ...... 185

Chapter 6. Conclusion 192 6.1 Argument Structure and Spatial Modulation ...... 193 6.2 Lexical Consistency ...... 194 6.3 One system or two? ...... 195 6.4 Building on impoverished input ...... 197 6.5 Future Research ...... 198 6.6 Significance ...... 199

Appendices 201

Appendix A. Sign Order Full Results 202 A.1 Results from RCM’s productions with hearing partners . . . . 202 A.1.1 Results with RCM as producer and ACC as partner . . 202 A.1.2 Results with RCM as producer and HMR as partner . . 204 A.1.3 Results with RCM as producer and LTN as partner . . 205 A.1.4 Results with RCM as producer and WMR as partner . . 207

xiv A.2 Hearing signers results partnered with RCM ...... 209 A.2.1 ACC orders ...... 209 A.2.2 HMR orders ...... 211 A.2.3 LTN orders ...... 213 A.2.4 WMR orders ...... 215

Appendix B. Elicitation List 218

Appendix C. Sign Parameters 222

Appendix D. Iconicity coding 233

References 248

Vita 256

xv List of Tables

2.1 Signing participants from Nueva Vida...... 39 2.2 Singing participants from Totoya ...... 40

3.1 The total productions of spatially modulated acts by signers. . 82

4.1 Number of signs that shared a CC out of the 40 elicited items. SMC measurement for one-handed (23) and two-handed (9) signs.112 4.2 SMC measurement for each hand and each parameter. . . . . 113 4.3 Inventory of handshapes, locations and movements as produced by RCM and ST in the lexical elicitation task...... 118 4.4 Lexical consistency of CCs in Totoya...... 136 4.5 Lexical consistency of form in Totoya...... 137 4.6 Lexical consistency of CCs in Nueva Vida...... 142 4.7 Lexical consistency of form in Nueva Vida...... 143 4.8 Lexical consistency of CCs between Nueva Vida and Totoya. . 152 4.9 Lexical consistency of form between Nueva Vida and Totoya. . 153

5.1 Individual scores given for the Nueva Vida non-signers. . . . . 168 5.2 Gesturers overlap in lexicon...... 174 5.3 Lexical overlap breakdown for M´a´ıj`un`ahomesigners, gesturers and Iquitos homesigners...... 181 5.4 The results from all three experiments...... 188

A.1 Orders for Intransitive action. No statistically significant orders. 202 A.2 Orders for Transitive action with two animate arguments. Actor > Act order approaches statistical significance...... 202 A.3 Orders for Transitive action with one animate argument. No statistically significant orders...... 203 A.4 Orders for Ditransitive actions. No statistically significant orders.203 A.5 Orders for Intransitive action. No statistically significant orders. 204

xvi A.6 Orders for Transitive action with two animate arguments. No statistically significant orders...... 204 A.7 Orders for Transitive action with one animate arguments. Theme > Act order statistically significant...... 204 A.8 Orders for Ditransitive action. Theme > Act order statistically significant...... 205 A.9 Orders for Intransitive action. No statistically significant orders. 205 A.10 Orders for Transitive action with two animate arguments. No statistically significant orders...... 206 A.11 Orders for Transitive action with one animate argument. No statistically significant orders...... 206 A.12 Orders for Ditransitive action. No statistically significant or- ders. Patient > Actor approached statistical significance. . . . 207 A.13 Orders for Intransitive action. No statistically significant orders. 207 A.14 Orders for Transitive action with two animate arguments. No statistically significant orders...... 208 A.15 Orders for Transitive action with one animate arguments. Theme > Act order is statistically significant...... 208 A.16 Orders for Ditransitive action. No statistically significant orders. 209 A.17 ACC’s production orders for intransitive events...... 209 A.18 ACC’s production orders for transitive events with two animate arguments. Actor > Act is statistically significant and Patient > Act is near statistical significance...... 210 A.19 ACC’s production orders for transitive events with one animate argument. Actor > Theme, Actor > Act and Theme > Act were all statistically significant orders...... 210 A.20 ACC’s production orders for ditransitive events. Actor > Act, Theme > Act and Actor > Theme were all statistically signifi- cant orders...... 211 A.21 HMR’s productions orders for intransitive events. Actor > Act is near statistical significance...... 211 A.22 HMR’s productions for transitive events with two animate ar- guments. Patient > Act is near statistical significance. . . . . 212 A.23 HMR’s productions for transitive events with one animate argu- ment. Actor > Act and Theme > Act were statistically significant.212 A.24 HMR’s productions for ditransitive events. Actor > Act was produced at near statistical significance...... 213

xvii A.25 LTN’s productions for intransitive events. Actor > Act is sta- tistically significant...... 213 A.26 LTN’s productions for transitive events with two animate ar- guments. Actor > Act and Patient > Act were produced with statistical significance...... 214 A.27 LTN’s productions of transitive events with one animate argu- ment. Actor > Theme, Actor > Act and Theme > Act were produced with statistical significance...... 214 A.28 LTN’s productions of ditransitive events. Actor > Act, Patient > Act and Theme > Act were produced with statistical signif- icance...... 215 A.29 WMR’s productions of intransitive events. No statistically sig- nificant orders...... 215 A.30 WMR’s productions of transitive events with two animate ar- guments. The orders for Actor > Act and Patient > Act were produced with statistical significance...... 216 A.31 WMR’s productions of transitive events with one animate ar- gument. Actor > Act and Theme > Act were produced with statistical significance. Actor > Act was produced with near statistical significance...... 216 A.32 WMR’s productions for ditransitive events. Actor > Act, Pa- tient > Act and Theme > Act were produced with statistical significance. Actor > Theme was produced with near statistical significance...... 217

C.1 Inventory of coded handshapes with descriptions and example images...... 227 C.2 Inventory of coded locations with descriptions and example im- ages...... 232

xviii List of Figures

2.1 Map showing the location of the four M´a´ıj`un`acommunities and Iquitos...... 30 2.2 RCM’s and ST’s social networks...... 41 2.3 RCM’s correction of handshape for PHONE...... 48

3.1 Illustration of rotated and unrotated layouts...... 67 3.2 Examples illustrating two unrotated layouts with the sign TAP. 84 3.3 Examples illustrating TAP with inanimate themes...... 85 3.4 Spatial layouts for all five signers...... 87 3.5 Uninflected SCORE-GOAL ...... 91 3.6 SCORE-GOAL with spatial modulation...... 92 3.7 SHOOT with spatial modulation ...... 93 3.8 PUNCH with spatial modulation...... 94 3.9 SHOOT with spatial modulation...... 95 3.10 LOOK with spatial modulation...... 96

4.1 RCM’s correction of COLLARED-PECCARY...... 116 4.2 Caption for LOF ...... 119 4.3 RCM’s production of DOG...... 122 4.4 Examples of DOG and PIG...... 123 4.5 Examples of BABY-TAPIR and JAGUAR...... 124 4.6 Semantic extension example of DEAD...... 126 4.7 Semantic extension example of FEMALE...... 127 4.8 RCM signing MALE...... 127 4.9 Puma and jaguar...... 128 4.10 Non-manual examples of ANGRY and SNAKE...... 131 4.11 Example of signs with non-manual components signed with the leg...... 132 4.12 Comparison between the two signs for BANANA...... 134

xix 4.13 Nueva Vida network based on combined CC and form scores. . 147 4.14 Network for Nueva Vida and Totoya. RCM as central node. . 154 4.15 Network for Nueva Vida and Totoya. ST as central node. . . . 155

5.1 Example of TAPIR iconicity...... 168 5.2 Examples for SWING from gesturers and homesigners. . . . . 176 5.3 Examples of CHAINSAW from M´a´ıj`un`ahomesigners and Iqui- tos homesigners...... 183 5.4 Examples of TAPIR from M´a´ıj`un`ahomesigners and Iquitos homesigners...... 184

xx Chapter 1

Introduction

Sign languages emerge when there are deaf people to use them. A deaf child born into a hearing family, who cannot access the spoken language used around them and who does not have access to a local sign language, will develop a gestural communication system – called homesign – to communi- cate with others (Goldin-Meadow & Mylander, 1990). Such a system, born out of the necessity for communication, will possess linguistic features includ- ing a stable lexicon (Goldin-Meadow, Mylander, & Butcher, 1995; Goldin- Meadow, Mylander, & Franklin, 2007), ordering regularities (Coppola, 2002; Goldin-Meadow & Mylander, 1998) and hierarchical structure (Coppola & Newport, 2005; Goldin-Meadow & Mylander, 1984b). There seems to be a limit on the linguistic complexity that can develop in a single individual’s homesign system (Carrigan & Coppola, 2017). However, if these early linguis- tic systems are transmitted across multiple generations and acquired natively by children, they may develop into more complex sign systems (such as in Ban Khor Sign Language, Nonaka, 2007; Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language, Sandler, Aronoff, Padden, & Meir, 2014, among others) or full sign languages (such as Nicaraguan Sign Language, Senghas, 1995).

1 These previous studies on young sign languages have demonstrated the effects of community on emerging languages. A question of interest, then, is the degree to which the circumstances of their emergence shape the linguistic structures that develop in such systems. By studying a variety of young sign languages that emerge within communities of diverse social makeups and cul- tural contexts, we can better understand how such factors shape the emergence of the language and affect its linguistic structure.

This dissertation contributes to the growing work on emerging sign lan- guages by examining a homesign system used by the M´a´ıj`un`a,an indigenous community in the Peruvian Amazon. This sign system is used as the pri- mary communication system by two deaf M´a´ıj`un`amen who have never lived in the same village and are over 30 years apart in age. Yet the signing of these two men, and of the hearing people in their communities, exhibits many commonalities.

My overarching approach to this project was to consider the signers, both hearing and deaf, as belonging to a homesigning speech community. I then asked: How does this speech community function? And how do the interactions within this community facilitate or contribute to the development of the homesign system? Such a speech community has the particular qualities of centering around two specific members (the deaf individuals) and existing only because they are part of the community. Through this work, I aim to understand, not just what linguistic properties have arisen in this homesign system, but also how the system has been shaped by the community in which

2 it emerged. The homesign literature has primarily focussed on the individual homesigner and their immediate family members. I, however, consider the wider community, including those who cannot sign, in an effort to understand the many factors, social and linguistic, that contribute to the emergence and maintenance of the system.

1.1 Theoretical Implications

When a sign language is acquired as a first language in a natural en- vironment, typical acquisition takes place. Children born into deaf families achieve the same developmental milestones on the same timeline as children acquiring a spoken language (Lillo-Martin, 1999; Newport & Meier, 1985). The interruption of the generation-to-generation transmission of language, such as when a deaf child is born into a hearing community that does not use a conven- tional sign language, gives us insight into language learning mechanisms and the factors that influence language emergence. The following sections describe and discuss the theoretical frameworks and considerations behind the research in this thesis.

1.1.1 Language Development without a Language Model

Scholars throughout history have been preoccupied with the “Forbidden Experiment”. Depriving children of linguistic input, it was posited, would give insight into the nature and origins of language. Though highly unethical, ancient scholars allegedly carried out such experiments, purposefully isolating

3 children from a normal upbringing, depriving them of typical linguistic and social input. As described by Herodotus, the Egyptian king Psammetichus placed new born twins on an uninhabited island, instructing a shepherd to care for them but not to speak to them, in order to answer the question Who were the first people? When he returned two years later, the only recognizable word produced by the children was the Phrygian word for bread and so he concluded that the first people were the Phrygians.

Of course, we now know that an experiment of this nature would not yield such results; there is no evidence for an innate vocabulary. Nevertheless, the work of modern scholars in language acquisition has continued to center around the role of input. Lenneberg’s (1967) Critical Period Hypothesis states that first language acquisition is linked to maturation and relies on neuroplas- ticity. If a child does not acquire a first language before puberty, while the brain is still plastic, then language will not be fully acquired. Not only is input crucial to the development of language, then, but there also exists a window for acquisition. Lenneberg’s development of the theory led to decades of research on the Critical Period Hypothesis, attempting to determine the time frame and to identify which aspects of language it applies to. Rather than revealing “the first people”, as described by Herodotus, the “Forbidden Experiment” would offer a direct test of the Critical Period Hypothesis.

The debate on the exact role of language input persists in the nativist and functionalist approaches to language acquisition. The position of a strong nativist is that children have innate, language specific abilities (Chomsky,

4 1965) that allow them to derive structure from an impoverished stimulus (Chomsky, 1959), whereas functionalists and usage-based positions assert that it is through linguistic input that children construct linguistic categories (Bates et al., 1998; Bates & Goodman, 1999; Bates & MacWhinney, 1982). Children deprived of language, then, test the strong form of Chomsky’s poverty of the stimulus theory. That is, can children produce linguistic structure without a language model?

Of course, such an experiment cannot ethically be carried out, hence its name. However, unmanipulated circumstances have provided modern re- searchers with the opportunity to study such a situation, the result of extreme parental neglect. Victor the “Wild Boy of Aveyron” and Genie are two exam- ples of children who experienced linguistic and social isolation and who then underwent linguistic rehabilitation.

Victor emerged from a forest near Saint-Sernin-Sur-Rance, France in 1800. Around the age of 12 at the time of his discovery, it was presumed that he had been living in the forest for most of his life. Although Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard attempted to teach him French, Victor is reported to have never learned to speak. After 5 years of rehabilitation, Victor was only able to speak, read and write a few words and phrases (Itard, 1806).

Genie is a modern parallel to Victor’s case. As a child she was severely neglected by her parents in their Los Angeles home. Discovered at the age of 13, she had been isolated from normal human interaction and from language input. Even after linguistic rehabilitation, she was unable to acquire complex

5 structured language. She was more successful with word order than morphol- ogy, producing correct SOV order but struggled with morphology (Curtiss, 1977; Fromkin, Krashen, Curtiss, Rigler, & Rigler, 1974).

While Victor’s and Genie’s cases seem to offer a means of testing the “Forbidden Experiment” and an opportunity to study the Critical Period Hy- pothesis, their cases are confounded by the extreme social isolation and, in the case of Genie, severe abuse. The developmental delays caused by a lack of interaction and cognitive stimulus (such as emotional, visual and physical) are impossible to tease apart from the impact of linguistic deprivation. General neglect has a profound effect on brain development (see Glaser, 2000 for a re- view). The effects of language deprivation are obscured by underdevelopment of the brain and general cognitive delays that result from abuse and isolation.

Homesigners, however, seemingly offer a solution to these confounding factors found in other case studies of linguistically deprived children. These deaf children grow up without access to a standard sign language and unable to acquire the spoken language in their environment, but otherwise experi- ence normal socialization and family dynamics. Despite a lack of input from a conventional language, such children produce homesign – a gestural com- munication system – to communicate with those around them. Because these systems are developed without a language model, it is posited that any gram- matical structures that were produced by the homesigners can be attributed to their innate, language specific abilities.

In her studies on child homesigners, which included children in the

6 United States, Turkey and Taiwan, Goldin-Meadow found a number of sys- tematic structures in the children’s homesign systems. The morphological (Goldin-Meadow et al., 1995) and syntactic (Feldman, Goldin-Meadow, & Gleitman, 1978) features found in these homesign systems are termed “re- silient” by Goldin-Meadow. These structures emerged without a language model and were not found in the gestures produced by their hearing mothers (Flaherty, Hunsicker, & Goldin-Meadow, 2016; Goldin-Meadow & Mylander, 1984b, 1984a), so could not have been acquired from the gestural input. Based on this evidence, Goldin-Meadow (2003, p. 215) writes that language is a re- silient behavior that “is, if not inevitable, certainly one that each organism in the species is predisposed to develop under widely varying circumstances”.

Studies with adult homesigners have also found similar results. Coppola argues for the presence of the grammatical categories of nouns, verbs and ad- jectives in Nicaraguan adult homesigners (Coppola & Newport, 2005). Similar to Goldin-Meadow’s results, the signing of the mothers was not found to pos- sess the same grammatical features as those produced by the deaf homesigners (Carrigan & Coppola, 2012, 2017). Family members who were exposed to the sign language at a younger age comprehended the homesign system better than those who were first exposed when they were older (Carrigan & Coppola, 2017). Across these studies, the authors argue, then, that homesigners are the creators of their system and that communication partners are learners of it. The authors further use these results to argue against functionalist and usage-based accounts of language development, asserting that communicative

7 problem solving cannot be the source of linguistic structure as homesign is linguistically structured despite a lack of successful communication.

While homesigners do develop linguistic structure, even without suc- cessful communication, as exemplified by the studies above, interaction and communicative partners are still necessary for the development of language. Alone in the forest or locked in a room, Victor and Genie did not sponta- neously create linguistically structured communication systems. This gener- alization extends to sign languages that develop across several generations. Results from research on developing sign languages suggest that the commu- nity structure itself and the types of interaction that signers engage in shape the language and influence the types of linguistic features that emerge.

1.1.2 Language Development with an Impoverished Language Model

The previous section describes the development, or lack thereof, of com- munication systems when there is no language model. Victor and Genie, who had no input at all, were unable to fully acquire language, whereas homesigners develop systems of communication. Homesigners illustrate that even without language input – but with social interaction – deaf individuals can develop communication systems with language-like structural features. Given these results, what happens then, when the language input is not entirely absent, but impoverished?

The majority of deaf children (∼90%) are born to hearing parents who cannot or choose not to expose their children to a sign language (Hoffmeister &

8 Wilbur, 1980). Some of these children acquire a sign language in adolescence or early adulthood. Even with exposure to a full sign language, late-learners perform worse than early and native learners on tests of ASL morphology (Newport, 1990; Mayberry, 1993). When these late-learners have children, these children may be exposed to a non-native model of language with unsys- tematic grammatical constructions.

These second-generation children learning from a non-native signing parents surpass their language model. Singleton and Newport (2004) and Singleton (1989) report that Simon, a child of deaf parents who had learned ASL in adolescence, was able to supplement the incomplete input he received. His parents produced spatial inflection with the inconsistency typical of late- learners (father 69% accuracy, mother 76% accuracy). Despite these incon- sistencies in his input, Simon produced spatial inflection with 88% accuracy, surpassing even native signing deaf children (81% accuracy).

This process whereby child learners are able to surpass their language model may be related to the process of creolization. As in the emergence of Nicaraguan Sign Language (Senghas, 1995), children enter the community and are exposed to an inconsistent and unsystematic language model. In their own language development, however, they are able to reanalyze these inconsis- tencies and produce more systematic language, resulting in the emergence of more complex linguistic structures with each subsequent generation of native signers.

9 1.1.3 The Effect of Community Structure on Language Emergence

Sign language researchers typically divide new sign systems into three different categories, which develop in different social situations (Sandler, 2005; Woll & Ladd, 2003): homesign systems (Goldin-Meadow & Mylander, 1990) develop when a single deaf person is raised without access to a conventional language model; village sign languages, such as Kata Kolok (Marsaja, 2008) or Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (Sandler, 2005) develop when an insular community has a high percentage of deaf individuals; and community sign languages, such as Nicaraguan Sign Language (Senghas, 1995) or Israeli Sign Language (Meir, 1998), develop when deaf individuals without a common sign language are brought together to form a new sign community.

Meir, Sandler, Padden, and Aronoff (2010) identify five dimensions along which the communities of emerging sign languages may vary: size of community, age of language, distribution of deaf people in the community, social status of deaf people and exposure to other sign languages. These char- acteristics can be used to describe the three different types of emerging sign languages listed above and further distinguish the socio-cultural features of various communities. By studying sign languages that have emerged in com- munities with different socio-cultural characteristics, we can better understand the contributions of community structure on linguistic structure.

10 1.1.3.1 Grammatical Space and Directionality

Padden (1988) proposed a tripartite division of verbs in sign language: Plain verbs, which cannot be inflected to mark argument structure; Spatial verbs, which are modulated through movement to mark a locative argument; and Inflecting verbs,1 which are modulated to mark person and number. For inflecting/agreement verbs, disambiguation of arguments is achieved through a visual-spatial mechanism. Argument structure is marked through the move- ment of the verb and palm orientation, which can be either a concrete verb of transfer such as GIVE or an abstract verb of transfer such as TEACH. Modifi- cation of the initial and final locations of the verb form encode subject, object and number.

Whether or not the mechanism used in spatial/agreement verbs can be considered syntactic agreement has been debated. Liddell (2000, 2003) uses the term Indicating Verbs, arguing that the agreement analysis is problematic due to a “listability issue”; the number of directions that an indicating verb can point is too large to be stored in the mental lexicon and therefore there is no fixed agreement morpheme. Instead, his analysis is that indicating verbs point out the location of referents and indicate their roles. For further discussion see Lillo-Martin and Meier (2011) on the theoretical challenges for the analysis of directionality as agreement.

Due to the theoretical issues surrounding verb agreement, I use the

1Scholars have since also adopted the terms Agreeing verbs and Agreement verbs

11 theory neutral term ‘spatial modulation’ to describe signs that are inflected through movement. My research question asks only if a productive use of space is present in the sign system, not if this use of space can be analyzed as syntactic agreement.

Differences in the grammatical structure of emerging sign languages are seen most strikingly in how village sign languages and community sign language use grammatical space. Village sign languages do not develop spa- tial agreement systems, whereas community sign languages do (Meir et al., 2010). Israeli Sign Language (ISL) and Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL), two community sign languages, both developed spatial agreement, ISL in its third generation (Meir, 2010; Padden, Meir, Sandler, & Aronoff, 2010) and NSL af- ter the entrance of the second cohort (Senghas, 2003). Village sign languages, however, have not been found to develop grammatical use of space. Kata Kolok (Marsaja, 2008), Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (Aronoff, Meir, Padden, & Sandler, 2008) and Yolngu Sign Language (Bauer, 2014), all village sign lan- guages, do not show evidence for the use of grammatical space. Central Tau- rus Sign Language, a village sign language in its eighth generation, shows only minimal development of spatial agreement (Ergin, Meir, Ilkbas¸saran,Padden, & Jackendoff, 2018).

1.1.3.2 Sub-lexical Structure and Lexical variation

Research on emerging sign languages has called into question assump- tions regarding the essential design features of language. One assumption that

12 pertains to the lexicon is duality of patterning (Hockett, 1960). Duality of pat- terning refers to the two levels of combinatorial linguistic structure. On one level are the meaningless units – phonemes – which combine to form mean- ingful elements, morphemes. On a second level, these meaningful units are then combined into larger meaningful messages, words, phrases and sentences. New sign languages, however, take time to develop a phonological system that exhibits duality of patterning. They must gradually develop contrastive units which form minimal pairs (Sandler, Aronoff, & Meir, 2011; Sandler et al., 2014).

The degree of lexical variation and consistency may be related to the size and heterogeneity of the community. In comparisons between ISL, a com- munity sign language, and ABSL, a village sign language of approximately the same age, Meir, Israel, Sandler, Padden, and Aronoff (2012) found more lexical variation in ABSL. The authors posit that “the amount of social and psychological information that is shared by the different members is so great that it reduces to some extent the pressure towards convergence”. De Vos (2011) suggests that, because there are fewer signers of a village sign language than a community sign language, village signers can more easily keep track of idiosyncrasies and variations in the lexicon.

ABSL developed in a small, close-knit community, whereas ISL devel- oped in a much larger, more dispersed community. ISL signers, unlike ABSL signers, are more likely to meet strangers who do not share the same life ex- periences. In this case, there is more pressure for conventionalized forms as

13 signers cannot rely on shared experience and knowledge to communicate with one another. Lexical idiosyncrasies in a large, dispersed community are less easily tolerated.

This same pattern found in ABSL and ISL has been observed in other village and community sign languages. Washabaugh, Woodward, and DeSan- tis (1978) made the same argument regarding the limited number of kinship terms in Providence Island Sign Language, suggesting that the sociolinguistic situation favors context-dependent strategies. In a small community, deictic signs can easily be employed to refer to community members, discouraging lexicalized kinship terms.

1.1.3.3 Socio-cultural Factors

The linguistic features that have developed in these different sign lan- guages suggest that the structures of these communities, and thus the types of interactions that occur between deaf and hearing community members, in- fluence the linguistic structures of emerging sign languages. Teasing apart the different influences of these factors, however, is still difficult. Therefore, it is important to study sign languages that emerge in varying environments and communities as they offer a natural laboratory in which to explore the emer- gence of linguistic structure and how it interacts with characteristics of the community in which it emerges.

Emerging sign languages can be classified using the five socio-cultural dimensions identified by Meir et al. (2010). As discussed, these socio-cultural

14 features have been suggested to influence the types of linguistic features that emerge in the sign language. By studying signing communities that vary across these five parameters, we can better understand how each parameter con- tributes to the emergent linguistic system. Communities that fall between the definitions of homesign, village sign language and community sign language are especially important. Family homesign systems or family sign languages, such as “Z” sign in Chiapas, Mexico (Haviland, 2011) or San Juan Quiahije Chatino Sign Language (SJQCSL) in the community of San Juan Quiahije, Mexico (Hou, 2016) and shared homesign systems in Guatemala (Horton, 2018) fur- ther our understanding of how these socio-cultural features interact.

Hou (2016) categorizes SJQCL as part of a “family-based signing com- munity” based on the social organization of the signing community and the local language ecology. Interactions are organized around the family unit, which also extends to deaf individuals in the community. Deaf people in the community do not seek each other out for social interaction. That is “deaf peo- ple practice familial and kinship sociality but not deaf sociality” (Hou, 2016, p. 114). As expected, this community structure affects the linguistic structure of the sign language.

Hou (2016) describes the lexicon of SJQCSL as made up of family lex- icons. In a lexical elicitation task, she found that signs for tools and foods displayed the most conventionalization across families. While animals exhibit iconic patterning of facial attributes and body action, they were the greatest source of lexical variation across families. The articulatory targets were con-

15 ventionalized within families, but not across families, demonstrating that the socialization of deaf individuals leads to this within-family conventionalization.

Variation across- and within-families was also exhibited in productions of directionality. Of the five families studied, directionality was produced by the children of only one family. Hou posits that the more complex productions of directionality in this family in particular are due to the quality and quantity of interaction.

The M´a´ıj`un`acommunity, as will be further described in Chapter 2, falls between a prototypical homesign system and a village sign language. As there have been at least three deaf people in the community, the deaf signers are not isolated deaf individuals in an all-hearing community, meaning that they do not fit the definition of a homesigner. However, the prevalence of deafness is not such that the sign system can be termed a village sign language. Zeshan (2010) termed such systems, that are characterized by deaf individuals who are in sporadic, unsystematic contact with one another, “communal homesign” systems.

The socio-cultural features of the M´a´ıj`un`asigning community align with Zeshan’s definition of a communal homesign system. This dissertation, therefore, strives to further our understanding of the properties of such a sys- tem. Given that the deaf M´a´ıj`un`aare connected through a social network of hearing signers, I aim to take into account the role of the hearing commu- nity and examine how the interactions between hearing and deaf community members shape the emergence of the system.

16 1.2 Fieldwork and Data Collection

My fieldwork with the M´a´ıj`un`abegan in 2012 in Nueva Vida when I was an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley. I was involved with the M´a´ıj`ık`ıProject, a multi-year documentation project of M´a´ıj`ık`ı,the language spoken by the M´a´ıj`un`a,lead by Professor Lev Michael. I spent 9 weeks in Nueva Vida with a research team of 5 other linguists. This work involved elicitation sessions with M´a´ıj`ık`ıspeakers and analysis of spoken lan- guage data, the final product of which was my honors thesis on spatial relations in M´a´ıj`ık`ı.Many of the consultants with whom I worked would later become consultants for my graduate research.2

While I had no intention of returning to the M´a´ıj`un`acommunities at the time, it was during this first trip that I became aware of RCM, the deaf son of one of the M´a´ıj`ık`ıconsultants. It was clear, even then, that most people in the community could communicate with him using gestures and sign. My interest was first piqued when I observed a man who lived in a different M´a´ıj`un`avillage conversing with him, indicating that even those outside of Nueva Vida knew something of the sign system.

I returned again to Nueva Vida in 2014 to begin collecting pilot data on the homesign system used in the village. My previous experience with the M´a´ıj`un`aallowed for an easy start to the project. RCM’s mother and close friends were M´a´ıj`ık`ı speakers with whom I had conducted research during

2Because there is overlap between the participants in this project and the M´a´ıj`ık`ıProject, I choose to follow the same convention and use initials for participants.

17 my work on the M´a´ıj`ık`ıProject and were therefore already accustomed to the process. RCM, though he had not previously participated in any research projects, was also familiar with me, further facilitating the start of the project. During that first field season, I spent 6 weeks in Nueva Vida and collected 24 hours of video data from RCM and three hearing interlocutors. This first trip proved the feasibility of my project and served as the source for my qualifying paper.

During the 2014 field season I also learned of ST, another deaf M´a´ıj`un`a man living in Totoya, a M´a´ıj`un`avillage further north of Nueva Vida along the Algod´onRiver, near the border of Columbia. ST is older than RCM and had lived in a village near Nueva Vida before moving to Totoya in 1997. Many older villagers in Nueva Vida had known him before this move and reported interacting with him using a sign system. For my 2016 field trip, I made plans to return to Nueva Vida and to visit Totoya in order to collect data from ST and any signers in the village. That year, I spent 5 weeks in Nueva Vida and 2 weeks in Totoya.

My final field season for this project took place in 2017, when I collected data in Nueva Vida as well as Iquitos, the largest city in the Peruvian Amazon. I spent 5 weeks in Nueva Vida and 4 weeks in Iquitos. I became acquainted with the deaf community in Iquitos and acquired the basics of the sign language used in the city. This trip has since prompted further research projects. During this field season, I located homesigners in Iquitos and elicited vocabulary in order to make comparisons between the M´a´ıj`un`ahomesigners and homesigners

18 who had developed the sign systems outside of the M´a´ıj`un`acommunity.

During these four seasons of fieldwork, I became well-acquainted with the M´a´ıj`un`aand their customs. I spent time in their homes, participated in their cultural practices, such as making masato, and exchanged goods. The results presented in this dissertation are based primarily on elicited data using picture and video stimuli, methodology that is based in traditions of linguistic documentation. It is worth noting, however, that my discussions of cultural practices in chapter 2 and my intuitions regarding the homesign system rely on my extensive experience with the M´a´ıj`un`a.I spent over six months living in M´a´ıj`un`acommunities. I attended social gatherings, celebrations, community meetings and work parties. I travelled on the river and through the jungle in the company of M´a´ıj`un`acommunity members, relying on them for safe travel through rigorous conditions.

These experiences did not factor directly into the analysis of grammat- ical structure or lexical form. However, they did inform this dissertation and I, of course, owe a great deal to the hospitality of people in Nueva Vida and Totoya. The initial information about ST, the homesigner in Totoya, came through a conversation with a friend in the village who had come around simply for a friendly visit, not for an elicitation session. Although I strive to use examples from conversational data to provide concrete data, many of my reported intuitions about the kinds of interactions that occur between the homesigners and hearing community members come from the time I spent in the villages simply living there and interacting with people in everyday life.

19 Over the course of my graduate school career, I became proficient in American Sign Language, which is used in the Sign Language Research Lab at UT Austin. During my fieldwork, I made a conscious effort not to introduce any ASL into the community. This was made easier by the fact that many signs used by the M´a´ıj`un`ahad no ASL equivalent. For example, there are no signs in ASL for culturally specific foods and drinks such as aguaje or masato or regional animals such as agouti or peccary. Over the course of my fieldwork, I did not observe any influence on the sign system from my own interactions with the signing community.

1.3 Overview and Goals

There are two main goals of this dissertation: 1) To describe the gram- matical and lexical features of the homesign system used by the M´a´ıj`un`aand 2) To explore how the socio-cultural features of the community have contributed to the emergence and maintenance of the sign system.

The first goal was approached through linguistic elicitation, conversa- tional data collection and data analysis. The analyses focussed on argument structure and use of grammatical space, examining how sign order and spatial modulation are both used to encode argument structure. In the lexicon, I examine lexical consistency and evidence for sub-lexical structure.

The second goal was approached by collecting data from a wide variety of participants, from close family members and friends to those who were not proficient in the homesign system. I aimed to understand the different types of

20 input received by the homesigners and the wide variety of interactions within the community and, in turn, the socio-cultural influences on the structure of the homesign system. Given the results of chapter 4, which show high lexical consistency within and across the signers in Nueva Vida and Totoya, I aimed to further tease apart the influences on the homesign system by conducting studies to explore the role of iconicity on the lexical forms, the potential for borrowing from gesture and the likelihood of independent innovation of lexical forms.

Chapter 2 introduces the wider community, providing background on the history of the M´a´ıj`un`aand their cultural practices. I then narrow my description to the signing community, describing its characteristics and how those characteristics fit with the types of signing communities described in this introductory chapter. This section is followed by a description of the participants in this study, of their relationships to the two homesigners and of the network that forms the signing community. Following this description, I discuss the ideologies within the community regarding deafness and signed communication, including how these ideologies play out in terms of interactions with the homesigner. In the discussion of results in later chapters, I refer back to these behaviors and communication strategies described in this chapter.

Chapter 3 focusses on the marking of argument structure. The data analyzed was collected from RCM and the signers in Nueva Vida, so cannot be extended to ST’s signing. The goal was to understand if there was a consistent marking, both within and across signers, for argument structure and if so, what

21 structural features had emerged to mark argument structure. As discussed above, previous research on homesign systems has shown variability in the production of grammatical features. Even when there is internal consistency within individual signers, there is not necessarily across-signer consistency, meaning that different signers are adhering to their own internal systems. In order to investigate the role of the community and the extent to which the hearing signers make up a speech community, I elicited data from several hearing participants, including family members and friends of the homesigners.

Chapter 4 examines the lexical consistency of RCM, ST and the hear- ing community members in both Nueva Vida and Totoya. Measurements of consistency include detailed assessments of form, which allows discussion of the development of sub-lexical features in the homesign system. The goals of this chapter were to assess the similarities between RCM’s and ST’s lexicons as well as the consistency between the two homesigners and the hearing signers in their respective villages. Through this analysis, I also discuss additional fea- tures of the lexicon, such as the semantic extension of individual signs and the role of iconicity in sign form. Results from RCM suggest sub-lexical structure which are discussed in terms of duality of patterning.

Chapter 5 investigates the possible shared influences between RCM and ST in order to account for the high lexical consistency reported in chapter 4. Three separate experiments are reported on iconicity, gesture and the lexicons of unrelated homesigners. RCM and ST never lived in the same village and have had minimal interaction; those interactions only took place when they

22 were both adults. However, their homesign systems share a high proportion of signs. The sign systems did not develop through interaction between RCM and ST, and so there must be other reasons for the similarities between them. Chapter 5 explores these different influences, both internal to the commu- nity, such as gestural conventions, and general to the experience of being a homesigner, such as the exploitation of iconicity.

Throughout this dissertation, I use both elicited and conversational data. There are particular challenges to describing a homesign system which result in the difficulty of answering certain questions such as ‘Which signs are labels rather than descriptions?’, ‘Which signs are conventionalized as opposed to created ad hoc for the purpose of the task?’ and ‘To what extent do home- signers accommodate their conversation partner?’. I aimed to address these challenges by employing both elicited and conversational methodologies in or- der to support the analyses. Signs used in elicitation could be cross-checked with conversational data in order to insure that they were productive and part of the lexicon. Furthermore, conversational data allowed for observation of how different hearing signers interacted with the homesigners, contributing to the understanding of how interaction and community attitudes can factor into the types of features that develop in a young sign system.

23 Chapter 2

Community Background and Discussion of Ideologies Associated with Signed Communication

2.1 Introduction

In this chapter, I present background information on the M´a´ıj`un`apeo- ple in order to situate the reader in the cultural context of this research. I cover the recent history of the M´a´ıj`un`apeople and the current makeup of their communities, including household organization and labor practices. I then narrow my discussion to the participants involved in this study and describe their relevant relationships. This discussion illustrates the typical day-to-day interactions of the homesigners within their respective communities and the overlapping relationships within their shared social networks. This discussion is followed by a description of the reported history of deafness in M´a´ıj`un`a communities. These cultural facts, the three recent homesigners in the com- munity, and the shared social network of the two homesigners may have an effect on the attitudes and ideologies possessed by hearing people in the com- munity. I explore these ideologies through discussions of the beliefs regarding the homesign system expressed by hearing people and of their behavior when interacting with the homesigners. Finally, I describe the culture of gesture use

24 among the M´a´ıj`un`aas conventionalized gestures within the community are a shared influence between the two homesigners which will, in later chapters, be explored in more detail in discussions on the lexicons of the homesigners.

The goal of this chapter is to present social factors that could be con- tributing to the development and maintenance of the two homesign systems. Throughout the following chapters, I will refer back to this discussion on ide- ology, comparing the signers’ assessed proficiency in communicating with the homesigners with the qualitative beliefs and interactional habits described here. This will serve to explore the question of whether or not hearing peo- ple’s ideologies toward deafness and signing have an effect on the development of homesign systems.

Aside from the homesignesr themselves, homesign research has focused primarily on the sign proficiency of mothers, with less discussion of the beliefs held by the family regarding deafness or the roles played by the wider commu- nity. In Goldin-Meadow et al.’s work with child homesigners, the implications of an oralist education and a family ideology that stigmatizes gesture use has not been the focus of their research. In that research, parents of the deaf children were advised by educators not to gesture with their children as the goal was for the children to speak (Feldman et al., 1978). Due to the nature of these studies, the authors are unable to explore the affects of the family ideologies.

Goldin-Meadow and Mylander (1984b, 1998) were able to take cultural context into account by comparing between American Turkish and Taiwanese

25 child homesigners. The authors focus on differences in production and found that American mothers’ gesture productions were less complex than that of their children, as compared to the Turkish and Taiwanese mothers, and did not match their children’s productions (Goldin-Meadow & Mylander, 1984b, 1998). Goldin-Meadow et. al. conclude that as homesigning children do not have access to their mothers’ spoken productions, which provide structure to their gestures, they therefore cannot use their gestures as structured input. However, they do not discuss the role that ideology plays in shaping the input mothers provide their children.

In research on adult homesign systems the main emphasis has also been on the signing abilities of the mothers, with only minimal reporting on the signing abilities of other family members and community members. Carrigan and Coppola (2017) extended their studies with adult Nicaraguan homesign- ers to evaluate the signing abilities of other family members. They found that younger relatives performed better on a comprehension task than older rela- tives and that relatives who were younger when they first began interacting with the homesigner performed better than relatives who were older when they first began to do so. These studies suggest that earlier exposure to a homesign system, even within a single family, results in better, though incom- plete, mastery of the system. Similarly, in Haviland’s (2011) work on a family based homesign system in Mexico, the younger children in the family have better mastery of the sign system than the older relatives. Age of acquisition and duration of exposure have been shown to be crucial to how well family

26 members and community members acquire the homesign system.

In this past research, the focus has been solely within the family, the assumption being that family members will have spent the most time with the homesigner and have the most exposure. In these cases, the homesigner may not interact as much with people outside their home compared to their hearing peers, depending on social norms or cultural beliefs about deafness and disabil- ity. The two M´a´ıj`un`acommunities that are the sites of this research, however, are small and insular, with the result that everyone knows one another. The homesigners interact and labor with people outside of their immediate families and several people in the communities have known both M´a´ıj`un`ahomesigners. I therefore expand my investigation to the community as a whole, assessing the signing abilities of several hearing people in the community and viewing the entire village as a single homesigning “speech community”. This research will add to our understanding of the role of hearing people in the development of homesign systems and emerging sign languages by considering a wider range of participants. I will also consider how community and individuals ideologies influence how hearing people interact with homesigners and thus how these ideologies shape the types of interaction that the homesigners experience.

2.2 The M´a´ıj`un`a

The M´a´ıj`un`a,known by a variety of different names in past literature, are an indigenous Western Tucanoan people of the Peruvian Amazon. They have been known as Orej´on, a Spanish word meaning ‘big ears’ and Coto, a

27 Quechua word for the red howler monkey. Orej´on refers to the large ear disks that were traditionally worn by M´a´ıj`un`amen (Bellier, 1991a; Steward, 1946; Velie, 1975). This term is considered both derogatory and confusing, as it has been used to refer to other indigenous groups in South America that also wore ear disks. The name Coto references the M´a´ıj`un`acustom of painting their bodies red (Bellier, 1991a, 1994; Velie, 1975). ‘M´a´ıj`un`a’is a word in M´a´ıj`ık`ı– the language spoken by the M´a´ıj`un`a– meaning ‘people’ and is the term used by the people themselves and is the preferred name of the community. It will therefore be used throughout this dissertation.

Between the late 19th century and the early 20th century, the M´a´ıj`un`a were affected by the rubber boom, the patrones that they worked under, and the war with Ecuador in 1941. Several particularly brutal patrones were re- sponsible for killing the M´a´ıj`un`aof the Tacshacurray River and the Lagarto- cocha. They also forced the M´a´ıj`un`ato flee from the Zapote River. There are no longer M´a´ıj`un`acommunities in these areas that they traditionally inhab- ited. Between 1955 to 1975, the Peruvian Government and the Summer Insti- tute of Linguistics entered into a formal agreement, which brought Protestant influence and teachings to the M´a´ıj`un`a.During this time, a bilingual M´a´ıj`un`a school was established, beginning the formal education of M´a´ıj`un`achildren. At the end of this period, the Peruvian government also officially recognized indigenous groups and granted them ownership of land, which allowed the M´a´ıj`un`ato escape the control of the patrones. In 2004, the M´a´ıj`un`aestab- lished an organization to represent the M´a´ıj`un`acommunities: the Federaci´on

28 de Comunidades Nativas M´a´ıj`un`as (FECONAMAI)1. The three main goals are: (1) to conserve the M´a´ıj`un`aculture, (2) to conserve the environment, and (3) to better organize the M´a´ıj`un`acommunities (Gilmore, 2005).

The M´a´ıj`un`aethnic population is around 400. There are an estimated 290 M´a´ıj`un`aliving in four communities: Nueva Vida and Puerto Huam´an along the Yanayacu river, San Pablo de Totoya along the Algod´onRiver, and Sucusari along the Sucusari river (see Figure 2.1), while others have settled in the urban centers of Maz´an(on the Napo river), San Antonio del Estrecho (on the Putumayo River), and Iquitos. All four communities are recognized by the Peruvian Government as official Native Communities and all have been granted title to the parcels of land in which their communities are located (Brack-Egg, 1998). Ethnologue classifies the language status of M´a´ıj`ık`ıat a 7 (shifting), meaning that while the generation of child bearing age can still speak M´a´ıj`ık`ı, they are no longer transmitting it to the younger generation. However, recent conservation efforts by linguists working on the language have resulted in the production of a Spanish-M´a´ıj`ık`ıdictionary (Michael et al., 2013) and various pedagogical materials (Beier, 2014a, 2014b). With these efforts, the youngest generation has shown interest in learning to speak M´a´ıj`ık`ıand some have been acquiring it from their grandparents and great-grandparents.

Traditionally, the M´a´ıj`un`alived in pluri-familial houses surrounded by small satellite houses (Bellier, 1993a, 1994). Married couples slept in the

1The Federation of Native M´a´ıj`un`aCommunities

29 Figure 2.1: Map showing the location of the four M´a´ıj`un`acommunities and Iquitos.

satellite houses in the evening and normal daily activities took place in the communal house during the day. Each group of houses was about a day’s walk from each other and considered a residential unit. Families conducted activi- ties within their own territory. However, this style of living was abandoned in approximately 1930. The missionaries and patrones imposed changes on the M´a´ıj`un`a, who adopted the mestizo architectural style (Bellier, 1991a, 1994). Currently, the M´a´ıj`un`alive in mono-familial or pluri-familial households ar- ranged in groups. Children tend to stay in the home of their parents until

30 marriage after which they move into a new house. I have observed that, if widowed, adult children may also move back into their parents’ home.

As described above, the M´a´ıj`un`ahave been in contact with the “outside world” through interaction with patrones and various missionary groups. Trips to other villages and towns these days are limited by access to gasoline for motors. These trips are made typically to sell goods such as livestock (chickens, ducks and pigs) in Maz´anor Iquitos. Those with more power in the village, for example the school teacher or those in leadership positions, have more opportunities to take these trips. Men tend to leave the village more often, either for trade trips or on logging jobs. Logging jobs tend to last several months. In addition to these trips, villagers must travel to obtain certain government documents or to receive medical care, in either Santa Clotilde, a community upriver on the Napo with a health center, or Iquitos. However, not all villagers have made this trip for their government documents. Outside traffic to Nueva Vida is rare. There are no other villages upriver of the M´a´ıj`un`a community, so no traffic passes on the way elsewhere. On occasion, outside groups will travel to the village, such as other researchers (e.g. anthropologists and biologists) or government workers providing services such as mosquito treatments.

Like many groups in the Amazon, the M´a´ıj`un`arely on several different subsistence strategies such as hunting, fishing, swidden-fallow agriculture – rotational forest farming – and the gathering of forest products. The labor associated with these tasks and additional communal tasks are divided by

31 gender. Men are responsible for weaving baskets and sieves, carving paddles and other wooden objects, hunting, fishing and construction work. Women are responsible for weaving hammocks, cartridge belts and ropes, as well as cooking and making masato2 (Bellier, 1991b). While men and women will contribute to the same projects, there is almost no overlap in the specific labor. For example, I have observed that, if men are building a canoe, women will contribute by cooking and making masato. Women are prohibited from using shotguns and making traps, so hunting is primarily the job of men. However, women occasionally accompany men and occasionally hunt alone or with other women with the use of a hunting dog for small animals (Bellier, 1991b, 1994). Men and women both participate in the production and maintenance of fields, although their specific activities are usually specialized (Gilmore, 2005).

When a M´a´ıj`un`afamily has a larger project, such as building a canoe or a house, that requires help from a large group, they hold a minga or ‘work party’. Mingas are a more recent development in M´a´ıj`un`awork structure, both the word and the practice being borrowed from Quechua (Bellier, 1991b). When a minga is called, the individual organizing the event extends invitations to other villagers to participate and help. The woman of the household makes a large meal and a batch of masato for those working. The person who asked for the minga and whose project is being worked on does the least amount of labor, instead he oversees the project and directs the others.

2A drink made by masticating yuca and leaving it to ferment.

32 These labor practices and peer groups have an affect on the use of the sign system. As the singular homesigners in their respective communities, RCM and ST are the central nodes in the homesigning speech community. Their gender affect who they interact with and work with, which in turn af- fects who is exposed to and has a use for the homesign system. The majority of participants in this study are male due to the gender of the two main partic- ipants. RCM interacted predominantly with male inhabitants of Nueva Vida, so it was men who had use for the system. Women, on the other hand, tended to be less familiar with the homesign system. Therefore, women provided ex- amples of less proficient signers and were a source of data on conventionalized gestures that were less likely to be affected by the homesign system.

2.2.1 Characteristics of the M´a´ıj`un`aSigning Community

This section describes the specific characteristics of the M´a´ıj`un`asigning community along the dimensions identified by Meir et al. (2010). These are the size of the signing community, the age of the language, the distribution of deaf people and the community social status of deaf people. These characteristics further describe the communities in which sign languages emerge and identify socio-cultural features that may contribute to differences in emerging sign languages.

33 2.2.1.1 Size of community

The exact size of the signing community is difficult to estimate given the distribution of signers across multiple villages. Between Nueva Vida (to- tal population ∼100) and Totoya (total population ∼25), I elicited from 13 signers, including the homesigners. However, this is undoubtedly not the full signing community. In addition to those that participated in the study, I ob- served several others in both communities interacting easily with either RCM or ST using signs. Given these observations, I would estimate at least 15-20 additional community members who can converse using the sign system to some degree.

2.2.1.2 Age of language

The exact age of the sign system is also difficult to estimate as I cannot be sure that there were no other deaf people older than ST who had influence on the sign system. There are no reports of other deaf people in recent memory who were older than ST or who ST would have conversed with. If he is considered to be the first ‘cohort’ or ‘generation’ of the homesign system, then the age of the sign system can be estimated at ∼65 years old. More importantly than a chronological age, however, is the fact that this sign system spans at least two generations: ST and RCM. It is not the case, then, that RCM was born into a hearing community completely unfamiliar with a sign system. Rather, many in Nueva Vida had already had the experience of interacting with ST. RCM’s parents have been using gestures and signs with him since

34 he was a toddler and it was clear that he was not speaking. When asked why, they expressed confusion at the question. It is clear, then, that everyone in the village accepts signed communication as the logical form of communication with a deaf person. The history of deafness in the community may have contributed to this attitude.

2.2.1.3 Distribution of deaf people

There are currently two deaf people in the four M´a´ıj`un`acommunities: RCM and ST. Though they have never lived in the same community, they share acquaintances and are therefore connected through a network of hearing signers. This distribution, then, falls into the characteristics of a “community homesign” (Zeshan, 2010). The instance of deafness and density of deaf peo- ple is not enough to characterize the community as a village sign language. However, RCM does not fit the typical description of a homesigner. While he was born into a community without a full sign language, he was not born into a community with no familiarity with signed communication at all.

2.2.1.4 Social status of deaf people

The social status of ST and RCM within their communities seem to be relatively unaffected by their deafness. ST married a hearing woman and had three hearing children with whom he signed.3 RCM is not married, which is

3He survives his wife and three children, whose deaths preceded his move to Totoya. I was informed by hearing community members that his wife and three children communicated with him using the homesign system.

35 somewhat unusual for a man of his age. However, there are other hearing men his age in Nueva Vida who are also unmarried, so his marital status is not yet noteworthy.

Both men participate in typical social activities such as community meetings, mingas and social gatherings. They also both manage their own money, selling and trading meat, fish and goods from their chacras with others in the village or with visiting researchers. More specific ideologies regarding deafness are discussed in detail in section 2.4 of this chapter.

2.2.1.5 Exposure to other sign languages

Although there is some use of Peruvian Sign Language in Iquitos and influence there from ASL, no one in the M´a´ıj`un`acommunities was aware of this. In fact, when wide-spread sign languages were described to those in the community, they expressed surprise that conventionalized sign languages existed at all. Furthermore, there was no evidence in the lexicon of contact between the M´a´ıj`un`ahomesign systems and any other variety of sign language. I conclude, then, that the sign system used by the M´a´ıj`un`aarose in their communities, without influence from any other established sign language.

2.3 Participants

The research focusses on two M´a´ıj`un`avillages: Nueva Vida and Totoya. ST currently lives in Totoya and RCM lives in Nueva Vida. According to the families of both subjects, neither RCM nor ST has ever produced spoken

36 Spanish, even as children, nor did I observe them using any spoken or mouthed Spanish. Therefore, both RCM and ST are assumed to be prelingually deaf or deaf since birth. Although there is some limited use of Peruvian Sign Language in Iquitos, the nearest city, family members report that RCM and ST have not been exposed to any conventional sign language. In fact, the families weren’t aware of the existence of Peruvian Sign Language or any deaf education opportunities in Iquitos. Neither subject is literate in Spanish, though both RCM and ST can write and recognize their own names, and recognize the names of friends and family.

One of the main focusses of this work is the hearing community of M´a´ıj`un`asigners and how factors such as gestural practice, ideologies regarding gestural communication, and familiarity with deafness have influenced the development of the homesign system. Therefore, in addition to collecting data from the deaf homesigners, I also collected data from several hearing villagers. In Nueva Vida, I worked with 8 hearing signers ACC, LTN, OMT, WMR, HMR, AMM, JMR and LMM (see Table 2.1) and 4 hearing non-signers EMR, NMM, ERT and RTT. Of the 8 hearing signers, only one of them is female (HMR, RCM’s mother) and all 4 hearing non-signers are female. In Totoya, I worked with GLR, GTM and RI, who were all hearing signers (see Table 2.2). The tables below summarize the age, relationship and residential history of the subjects. The past residences of the subjects are important because it gives us a better idea of the overlap in acquaintances of RCM and ST. In fact, several villagers have known both RCM and ST. Later chapters will

37 explore how these social connections may have contributed to and maintained similarities between the two systems.

Before moving to Totoya in 1997, ST lived in Puerto Huam´an,another M´a´ıj`un`avillage approximately half an hour downriver of Nueva Vida. As can be seen in the description of the consultants, several acquaintances of RCM and ST have also lived in Puerto Huam´an.Although RCM and ST have never lived in the same village, they have met on occasion, specifically at meetings of the FECONAMAI, and have friends and acquaintances in common. LTN, for example, is one of the main consultants in this research, is a hearing friend of RCM, is proficient in the homesign system, and is able to hold prolonged conversations with RCM. He also knew ST before ST moved to Totoya. Other subjects, such as LMM, attended the village school, a one room schoolhouse, with ST and now live in Nueva Vida or are related to ST (NMM and ERT). Figure 2.2 below illustrates how the subjects fit into the shared social networks of RCM and ST.

2.4 Deafness and Ideologies in the M´a´ıj`un`aCommunity 2.4.1 History and Perception of Deafness

There are currently two known pre-lingually deaf M´a´ıj`un`a: ST and RCM, who are both subjects of this research. ST was born in Puerto Huam´an in approximately 1955 and then moved to Totoya in 1997. RCM was born in Nueva Vida in 1987, where he currently still lives. Through interviews with villagers, I also learned of ‘Angelina’, a deaf woman who lived in Puerto

38 RCM ACC Deaf Hearing Relation to RCM: father Born: ∼1987 Born: ∼1965 Born in Nueva Vida

HMR AMM Hearing Hearing Relation to RCM: mother Relation to RCM: acquaintance Relation to ST: old acquaintance, childhood classmate Born: ∼1973 Born: ∼1955

OMT LTN Hearing Hearing Relation to RCM: childhood friend Relation to RCM: friend Relation to ST: old friend Born: ∼1987 Born: ∼1962 Born in Puerto Huam´an, Born in Nueva Vida moved to Nueva Vida age 5

WMR LMM Hearing Hearing Relation to RCM: uncle Relation to RCM: acquaintance Relation to ST: old acquaintance, childhood classmate Born: ∼1971 Born: ∼1957

JMR Hearing Relation to RCM: acquaintance Born: ∼1987 Born in Nueva Vida

Table 2.1: Signing participants from Nueva Vida.

39 ST GTM Deaf Hearing Relation to ST: sister Born: ∼1955 Born: ∼1952 Born in Puerto Huam´an, Born in Puerto Huam´an, moved to Totoya in 1997 moved to Totoya in 1997

GLR RI Hearing Hearing Relation to ST: grand-niece Relation to ST: nephew Born: 1994 Born: 1980 Born in Puerto Huam´an, Born in Totoya moved to Totoya in 1991

Table 2.2: Signing participants from Totoya

Huam´anbefore her death sometime around 1987. Both ST and Angelina had hearing spouses and children. I have been told that their spouses and children communicated to them through sign. ST’s spouse and children, however, are no longer alive. I was also told by his friends that their deaths prompted ST’s move to the more secluded village of Totoya. With the age difference between ST and RCM, as well as the relocation of ST, most M´a´ıj`un`aadults in Puerto Huam´an,Nueva Vida and Totoya have known and lived in the same village as ST or RCM. Therefore, despite ST and RCM never having lived in the same village, there is an extended social network that connects the two of them. As described in the previous section, several adults currently living in Nueva Vida

40 Figure 2.2: The figure above illustrates the social connections between RCM and ST. LTN, AMM and LMM all knew ST when ST lived in the nearby town of Puerto Huam´an.AMM attended school with ST. Note that, as some people have moved between the four villages and I was unable to interview every M´a´ıj`un`aperson, it is likely that there are more social connections between the two homesigners.

were ST’s peers growing up. These, and other social factors, contribute to an environment in which gestural communication is the expected and accepted form of communication with a deaf person.

During elicitation and observation, I noticed very little simultaneous

41 communication4 or even mouthing when hearing people communicated with either RCM or ST. In addition, I, on several occasions, observed friends of RCM or ST providing pertinent information to clarify a situation. For exam- ple, during an elicitation session with RCM and LTN, a rooster walking under the floor began to crow. After LTN and myself both jumped from the noise, LTN turned to RCM and explained the reason for our behavior. On another occasion, RCM arrived at my house by himself and began relating the results of the World Cup soccer match from the previous day, which could only have been transmitted to the community via radio. For RCM to know this infor- mation, a hearing person would have been required to relay the results of the soccer match to RCM. On other occasions, RCM provided me with details of community gossip. These examples show that RCM’s friends find it important to provide him with information relevant to the current social interaction or to current events in the village and that RCM participates in the transmission of this information by conveying it to others.

Friends and family of RCM and ST express confusion when asked why they only sign and do not speak to them. As RCM’s mother flatly told me “no puede o´ır”(he cannot hear). RCM’s parents report that they began gesturing to RCM when he was a toddler and they realized that he was not learning to speak. Similarly, ST’s sister, the only person older than him in Totoya, reported that he had been signing since he was a small child and that she had always signed to him. Interestingly, there does seem to be a disconnect

4Simultaneous use of speech and a signed language (or in this case a homesign system).

42 between the need to sign and an inability to hear. When I first began asking about deaf individuals (“personas sordas”), I was told that RCM was the only M´a´ıj`un`awho was deaf. Several weeks later, while reviewing an old photo- album, LTN came across a picture of ST and informed me that he signed like RCM. Armed with his name, I asked the residents of Nueva Vida again if they knew ST. With this reminder, people were able to tell me about ST. Some people insisted that he could hear, but couldn’t speak (that he was “mudo”). After some discussion, everyone concluded that he must actually be deaf as well. These interactions suggest that the salient feature of deaf individuals seems to be that they cannot speak, rather than an inability to hear. When asking about “mudos”, I was also directed to a M´a´ıj`un`ateenager with a speech impediment and had to explain again that I was interested in people who could not hear and used signs to communicate.

From visits to mingas and conversations with those in the village, it was clear that RCM was considered a good worker and was therefore invited to many mingas. RCM participated in teasing amongst the men who were working and in arguments on how to do a particular task. Although the types of interaction varied depending on proficiency of signing, I observed that RCM was well-integrated into the community and considered a valuable contributor. When working at a minga, anyone who wanted to communicate with him gestured with little use of spoken Spanish or mouthing, even if they weren’t the most proficient in the homesign system. He participated in the sale and trade of goods, such as meat from hunting or honey he had collected, with

43 researchers and community members. He managed his own money, buying clothes and shoes in Maz´an,the closest town with shops. ST was also a productive member of the Totoya community. He sold and traded fruits from his chacra and participated in mingas.

However, the acceptance of RCM and ST does not necessarily equate to the acceptance of the homesign system as a full communication system. While everyone understood that gestural communication was the most efficient way to communicate with RCM and ST, people did have varying perspectives on the sign system itself and its communicative power. In one sense, this manifested in people’s self-reports of fluency. Initially, it was very difficult to assess the extent of the use of sign in Nueva Vida, as most people I asked said they could not sign and directed me to RCM’s family and close friends. However, when spending time in the village and with RCM, it was clear that most men and some women could at least engage in short exchanges with RCM and did so exclusively through sign. Once I was able to persuade others into joining the study, it was apparent that some of those who had previously claimed to not know how to sign at least had a good grasp of lexical items. This mindset suggests that people do have a sense that there is a system to be acquired and that one can be “bad” or “good” at this system.

While this attitude suggests that there is a perception that the home- sign system is a conventionalized communication system, this is not to say that the homesign system necessarily holds any prestige within in the community. It is important to note that my own work in the community and the fact that

44 I paid consultants for their work provided a financial reward for those who in- teracted with the homesigners and knew the homesign system. In that regard, those who knew the homesign system were singled out as having a marketable skill. Despite this incentive, I did not observe any behavior that suggested any additional prestige. In fact, one of RCMs closer friends, LTN, was consid- ered strange among the M´a´ıj`un`a(nicknamed loco ‘crazy’). In his sixties, he is still unmarried and is the only villager who lives alone in Nueva Vida. He is permitted a kind of social freedom, abstaining from mingas without repercus- sion and allowed to come into primarily women’s spaces (e.g. craft parties). While both RCM and LTN were fully integrated into village life, there were running jokes in the village about their friendship, which suggests that both were considered “different” to an extent, RCM for his deafness and LTN for his abnormal behavior.

2.4.2 Individual Ideologies

Within RCM’s family and close circle of friends, I also noted variation in self-reporting of fluency and interactional behavior that suggested individual ideological differences. In Nueva Vida, RCM’s father and mother – ACC and HMR – and his good friend, LTN, participated in the most data collection. Each interacted with RCM differently, suggesting varying beliefs about the homesign system and RCM himself. Participants differed in their signing styles and how they mediated conversation. These behaviors illuminate different attitudes regarding the sign system. In the following sections I discuss three

45 main behaviors: RCM’s corrections of sign forms, which suggest standard of well-formedness, and the hearing signers’ responses to correction; use of simultaneous communication; and repair attempts by hearing signers in the event of a communication breakdown.

The excerpts of conversation presented in the following sections exem- plify these behaviors and reveal differences among individual signers. Spoken Spanish is marked with italics, signs are glossed in all caps and gestures are described in double parentheses. Overlap of speech and gesture/sign produced by the same participant is marked with slashes (/ /). Overlap of speech and/or gesture by two different participants is marked with brackets ([ ]).

2.4.2.1 Corrections and Standards of Well-Formedness

In terms of his production, ACC was the most mimetic signer among the three. He signed in a much larger signing space than RCM and produced more pantomime than the other signers. This was clearly noted by RCM, as he would correct his father’s more mimetic signs if there was a lexical option in his system. However, it often took several corrections before ACC adjusted his signing to what RCM had produced. For example, while telling a story, ACC pantomimed being drunk. He held out his arms and moved his body as if staggering. RCM interrupted his story to sign DRUNK, produced at the temple with the index finger extended and moved in a circular motion. ACC did not immediately respond to the correction and pantomimed drunk again. RCM interrupted a second time with the correction and only when

46 ACC produced the sign for DRUNK did RCM allow his father to continue the story. This example shows that RCM will reject pantomime in favor of signs that he considers to be a part of his lexicon.

LTN, on the other hand, readily accepted any corrections from RCM. In one example, as seen in Figure 2.3, RCM corrects the handshape for PHONE from an L-handshape to a Y-handshape. LTN immediately corrected his form, finding the mistake humorous. The correction for this sign was a running joke between the two for the duration of that field season. These attitudes and behaviors suggest that LTN considers RCM to be the authority of the homesign system and that he also considered it a learnable system, with correct and incorrect productions.

RCM’s correction of mimetic signing and of features such as handshape and movement shows that he has standards of well-formedness down to sub- lexical features. Although, as will be discussed in later chapters, he does display some internal inconsistencies in his own signing, these examples of correction support the argument that certain forms violate RCM’s internalized system, even if the representations of these forms are not as precise as a fully conventionalized sign language. Chapter 4 will delve deeper into the form consistency of RCM’s lexicon.

2.4.2.2 Simultaneous Communication and Mouthing

When it came to simultaneous communication and mouthing, HMR produced the most, although still minimal, voicing among the three main in-

47 (a) PHONE - with L (b) PHONE - with L handshape. handshape

(c) NO - negates previous (d) PHONE - with Y sign handshape

Figure 2.3: Correction of handshape for PHONE LTN: PHONE-(L handhsape) RCM: laughs PHONE-(Y handshape) PHONE-(L handhsape) NO PHONE-(Y handshape)

48 terlocutors. Her utterances tended to resemble sign supported speech and also tended to be shorter than ACC’s or LTN’s. From my observations, interactions between RCM and his mother were most often limited to directions and re- quests, rather than the varied topics of conversation between RCM and either ACC or LTN. This could be due, in part, to the separation of labor by gender as described above. RCM’s peers and friends are men, most of the work he participates in is with other men. When he is with his mother, he is aiding in tasks such as cultivation of yuca which involves strenuous physical work and the use of his hands. Therefore, even when they were working together, there was little conversation between RCM and his mother. Most of the interactions I observed between the pair were directives from HMR.

This tendency to speak and sign was present even in elicitation tasks, which were specifically designed to elicit signing from the participants. Exam- ple 2.1 shows a typical response from HMR to a short video stimulus of a man tying a bandana on his own head. She first responds in spoken Spanish and then follows with signing, the final spoken word and the first sign overlapping each other.

(2.1) 1 HMR: Solito se amarra su /cabello/ 2 /TIE-BANDANA-SELF/ IX-computer HEIGHT-IND MALE IX-computer

Line 1 translation: ‘Alone he ties his hair.’

49 2.4.2.3 Clarification

When interpreting RCM’s signing into Spanish, ACC tended to add contextual information that was not in the original message without distin- guishing between the two. While he rarely signed and spoke at the same time, typically switching between the two and directing only signing at RCM, he would speak for long stretches when interpreting RCM. LTN, on the other hand, tended to make a clear distinction between interpreting RCM’s signs and explaining them. When he did not understand something that RCM had signed, he asked for clarification. A few weeks into my first field season work- ing on the homesign system, LTN began to resist interpreting for me. If I asked him to sign something to RCM, he would tell me to try myself first. When signing, he voiced very little. In fact, during recording sessions, he seemed self-conscious about speaking at all.5 Often, the interaction between LTN and RCM would progress through several turns before LTN would offer me a summary of what had been said.

In the following interaction, ACC introduces a new topic, a story in- volving RCM getting stung by a stingray. The first several lines (1-5) are an exchange between ACC and RCM in which they recount the basics of the story. In these lines, ACC signs that the stingray stung RCM in the leg and then that RCM took a pill. In line 4, RCM adds that he removed the stinger from his leg. ACC then elaborates on the story in spoken Spanish, including

5This is not due to discomfort with recording equipment as LTN has been a participant with the M´a´ıj`ık`ıProject for several years.

50 additional information not signed during the initial interaction (the depth of the water). In lines 14 and 15 ACC adds in sign that RCM cried, which RCM denies. Once again, ACC elaborates (line 16) in spoken Spanish, including that RCM had taken a pill for the pain (initially signed in line 5).

1 ACC: SIZE-IND [STINGER] STAB-LEG 2 RCM: [STINGER] STAB-LEG SIZE-IND REMOVE- STINGER STAB-HAND STAB-HAND GRAB 3 ACC: STAB-LEG [TAKE-OUT-OF-LEG] DEAD 4 RCM: [REMOVE] not-visible 5 ACC: SIZE-IND SIZE-IND TAKE-PILL TAKE-PILL DEAD DEAD 6 de: (?) estaba /andando as´ı//De eso estaba hondito/ el agua. Le pica la raya. ´el/dijo que/ ese le /picado/ /aqu´ı/. 7 /HEIGHT-IND/ /SIZE-IND/ /STING-RAY/ /STING/ /STAB-LEG/ 8 GKN: ha picado a ´el? 9 ACC: a ´elle /ha picado/ 10 /IX-RCM/ IX-leg 11 a ´elha picado 12 de este honda estaba andando ´el(?) pah 13 RCM: BOOT not-visible 14 ACC: CRY IX-RCM 15 RCM: not-visible NO 16 ACC: El´ dice de este hondo estaba andando con flecha pica, hab´ıa raya ay´ı.Y se da cuenta y la pisada ay´ıy se lo que estaba. Le pis´oy la raya le pic´o. Corriendo salido del (?) no aguanta el dolor y una pasilla se le da tomar dice. Y as´ı lo pasaba y no puede aguantar y empieza llorar 17 RCM: CRY NO not-visible TAKE-PILL RUN LEAVE 18 ACC: IX-RCM (?) IX-RCM CRY

Line 6 translation: ‘He was walking like this. The water was this deep. The stingray stung him. He said it stung him here.’

51 Line 8 translation: ‘It stung him?’ Line 9 and 11 translation: ‘It stung him’ Line 12 translation: ‘He was walking at this depth.’ Line 16 translation: ‘He says that he was walking at this depth with his spear. There was a stingray there. And he noticed and he stepped there and it was there. He stepped on it and the stingray stung him. He left the (?) running. He couldn’t stand the pain and he was given a pill to take, he says. And that’s what happened and he couldn’t stand it and he started to cry.’

(2.2)

In this excerpt, we see a considerable amount of speaking from the hearing interlocutor. As he is speaking, ACC still redirects his attention to RCM and signs, keeping RCM in the conversation (for example lines 9-12). However, although ACC is maintaining an interactional connection to RCM by interspersing his spoken Spanish with signs, ACC elaborates on what was signed by RCM and uses quotatives (‘´eldijo’) for information that was not conveyed by RCM. For example, in line 16 ACC says El´ dice de este hondo estaba andando ‘he says that he was walking at this depth’, using a quotative when RCM has not communicated anything about the depth of the water during the previous interaction.

Compared to LTN, as will be shown in the next excerpt, ACC uses significantly more spoken Spanish and seems more concerned with providing contextual information to the non-signer. Although ACC continues to sign throughout the interaction, he seems less concerned in getting RCM’s approval.

52 However, this continual signing directed to RCM, even during talk, does serve to include RCM in the ongoing conversation. This is successful, as RCM interjects at the end of the excerpt to counter what ACC has said and signed. Therefore, although ACC does appear to be deferring less to RCM as an expert in the situation, he does make efforts not to exclude RCM from the interaction.

The following excerpt between RCM and LTN is taken from a longer conversation. RCM tells the researcher and LTN about how he gives a little girl (presumably his younger sister) money in order to buy candy for herself. This example shows how LTN defers to RCM when he encounters a translation problem. Although LTN is the only person in the interaction who can interpret between the non-signer (myself) and RCM, holding a position of power in the situation, he treats RCM as the knowledgable figure. In this situation the social hierarchy is weighted toward RCM, giving him the ability to correct LTN’s productions with the expectation that the correction will be complied with.

In RCM’s explanation, he signs GIVE modified to begin at the pocket and extended toward the imagined location of the girl he is giving the money to. His hearing interlocutor then returns his attention to the researcher in order to translate what has been signed by RCM. However, as RCM at no point explicitly gave the sign for MONEY, LTN clarifies with RCM asking if he means that he gives the girl money. LTN accomplishes this by turning back to RCM, giving the sign for MONEY and awaiting confirmation from RCM who nods and then signs MONEY in return to establish mutual understanding.

53 1 RCM: (gesture for attention) 2 FEMALE1 FEMALE2 CHILD GIVEfrom pocket 3 (gesture dismissing handwave) 4 IX EAT 5 (gesture dismissing handwave) 6 EAT-CANDY 7 (gesture dismissing handwave) 8 EAT 9 (gesture dismissing handwave) 10 LTN: le da... 11 viene pedir... 12 MONEY? 13 RCM: nod 14 MONEY

Line 10 translation: ‘he gives her...’ Line 11 translation: ‘she comes to ask for...’

(2.3)

Following this exchange, LTN elaborates on the information provided by RCM, adding that he gave the child money so that she could buy candy and a drink. In the original story told by RCM, he only specifies that the little girl bought candy. However, LTN signs that the girl is also given a drink made with a powdered drink mixture (line 15). However, RCM interrupts, getting LTN’s attention with a touch to the arm. He then goes on to explain that the girl bought a bottled drink of soda (line 17). Yet, even with this clarification by RCM, there is still a miscommunication, as evidenced by LTN’s mistranslation in line 19 where he takes the twisting gesture to mean ‘open’ rather than SODA. LTN then attempts to clarify again by signing the twisting

54 SODA gesture, which gets a nod from RCM. LTN then follows this by a gesture like popping the cap off a bottle, which gets a negative head shake from RCM. This is because these two signs have different meanings, the first being SODA and the second being BEER. In order to further explain his meaning and the meaning of the twisting gesture, RCM gives a more elaborate description of the drink he is discussing by signing BUBBLES and showing how the bubbles rise in the soda after you open the bottle (line 25). Finally, LTN comprehends and gives the correct translation (line 27) ‘gaseosa’ soda and explains the meaning of the BUBBLES sign (lines 32-34).

15 LTN: BOTTLE ADD-POWDER GIVE DRINK CHILD GOOD 16 RCM: (touch-LTN) 17 BOTTLE SODA DRINK EAT-CANDY GOOD 18 LTN: (nod) 19 abra... 20 RCM: BOTTLEsmall BOTTLElarge 21 LTN: [SODA?] 22 RCM: [nod] 23 LTN: BEER? 24 RCM: (head-shake) 25 BOTTLE SODA BUBBLES POUR [DRINK] 26 LTN: [(nod, touch-RCM)] 27 gaseosa 28 RCM: BUBBLES 29 LTN: /toma/ 30 /DRINK/ 31 BUBB/LES/ 32 /levanta su/ 33 /BUBBLES/ 34 /levanta eso/

Line 19 translation: ‘open...’

55 Line 27 translation: ‘soda’ Line 29 translation: ‘drink’ Line 32 translation: ‘its rises’ Line 34 translation: ‘that rises’

(2.4)

In the example discussed above, we see RCM and LTN working together in order to assure mutual understanding. Both participants in the conversation are concerned with understanding one another and communicating effectively. LTN stops while translating (lines 12 and 21) in order to confirm with RCM that he is giving the proper translation. Likewise, RCM monitors LTN’s pro- ductions and interrupts when he is signing information that is incorrect (line 15 and 16). In each case of clarification, LTN defers to RCM, correcting him- self and asking for clarifications. By working with RCM and treating him as the language expert in this situation, LTN works toward a translation that is acceptable to RCM (evidenced by the nods in lines 13 and 22). Even though the interaction and correction is much lengthier than what might occur in the spoken discourse, both participants patiently work together to reach mutual understanding.

2.4.2.4 Summary

The following chapters will discuss, in detail, the results of experiments designed to examine the fluency of the different signers. These results will be linked back to the above discussion, relating the measures of fluency to the

56 qualitative observations of the participants’ ideologically driven behavior. I ask whether the different attitudes align with any differences in signing ability. For example, we may expect LTN’s more ready acceptance of correction from RCM to lead to higher scores in the lexical task. Or HMR’s higher instance of voicing may lead to more Spanish influenced signing.

These observations challenge the perception that family members of homesigners will be their most cooperative conversation partners. The above discussion shows that LTN displays an attitude that suggests high acceptance of the sign system. He easily takes correction from RCM and defers to RCM when he does not understand. This may be due to a difference in a par- ent/child relationship and a friendship. In all other instances, ACC and HMR are an authority over RCM. Perhaps it is this relationship that leads to more resistance in accepting RCM as an authority of his own sign system. LTN, although older, is otherwise a peer.

The topics of conversation that the different signers engaged in also differed across participants. This may also factor into how the different hear- ing signers acquired the system. Interactions between RCM and his mother, HMR, were primarily directions. While they conducted tasks together, such as traveling to the family’s chacra and cultivating yuca, the interactions between them were task-focussed. RCM and his father, ACC, seemed to engage in more general conversations, including teasing. With his friends, however, such as LTN, JMR and OMT, conversations ranged from village gossip (a man in a village traveling to the hospital for brain surgery) to soccer games to teasing

57 about relationships with women. As will be discussed further in chapters 4 and 5, this wider variety of conversation topics may have contributed to the acquisition process among particular signers.

I suggest, therefore, that it is important, when studying homesign sys- tems, to consider friends outside of the household as privileged interlocutors for the homesigner. They may, in certain contexts, be a more willing commu- nicative partner than family members.

2.5 Culture of Gesture Use

As discussed above, I observed an attitude among the M´a´ıj`un`athat was open to and accepting of gestural communication with deaf individuals. This is not always the case in homesign environments such as those reported in Goldin-Meadow’s studies with deaf children in oral education programs, for example. This more accepting attitude could be due, in part, to the fact that there have been three deaf M´a´ıj`un`ain recent memory. Additionally, I did not encounter any traditional beliefs that associated deafness with negativity. For example, deafness as punishment for the sins of the parents, as has been demonstrated in some other cultures.

In M´a´ıj`un`acommunities, despite there being no knowledge of conven- tional sign languages, sign has been accepted as the standard form of commu- nication with deaf people. Another contributing factor to this attitude may be the use of gesture among hearing people. In interviews with hearing partici- pants, I asked whether or not hearing people gesture when RCM is not present

58 and if so, whether those gestures are similar to those used in the homesign sys- tem. I was told that gestural communication is used in hunting environments, so as not to scare away game, and during motorized boat trips in order to communicate over the noise of the motor.

Unfortunately, I was unable to participate in a hunting trip due to gender norms and as I would have been a liability. However, I did observe the use of gesture while on loud boat trips. The communication was limited to essentials such as requests for necessary items or steering directions. While these gestural conventions may not be the basis for structural features of the homesign system (such as spatial modulation), they may provide an inventory of signs from which the homesigners can draw. I will discuss these gestural conventions further in chapter 5 where I analyze the lexical similarities between RCM’s and ST’s systems. The shared gestural conventions among the hearing community may have led to some of the similarities in the two systems.

In addition to this evidence based on interviews and observation, the data collected from hearing participants, both those who use homesign com- fortably and those who do not, will provide evidence of gestural conventions. This will give a better understanding of shared properties of the input environ- ments for RCM and ST due to the fact that their homesign systems developed in the same cultural context and among shared interlocutors.

59 2.6 Summary

In this chapter, I aimed to provide the reader with information about the cultural and social context of the two M´a´ıj`un`ahomesigners. I argue that, due to the insular community and the inter-connected social networks of the homesigners, it is necessary to expand the discussion of hearing people’s con- tributions to the systems beyond the immediate families of the homesigners. In the case of the M´a´ıj`un`a,friends and acquaintances play an important role in the everyday interactions of the homesigners. In order to fully understand how the homesign systems developed and how they are maintained within the community, we must view the village as homesigning community, rather than focussing solely on the homesigners without considering their relationships and how they interact with other people.

This research will add to the growing body of homesign literature by including data and analyses of productions from a variety of communication partners in addition to the homesigners themselves. This will provide for a rich data set from which to compare across different age ranges, experiences with the homesign system and relationships with the homesigners. In addition, this study investigates a sign system that is somewhere between a homesign system and a village sign language. Although there have not been enough deaf people in either Nueva Vida or Totoya to spark the genesis of a village sign language, there has been a consistent presence of homesigners spanning at least two generations. It is important to include such communities in the typological study of emerging sign languages as they can contribute to our

60 understanding of how the socio-cultural makeup of signing communities affects the development of sign systems. Due to the rarity of such situations, the linguistic properties of these systems are currently not well understood.

61 Chapter 3

Argument Structure through Word Order and Spatial Modulation

3.1 Introduction

This chapter focusses on strategies for marking argument structure in RCM’s homesign system. Strategies for marking argument structure have been of particular interest in emerging sign language literature, especially the use of directionality (a visual-spatial mechanisms for disambiguating two animate referents in transitive and ditransitive events). Due to its prevalence in natural sign languages as a means of marking argument structure, spatial modulation has been posited to be a sign language universal (Aronoff, Meir, Padden, & Sandler, 2004; Aronoff, Meir, & Sandler, 2005; Meir, Padden, Aronoff, & Sandler, 2007). However, the universality of directionality is called into question by the fact that it is not present in all sign languages (Vos & Zeshan, 2012). Emerging sign language research also suggests that directionality takes time to develop (Meir, 2012).

I cover both sign order and spatial modulation, analyzing the produc- tions of RCM and four hearing signers in Nueva Vida. The goals of this chap- ter are to 1) Describe how argument structure is marked and the consistency

62 with which these strategies are used within individual signers, 2) Describe the across signer or within-community consistency as it pertains to argument structure and 3) Explore how social relationships and interactions may affect how individuals in the community use and acquire the homesign system.

The methodology of data collection and analysis reflects these goals. I use both elicitation data and data collected from less structured conversations between RCM and a hearing interlocutor. Through the analysis of both elicited and naturally occurring data, we can better understand the structures that are present in the homesign system and how they are used in different contexts.

I first describe this methodology in detail, including elicitation mate- rials and coding conventions. The subsequent major section describes results from the elicitation task, covering the word order produced by RCM and four hearing signers. I find that RCM’s productions of word order are only con- sistent with respect to inanimate themes. However, the hearing signers are highly consistent both internally and with each other when it comes to word order. The subsequent section describes RCM’s use of space. While RCM may not be consistently marking argument structure through word order, he is more consistent in his spatial layouts and in his productions of spatial mod- ulation. This leads me to argue that he marks argument structure through spatial modulation.

63 3.2 Methodology

The instrument used to elicit argument structure was the Argument Structure Production and Comprehension (ASPAC) task (Carrigan & Cop- pola, 2017), which consists of 81 videos of short events (broken into 2 blocks of 41 and 40 videos). The events depicted vary in number, gender, and par- ticipant role. The stimuli include intransitive events, transitive events with an animate patient or an inanimate theme, and ditransitive events with both an animate patient and an inanimate theme. Block 1 contained 7 intransitive events, 10 transitive events with a patient, 15 transitive events with a theme and 9 ditransitive events. Block 2 contained 8 intransitive events, 9 transitive events with a patient, 15 transitive events with a theme and 8 ditransitive events. An example of an intransitive event stimulus was ‘the boy stood’. Transitive events were always reversible (e.g. ‘the man pushed the girl’) and not reciprocal (e.g. ‘the boy and the girl hugged each other’). An example of a distransitive event in the stimuli is ‘the woman fed an orange to the boy’. The participants in the videos always differed in gender. The same action was shown multiple times with different actors and patients, but the same action and actor/patient scenario was never repeated.

The stimuli were always presented to a dyad, with one participant signing to another. Participant 1 (either RCM or a hearing signer), viewed each stimulus on a laptop computer. I coded all responses from Participant 1, even if there were multiple responses to the same stimulus. After viewing the video, Participant 1 signed what was displayed in the video to Participant

64 2. Participant 2, the receiver, was positioned out of view of the laptop screen. In order to test comprehension, Participant 2 was presented an array of four images on a tablet, three distractors and one that matched the video shown to Participant 1. After viewing Participant 1’s signing, Participant 2 picked the image he or she thought matched the video described by the signer. I allowed Participant 2 to ask for clarification from Participant 1 if the production was not understood.

Using ELAN (Sloatjes & Wittenburg, 2008), the utterances from Par- ticipant 1 were coded for transitivity (intransitive, transitive or distransitive), ordering of the act sign and its arguments (actor, theme and patient), spatial modulation and spatial layout (rotated or unrotated). Signs were assigned thematic roles following Coppola (2002). Signs were labeled as: act, the ac- tion being performed; actor, the person performing the action; patient, the person that is acted on or manipulated; or theme, the inanimate object that is acted on or manipulated. A distinction between patients and recipients was not made.

An act sign was analyzed as spatially modulated if it was produced out- side the neutral signing space (i.e. the space directly in front of the signer), incorporated non-neutral locations into its movement or was produced in a location associated with an object or action (following Senghas & Coppola, 2001). If a sign was identified as being spatially modulated, it was then coded as either having a rotated or unrotated layout with respect to the event pre- sented in the stimulus. If an actor on the left of the screen kissed a patient on

65 the right (from the perspective of the viewer), the gesture was “rotated” if it moved in the opposite direction, from the participant’s right to left, and vice versa for “unrotated” (see Figure 3.1). It is not the layout itself that we are concerned with, but rather the consistency of the layout across the signer’s responses.

Along with spatial modulation, role shift is another productive means of encoding argument structure and referring to displaced referents. In this type of construction, the signer uses the position of his body to take on the roles of multiple referents. A change in position indicates that the referent has changed. A construction was coded as containing role shift if the signer’s body, gaze and shoulders shifted along with a shift of referent. A shift in the body could include either or both a shift on the horizontal plane (pivoting of the shoulders) or vertical plane (lifting or dropping of the gaze and chin).

Responses from Participant 2 were coded as correct or incorrect. Incor- rect responses were additionally coded for the type of error (incorrect actor, reversal of animate arguments, incorrect action, incorrect theme).

For the analysis of sign order, I concern myself first with the paired orderings of each element rather than the ordering of the entire utterance. For example, the order of act might be variable with relation to actor and patient, but the ordering of actor and patient might be fixed. For each event type (intransitive, transitive with two animate arguments, transitive with one animate argument and ditransitive), I analyze the order of each possible com- bination of elements. For intransitives, there are just two ordered pairs (actor

66 Figure 3.1: Stimulus shows ‘man kisses chicken’. Arrows represent the di- rection of movement of the spatially modulated sign. Modified from Senghas (2003).

before act, and act before actor). For transitives, there are six ordered pairs, for ditransitives there are twelve ordered pairs. For the analysis of individual signers’ internal consistency, I use a chi-square or an exact binomial test (if the number of expected value was less than 5) to determine statistical significance of each ordering.

In addition to the analysis of sign order of each pair of elements, I also considered how often elements were dropped and their position in the utter- ance. Goldin-Meadow and Mylander (1998) argue that the child homesigners in their studies display an ergative-absolutive structure due to the pattern of argument dropping. Children tended to produce an actor-act order for intran- sitive utterances and a theme-act for transitive utterances with an inanimate theme. It has also been observed that homesign systems and emerging sign

67 languages tend to be action final. In her review of the homesign literature, Morford (1996) reported that most child and adult homesigners favored an agent - action and patient - action order. Emerging sign languages are also re- ported to prefer verb-final sign order (Meir et al., 2010). Given the prominence of these patterns in other homesign systems and emerging sign languages, I will evaluate their relevance with respect to the Nueva Vida signers.

The driving question behind this research is the effect of community and individual interactions on the development and maintenance of the homesign system. Therefore, I examine both the across-signer consistency in word order as well assess any differences in RCM’s signing with different conversational partners. I then examine sign order in RCM’s productions with each partic- ipant (ACC, HMR, LTN and WMR) first in terms of patterns that emerge when considering all of RCM’s productions and then RCM’s productions by partner, asking whether there is an effect of communication partner on his signing. This will help to answer the question of whether RCM changes his signing based on communication partner as this might be due to accommoda- tion on his part.

Following the analysis of RCM’s productions, I examine productions by hearing signers with RCM as the addressee. First, I examine and discuss the analysis of each individual hearing signer and their orders. These analyses, and those for RCM, give us an understanding of each individual’s internal consistency. It may be the case that individual signers are internally consistent and follow their own patterns, but that these patterns do not match each other

68 and thus the within-community consistency is low. Therefore, it is important to look both at signers’ individual responses as well as to compare across signers and within the community.

Within each event type, I report the observed ordering patterns for each pair of grammatical elements in that event type (i.e. actor, patient, theme and act) and the expected value if we were to assume there was no pattern (50-50 for each ordering possibility). That is, our null hypothesis is that there is no consistent order. To test this hypothesis, I use a chi-square test or an exact binomial test, depending on the size of expected values. If an expected value was less then 5, which is required for a chi-square analysis, an exact binomial test was used instead. The p-value gives us the likelihood that we would see this pattern if the null hypothesis were true. If the p-value is above 0.05, we assume that there is no preferred order for that signer’s order in that event type. The following sections summarize and discuss these results. Full results for each ordered pair for every signer can be found in Appendix A.

3.3 Results

Each hearing participant completed two blocks of the ASPAC task (81 short videos) as the producer and the addressee. Together, these blocks con- tained 15 intransitive events, 19 transitive events with a patient, 30 transitive events with a theme and 17 ditransitive events. RCM completed two blocks with all four hearing participants as both the producer and the addressee.

69 3.3.1 RCM sign order productions by partner

This section covers the order of arguments in RCM’s responses to the ASPAC task. I first analyze his responses to each participant individually. This will allow for a comparison across communication partners and help to answer the research question concerning communication accommodation. Does RCM’s sign order change to accommodate the order preferences of his interlocutor, as assessed by their performance on the ASPAC task? To an- swer these questions, his productions to each signer will be compared to the productions of the hearing signers themselves. For each communication part- ner (ACC, HMR, LTN and WMR), I give a summary of sign orders by event type (intransitive, transitive with two animate arguments, transitive with one animate argument and ditransitive).

3.3.1.1 Results with RCM as producer and ACC as partner

When partnered with ACC, RCM produced only one order with near statistical reliability (p = 0.057) which was actor before act in transitive events with two animate arguments. Otherwise, there were no statistically reliable orders produced by RCM. This is especially relevant for the ordering of actor and patient as these two animate arguments cannot be distinguished by real world knowledge. In both transitive and ditransitive events, the ordering of actor and patient were not reliable. In addition to the ordering of each element, I also considered how often elements were dropped and where in the utterance they occurred. In productions with ACC, RCM produced actor and patient

70 in 42% and 47% of transitive utterances respectively.

In ditransitive events he favored the patient, producing actor and pa- tient in 24% and 41% of utterances respectively. In both types of events, patients were more likely to be in utterance initial or utterance final position. RCM produced patients five times in utterance initial position in transitive events. In utterance final position, he produced the patient three times in both transitive and ditransitive events. Actor was produced three times in initial position in transitive events and was never produced in utterance final position in either event type. It may be the case these positioning tendencies, coupled with higher instances of production for patients, that RCM emphasizes the patient more than the actor. This will be explored further in subsequent discussion on his order.

3.3.1.2 Results with RCM as producer and HMR as partner

When partnered with HMR, the only argument pair that RCM pro- duced in a statistically significant rate was theme > act in transitive and ditransitive utterances (p = 0.001 and p = 0.049, respectively). Otherwise he did not produce any statistically reliable orders. As with ACC, he did not drop either the actor or patient with greater frequency than the other. Un- like his productions with ACC, there was no reliable pattern with respect to utterance initial or utterance final position of actor or patient. In transitive constructions, RCM produced both actor and patient in the utterance initial position four times. In utterance final position he produced actor five times

71 and patient three times. In ditransitive constructions, he produced actor three times and patient one time in utterance initial position. In utterance final po- sition he produced actor and patient both four times. Unlike his productions with ACC, RCM does not seem to favor the production of patient over actor in his productions with HMR.

3.3.1.3 Results with RCM as producer and LTN as partner

When paired with LTN, RCM didn’t produce any statistically reliable orders. However, his production of a patient > actor order in ditransitive constructions approached statistical reliability (p = 0.06). With only four productions, all four were produced in the same order. Interestingly, RCM does not show this same preference of a patient > actor order in transitive events nor does he produce this order when signing with ACC or HMR. His orders for patient > act and theme > act also approached statistical reliability (both p = .08) in ditransitive constructions. In Transitive constructions, RCM did not have a preference for actor or patient utterance initial or utterance final positioning. He produced actor twice in utterance initial position and once in final position. He produced patient once in utterance initial position and three times in utterance final position. In ditransitive constructions, on the other hand, he produced actor twice in utterance initial position and eight times in utterance final position.

72 3.3.1.4 Results with RCM as producer and WMR as partner

RCM’s only statistically significant order produced with WMR was theme > act in transitive constructions (p = 0.007). This same preference was seen with nearly all other partners and event types. In productions with HMR, this order was also statistically signifiant. Although not statistically significant, the order of patient > actor was seen in ditransitive constructions with both LTN and WMR. In all three utterances with actor and patient, RCM produced this order with WMR. In transitive constructions, RCM did not have a preference for actor or patient in utterance initial or utterance final position. He produced one instance of actor in utterance initial position and one instance in utterance final position. He produce two instances of patient in utterance initial position and two instances in utterance final position.

3.3.1.5 Discussion of RCM’s productions

Overall, RCM does not appear to rely heavily on word order to dis- tinguish between different arguments. The highest number of statistically significant orders (two event types) were produced in interaction with HMR. Both were the ordering of theme before act in transitive and ditransitive con- structions. This same pattern was also statistically significant in RCM’s pro- ductions with WMR in transitive constructions. Although his productions of theme and act were not statistically significant in his productions with other partners, theme > act was the most frequently produced order.

The orders approaching statistical significance were actor > act in tran-

73 sitive constructions with ACC and patient > actor in ditransitive constructions with LTN. These orders were not, however, heavily favored in productions with other partners. Following the analysis of the hearing signers productions, I will examine whether or not these differences on RCM’s part appear to be influenced by his conversation partner.

Importantly, apart from one instance, he does not distinguish between actors and patients in either transitive or ditransitive constructions. These semantic roles are the most crucial to distinguish as both are animate and neither shared knowledge nor context can provide any clues that would aid in comprehension. Real world knowledge allows themes and actors to be iden- tified. For instance, given ‘pick up’, ‘man’ and ‘cup’ the logical conclusion is that the man picked up the cup as a cup cannot be an agent. However, actors and patients can’t be so readily distinguished. Inasmuch as actor and patient were not differentiated by RCM, I also examined whether actors or patients were favored in utterance initial or utterance final position as a way of distinguishing them. These results differed across partners and there was no clear pattern. As reported in other homesign systems, RCM favored an act final order with respect to utterance position.

It is clear from these results that, if RCM does mark actors and patients in some way, this is not accomplished through word order or utterance posi- tion. In later sections we will explore spatial modulation as a way of marking semantic roles and examine whether or not RCM uses other means, that do not involve sign order or utterance position, to distinguish actors and patients.

74 3.3.2 ACC orders

ACC produced several statistically significant ordering pairs. In both types of transitive events, he produced actor > act at a reliable rate (p < 0.001 for transitives with two animate arguments and p < 0.001 for transitives with one animate argument) and patient > act approached statistical reliability (p = 0.059) in transitive constructions and was statistically reliable (p = 0.001) in ditransitive constructions. He also produced actor > theme (p = 0.004 in transitives and p = 0.007 in ditransitives) and theme > act (p < 0.001 in transitives and p < 0.001 in ditransitives) at a statistically significant rate in all event types. Furthermore, in 30 responses to transitive events with one animate argument, he produced 27 responses with both arguments, 19 of which had both the actor and the theme in the same prosodic phrase. For utterances with both arguments, ACC’s most common order was actor - theme - act (13 of the 19). That same order was also common in his ditransitive utterances. Although the ordering of the actor and the patient was not significant nor was the ordering of patient and theme, ACC had a strong tendency to produce actor - theme - act in ditransitive constructions. Of the 7 utterances that included both the actor and the theme, all were produced with an actor - theme - act order. However, though several of his orders were significant, ACC did not produce any orders with the actor and the patient in a reliable order.

75 3.3.3 HMR orders

HMR produced two statistically significant orders in transitive con- structions with one animate argument: actor > act (p = 0.007) and theme > act (p = 0.01). The orders of actor > act (p = 0.06) in intransitives, patient > act (p = 0.057) in transitives and actor > act (p = 0.052) in ditransitives were produced at near statistical reliability. Several arguments combination, however, have small observed values. This was due, primarily, to the dropping of certain elements. While HMR produced an act sign in every response, she dropped other elements, rarely producing two arguments in a single utterance. In transitives, actor and patient were produced 8 and 9 times respectively out of the total of 19 transitive constructions. Actor and theme were produced 12 and 11 times respectively out of the 30 transitive productions. In ditransitives actor, patient and theme were produced 9, 7 and 1 time respectively. This makes an overall order for multiple elements difficult to ascertain.

3.3.4 LTN orders

LTN produced several significant orders in his productions. Actor > act (p < 0.001 in all four event types), patient > act (p = 0.001 in transitives and ditransitives) and theme > act (p < 0.001 in transitives and p = 0.007 in ditransitives) were significant across utterance types. Actor > theme (p < 0.001) was significant in transitive constructions and although not significant in ditransitive constructions due to a small set of observed values, all utter- ances with both the actor and the theme were produced with the actor first.

76 In transitive and ditransitive constructions, LTN produced several utterances with two arguments. In transitive constructions 16 of 30 responses had the theme, actor and act in the same prosodic phrase, there was a strong ten- dency to produce an actor - theme - act order (13 of 16). Notice that this is the same order produced by ACC. However, actors and patients were not ordered significantly.

3.3.5 WMR orders

As with the majority of other productions, WMR’s significant orders primarily involved acts. Actor > act was a statistically reliable order in three event types (p = 0.001 in transitives with two animates, p = 0.007 in tran- sitives with one animate, and p = 0.001 in ditransitives). Patient > act was statistically reliable in transitives (p = 0.03) and distransitives (p = 0.002). Theme > act was statistically reliable in both transitives (p < 0.001) and di- transitives (p < 0.001). Near statistical reliability were the orders for actor > theme in both transitives (p = 0.06) and ditransitives (p = 0.06). Transitive constructions with one animate argument had the most responses with both arguments (9 out of 30). Of those 9, 6 were ordered ‘theme - act, actor’ with the sign for actor set off prosodically. The other three were ‘actor - theme - act’. Once again, as with all other participants, WMR did not produce a consistent ordering of actor and patient.

77 3.3.6 Discussion of results from hearing signers

While all four hearing signers produced statistically significant orders, HMR, the homesigner’s mother, only produced 2 significant orders and 3 near significant orders while ACC, LTN and WMR produced 8, 9 and 7 statistically significant orders respectively. These results show high internal consistency for ACC, LTN and WMR in terms of word order. In fact, they were far more consistent in their productions than RCM was with any of his interlocutors.

Furthermore, the hearing signers were consistent with each other. None of the significant orders were in conflict. For example, all four hearing signers produced the order actor > act and theme > act in transitive constructions. ACC, LTN and WMR had near complete overlap in their statistically signif- icant orders. Even when there wasn’t overlap in significance, the preferred order of the other two signers matched that of the significant order. For ex- ample, only ACC produced theme > act at a significant rate in ditransitive constructions. However, though not statistically significant, the preferred or- der for LTN and WMR was also theme > act. HMR, while she produced fewer significant orders, also overlapped in her preferred orders with the other hearing signers. The hearing signers were also consistent in their lack of a significant order for two animate arguments. None of the signers produced a consistent order between actors and patients.

In summary, hearing signers, particularly ACC, LTN and WMR, dis- play more internal consistency than RCM when it comes to word order. They are also highly consistent with one another. One possibility for this consistency

78 is their status as hearing Spanish speakers. It could be the case that they are simply using the word order from their spoken language and essentially repre- senting their spoken language with signs. However, the word order of Spanish, the dominant language in the village is SVO. In contrast, the preferred sign orders for themes and patients place them before the act, comparable to an OV order. The dominant spoken language is not affecting the hearing signers’ productions when it comes to word order.1

One of my main questions was whether or not RCM would change his productions to match those of his interlocutor. However, in terms of word order, the hearing signers are so consistent with one another that there are no differences amongst them to which RCM would converge. The only instance in which RCM did diverge in his patterns was in his use of a near statistically reliable order of patient > actor when partnered with LTN. This was the only case in which he showed a preferred order between actor and patient. Given the other results, however, it is unlikely that this is reliable. As LTN does not prefer this order, RCM cannot be converging to a specific order produced by his conversation partner. When it came to sign order, there were no other differences across signing pairs. HMR is the only markedly different signer in terms of consistency whereas ACC, LTN and WMR are highly consistent with one another. It can be said, however, that the orderings in which RCM is consistent – theme > act and actor > act – match the orders produced by

1M´a´ıj`ık`ıis a SOV dominant word order. However, ACC is not a M´a´ıj`ık`ıspeaker. Fur- thermore, whenever I observed hearing signers signing while speaking, it was always with spoken Spanish, making it unlikely that M´a´ıj`ık`ıwas influencing their signed productions.

79 all the hearing signers.

Given the consistency of the hearing signers’ productions, one possi- bility is that RCM is converging to the productions of the hearing signers. That is, it is the hearing signers who are generating the argument structure and not RCM himself. The question of who is generating structure and who is converging to whom in a homesigning community is central to homesign research. In later sections, further comparisons will be drawn in other aspects of sign grammar and I will argue that, despite his inconsistency in word order, it is RCM, not hearing signers, who is innovating grammatical structures in the homesign system.

3.4 Encoding Argument Structure through Space

As concluded above, the Nueva Vida signers do not use word order to distinguish between two animate arguments; this is true for RCM and for the hearing signers. Despite word order being highly consistent among the hearing signers, the only relationship that none of them distinguished was that of actor and patient. Given that other relationships can be inferred through real world knowledge, the relationship between actor and patient is the most crucial to distinguish. In this section I consider the use of spatial modulation to mark argument structure and argue that everyone, RCM in particular, relies on spatial modulation, above word order, to distinguish between actors and patients.

80 3.4.1 RCM’s Productions

In both the elicited data from the ASPAC task as well as in general conversation, RCM uses consistent and complex spatial modulation. His re- sults by partner did not differ; therefore I will describe them in a single section. RCM’s use of space to mark arguments was almost exclusively reserved for acts with two animate arguments. He produced FEED, KISS, TAP (something animate), and PUSH (something animate) with spatial modulation and role shift. Out of 93 total productions with spatial modulation, 74 were made up by these act gestures (see Table 3.1). RCM also produced spatial modulation when producing PUSH with an inanimate theme. However, these productions did not include role shift as was the case with most productions of PUSH with a patient. The one intransitive construction RCM produced with spatial modulation was FALL.

RCM did not produce spatial modulation with these acts with com- plete consistency. That is, he did not produce spatial modulation with every production of these acts. FEED was the least consistent, with 15 produc- tions of spatial modulation and 22 without. PUSH (something inanimate) was produced 14 times with spatial modulation and 12 times without. TAP (something animate) was the most consistent, with 40 productions of spatial modulation and just 2 without. FALL, the only intransitive act produced with spatial modulation, was produced with spatial modulation 5 times and 5 times without. KISS was produced 19 times with spatial modulation and 4 times without. Overall, of the 93 productions with spatial modulation, the same set

81 RCM ACC HMR LTN WMR FEED 15 5 3 4 PUSH - inanimate 14 TAP - animate 40 10 6 9 9 FALL 5 2 3 1 2 PUT-ON-HAT 3 2 KISS 19 6 2 5 5 Total 93 26 13 13 20

Table 3.1: The total productions of spatially modulated acts by signers. Note that RCM’s productions include responses addressed to all four hearing signers.

of signs was produced without spatial modulation in 45 instances (nearly half of which were FEED).

I argue that, while RCM does not mark actors and patients with word order, he does do so through spatial modulation. Although his use of space differs depending on the animacy of the arguments, his marking of arguments can only be effective if it is consistent. I therefore analyzed the rotation of spatial layout for consistency. Of his 93 productions of spatial modulation, 74% were produced with an unrotated layout. The remainder if his utterances were produced with a rotated layout (21%) or a mixed layout (4%).

Figures 3.2 and 3.3 show the difference between a tap with two animate arguments produced with spatial modulation and a tap with one animate argu- ment produced with no spatial modulation. These productions are compared

82 to a still from the stimulus videos. Fig. 3.2 compares two instances of TAP with an unrotated layout. In the two stimulus events, the layout presented on the screen are opposite. That is, in Fig. 3.2(a), the actor is on the left side of the patient, while in Fig. 3.2c the actor is on the right side of the patient. In both cases, RCM produces his more common unrotated layout. In Fig. 3.2(d), this results in an across-the-body tap, which does not mimetically represent the action executed by the girl.

RCM does not simply copy the layout he sees on the screen. This is further shown by the two examples in Fig. 3.3. Both stimuli contain a theme, but differ in their arrangements. In Fig. 3.3(a), the actor is on the left side of the screen and the theme is on the right. In Fig. 3.3(c), the theme is placed in front of the actor. In both cases, RCM produces the TAP gesture with no spatial modulation (produced in neutral space with no incorporation of a path movement).

Taken together, these two sets of examples illustrate two separate fea- tures of RCM spatial system: 1) He does not simply produce the action as he sees it in the stimulus. In examples 3.2(a) and 3.2(c), both the boy and the girl tap the patient by extending their arm away from their bodies. RCM, however, maintains the unrotated spatial layout in both cases, which results in tapping across his body in 3.2(d). 2) He does not simply copy the layout in the screen. Examples 3.3(a) and 3.3(c) contrast two layouts in the stimuli. In both cases, however, RCM produces the same act with no spatial modulation. The primary factor in whether or not he produces a spatially modulated act

83 sign, then, is animacy, not the layout on the screen or the manner in which the actor in the stimulus produces the action. RCM produces spatial modulation for patients but not for themes and his preferred spatial layout is unrotated, even if this results in a less mimetic production.

(a) ASPAC Stimulus: BOY tap (b) RCM taps with Unrotated GIRL. layout.

(c) ASPAC Stimulus: GIRL tap (d) RCM taps with spatial mod- CHICKEN ulation across his body.

Figure 3.2: Examples illustrating two unrotated layouts with the sign TAP. In both cases, RCM produces the unrotated spatial layout. In example (d), however, to maintain the unrotated layout, he must produce the sign across his body, which does not replicate the action as performed in the stimulus video.

In addition to high consistency of spatial layout RCM often produced role shift in utterances with two animate arguments, signing the action of the

84 (a) ASPAC Stimulus: BOY tap (b) RCM taps with no spatial CHAIR. modulation.

(c) ASPAC Stimulus: MAN tap (d) RCM taps with no spatial CUP modulation.

Figure 3.3: RCM produces two instances of TAP with an inanimate theme. In stimulus (a), the actor is on the left side of the screen and the theme is on the right side. In stimulus (c), the theme is in front of the actor. In both cases, however, he produces an act with no spatial modulation (produced in front of him in signing space). These examples show that he is not simply replicating the layout that he sees in the stimulus.

actor followed by the reaction of the patient. For example, in a PUSH utter- ance with two animate arguments, he signed PUSH followed by BE-PUSHED or TAP followed by BE-TAPPED. Splitting a transitive or ditransitive event into two successive intransitive constructions is an observed strategy in emerg-

85 ing sign languages (see De Vos, 2012; Ergin et al., 2018; Senghas, Coppola, Newport, & Supalla, 1997). Allowing only one argument per act simplifies the construction and eliminates the need for a strict order between the actor and the patient.

This differentiation between constructions with two animate arguments and one animate argument suggests that RCM does distinguish the relation- ship of actor and patient. However, he does not accomplish this through word order. Furthermore, the consistency of his spatial layout also lends support to this analysis. I therefore argue that although RCM’s word order is not con- sistent, he is using space to mark argument structure in a construction that would otherwise be ambiguous, that is, constructions with two animate argu- ments. As will be discussed in section 3.4.3, RCM’s productive use of space is also clear in his general conversation, showing that the consistency of his spatial layout is not a product of the elicitation stimuli.

3.4.2 Hearing Signers’ Productions

In the productions of spatial layouts, the hearing signers displayed in- ternal and across signer consistency. All four signers shared the preference for the same unrotated layout as RCM. ACC and WMR were the most consistent in terms of proportion of their layout with both signing 86% of their layouts as unrotated. HMR was the next most consistent as she signed 83% of her layout as unrotated. Finally, LTN was the least consistent, signing 73% of his layouts as unrotated (see Figure 3.4 for full comparison).

86 100% 86 86 83 80% 74 73

60%

40% 27 21 20% 16 14 9 8 4 4 0 0 0%

RCM ACC HMR LTN WMR

Rotated Unrotated Mixed

Figure 3.4: Spatial layouts for all five signers.

Further examination of how each hearing signer uses spatial modula- tion, however, reveals a more nuanced picture. Although LTN is the least consistent in his rotation of spatial layouts, his, ACC’s and WMR’s produc- tions most closely match those of RCM in terms of which acts they produced with spatial modulation. That is, ACC, LTN and WMR, like RCM, produced

87 FEED, TAP, FALL and KISS with spatial modulation. HMR, on the other hand, only produced spatial modulation in 13 instances and, of those, 6 were TAP. The other 7 tokens were divided between FALL, PUT-ON-HAT and KISS. She does not produce FEED or PUSH with spatial modulation. While her consistency of spatial layout may be high, other aspects of her use of space differ from RCM. The three male signers more closely match RCM.

3.4.3 Use of space in naturally occurring utterances

The above sections discuss the use of space by RCM and hearing signers when responding to an elicitation task. Part of the design of the task was to elicit spatial modulation. However, the use of space in an elicitation task does not necessarily mean that grammatical space is a productive part of the homesign system. Even the fact that RCM and hearing signers all produce an unrotated spatial layout is not enough evidence to argue that hearing signers use and interpret space in the same way. Previous research on the use of space by hearing non-signers shows that hearing people are most likely to produce an unrotated spatial layout (Pyers, Perniss, & Emmorey, 2015). Therefore, it could be the case that the Nueva Vida signers are individually producing an unrotated layout simply because it is the most natural way to represent spatial relationships, even for non-signers, rather than converging to each other.

In order to gain a better understanding of the use of space in the com- munity, I also analyzed conversational data from RCM, ACC and LTN. These data show how grammatical space is integrated into the system and how it

88 functions in typical conversation. The results lend support to the conclusions in section 3.4.2: that ACC and LTN closely match RCM’s productions. Taken together, these results show that RCM and his hearing interlocutors use gram- matical space to express relationships between actors and patients.

I refer to Liddell’s (2003) framework for spatial agreement, where he posits that agreement depends on the representation of entities in mental space. The blending of real space and mental space allows the signer to refer to referents that are not physically present. A new space, the “blended space”, contains elements from real space, the physical space occupied by the signer, and a mental space, occupied by the referents. When these two spaces are blended, the displaced referents can be seen as occupying the same physical space as the signer and can thus be indexed through points or agreement verbs as referential-loci.

Liddell further distinguishes between types of blended space: surrogate space and token space. The result of blending the mental space with all of real space is surrogate space, resulting in the surrogates being full sized and having body features. This can be seen in, for example, a shift in eye-gaze when the signer directs a verb toward the surrogate. A surrogate can also occupy the same space as the signer, which, Liddell argues, is how role-shift functions. Thus, the signer can use their own body to function as a surrogate. For example, a point to themselves is a point to the surrogate (i.e. the referent). In token space, however, the mental space blends only with signing space. The mental space is mapped into the more restricted area of the signing space and

89 thus do not occupy any location outside of signing space. While tokens have height, they do not have body features nor are they full size. Tokens also cannot be used in roleshift.

3.4.3.1 RCM’s use of space

As has been observed in other homesign systems, RCM frequently uses indexes rather than proper nouns. For example, he does not have individual signs for nearby villages, simply referring to them with a point, modified for distance. And while many people in the village have individual name signs, he also refers to people by pointing to their house. Beyond pointing out referents in real-space, RCM also modulated act signs toward the real world location of the patient or recipient. In natural conversation, RCM was observed modulating SHOOT, SCORE-GOAL, PUNCH, RECORD and GIVE.

RCM was observed using all three types of space with spatial modu- lation: real space, surrogate space and token space. This is a complex use of spatial modulation that does not typically occur in homesign systems. In their work with child homesigners, Goldin-Meadow and Mylander (1990) found that only David used spatial modulation, which he only inflected toward physically present referents. Similarly, the adult homesigners in Coppola’s (2002) studies only used spatial modulation when they had a picture to refer to.

In the following example, RCM uses spatial modulation combined with real space. RCM marked the patient of the act, SCORE-GOAL, by directing the sign toward the real location of the referent. In this case, Puerto Huam´an.

90 Figure 3.5 first shows the uninflected form of the act in the utterance “No goals are scored”. The subsequent figure, figure 3.6 shows SCORE-GOAL produced with spatial modulation. The village of Puerto Huam´anis located behind RCM as he produces “Score goals against Puerto Huam´an”referring to a soccer game against the other village.

Instead of using a lexicalized sign or a point to refer to the village and relying on sign order to convey the argument structure, RCM modifies the act sign, clearly marking the patient of his act. In this case, with a sign modified to refer to something in real space, a mental space blend is not necessary. RCM is relying on indexicality to refer to Puerto Huaman as he is pointing out the real location of the village. Subsequent examples will show his use of surrogate space and token space, which do require mental space blends.

Figure 3.5: SCORE-GOAL uninflected “No goals are scored.”

Unlike the above example, surrogate space requires the blending of two spaces: the mental space occupied by the referent and real space. As described

91 Figure 3.6: SCORE-GOALP uerto Huaman “We score goals against Puerto Huaman.”

above, surrogate space is blended with all of real space. Therefore, when referring to objects in surrogate space, the referent can be full sized. In the next example, as illustrated in figure 3.7, RCM describes shooting a monkey in a tree. First he signs the lexical sign for MONKEY and then modulates the sign for SHOOT upwards, toward the imagined location of the monkey. This utterance can only be interpreted through surrogate space. Were he using real space, he would be communicating that there was a monkey in the ceiling of the house. That is clearly not the case, however.

Most notable is RCM’s use of token space with spatial modulation. While the use of token space has been observed in homesigners (referred to as “arbitrary spatial locations” by Coppola & So, 2005), its combination with spatial modulation has not. In the following example, RCM uses token space to refer to two displaced referents and then modulates the sign for PUNCH toward one of those referents. The full utterances describes a girl hitting a

92 Figure 3.7: MONKEY SHOOTmonkey FALL “[I] shoot the monkey and it falls.”

boy. Figure 3.8b shows the portion of the utterance in which RCM gives the location of the boy and then modulates the sign for PUNCH toward that location. Notice that, as with the example from the ASPAC task described in section 3.4.1 where RCM preserves an unrotated spatial layout by crossing his body to produce the TAP sign, the sign has lost much of its mimetic quality. Once again we see the linguistic feature of modulation taking precedence over the iconicity of the sign. Because the two referents are limited to the signing space and do not appear to be full-sized (as two children could not realistically occupy the space indicated by RCM and the r-loci are restricted to the signing space), this example follows Liddell’s definition of token space.

93 (a) MALE

(b) IXright (c) PUNCHright

right right Figure 3.8: FEMALE CHILD MALEi IX i PUNCH i “The girl punched the boy.”

3.4.3.2 The Hearing Signers’ Use of Space

In this section, I describe the use of space by ACC and LTN in typical conversation with RCM. Both signers used space to some extent, although less productively than RCM. That is, the set of signs that were spatially modulated was smaller than RCM’s and their proportion of spatially modulated signs was also smaller than RCM’s. While both were observed using surrogate space,

94 only LTN used token space.

ACC was observed using real space and surrogate space with spatially modulated acts. He produced SHOOT and TIE with spatial modulation. In Figure 3.9, ACC signs a similar construction as that of RCM in Figure 3.7. The sign SHOOT is directed at a surrogate for a bird, which ACC had iden- tified with a lexical sign earlier in the utterance. ACC first pointed forward, indicating the location of the bird and then spatially modulated the act sign toward the location that was indexed.

Figure 3.9: SHOOTbird

The example below in Figure 3.10 shows LTN using spatial modulation on the sign LOOK. The sign moves from in front of the eyes toward the theme of the action, in this case an image on a card. Note that, like RCM, LTN does not encode the actor, in this case RCM, through movement. The movement of the sign is only toward the theme (the card) and does not include any movement toward or from the actor. Instead, the actor was indicated with a point, rather than through movement of the act sign. LTN, unlike ACC, was observed using token space with spatial modulation as well as real space and

95 surrogate space. When asked to sign the sentence “the girl hit the boy”, he indicated an r-locus for each referent, then spatially modulated the act toward the location assigned to the boy. I then asked him to sign the opposite, “the boy hit the girl”. Once again, he assigned two different locations for each referent and then modulated PUNCH toward the patient, this time the location for girl.

Figure 3.10: LOOKcard “Look at the card.”

3.5 Conclusions

This chapter addressed the ways in which RCM and his hearing inter- locutors mark argument structure. In analysis of RCM’s productions, I found that his word order showed little consistency. The orders that were consis- tent across all signers involved an inanimate theme. However, when it came to two animate arguments he did not produce a consistent order that would distinguish actors and patients.

A primary research question to be addressed through the analysis of

96 sign order was whether or not RCM changed his signing depending on who he was signing with. When it came to the ASPAC task, I did not find any evidence of this. Given the results from hearing signers and their high across-signer consistency, this is not surprising. That is, there aren’t differences to which RCM could converge. This question will be explored further in subsequent chapters covering the lexicon.

Although RCM showed little consistency with respect to sign order, I found that he produced a consistent unrotated spatial layout with spatially modulated signs. Furthermore, there was a distinction between acts with two animate arguments and those with one animate argument. Even when the action was the same (e.g. TAP), his productions with a patient differed from those with a theme. This shows that, though his word orders were inconsistent, RCM does distinguish between patients and themes, and that he encodes a relationship between the actor and the patient. This is accomplished through spatial modulation and role shift rather than word order.

The results presented here also show the importance of including both elicited and natural data. While the results from the ASPAC task control for context and provide comparable data for all participants, it is not a natural setting for language production. This is especially true of homesign systems, as homesigners rely on context and shared experience to communicate. By not allowing the producer to use context and shared experience to express themselves, the task may strip the system back to its most basic structures. However, it also limits the signer and may not give a full demonstration of how

97 the system is actually used in practice. By comparing elicited data and natural data, we can see which linguistic features remain when context is removed as well as how they function in practice. Spatial layouts and spatial modulation are the primary examples here of how natural data can be used in conjunction with elicited data.

In this case, the elicitation data showed consistency among signers in their production of an unrotated spatial layout. However, conversational data was needed to analyze how spatial modulation accomplished the marking of arguments. We saw that RCM uses complex spatial modulation to mark ar- gument structure, including r-loci in token space and the modulation of acts toward those referents. The ASPAC data gave a limited perspective on the homesign system, revealing inconsistent word order. However, RCM demon- strated that his sign system makes use of space and spatial modulation to encode argument structure.

Compared to RCM, the hearing signers all relied far more on word or- der. All four produced consistent orders for the majority of pairs. Surprisingly, HMR, the homesigner’s mother, was the least consistent in terms of word or- der. However, none of the hearing signers produced a consistent order for actor and patient. While they did produce more consistent orders in the other pairs than RCM, the lack of ordering for the two animate arguments matched RCM’s productions. In terms of spatial modulation and their layouts, all four signers produced an unrotated spatial layout. The analysis of spatial modula- tion also revealed that ACC and LTN more closely matched RCM in terms of

98 the types of acts that were spatially modulated compared to HMR and WMR.

Further analysis of their natural conversation revealed that both LTN and ACC use spatial modulation in typical conversation as well. Like RCM, LTN also used token space along with modulated act signs. This is another example of LTN displaying a strong grasp of the homesign system. These results show that someone outside the family, who is older than the homesigner, can successfully acquire the system.

A main question in homesign research is: who is learning from whom? That is, does the homesigner learn structure from the productions of hear- ing people or do the hearing people pick up the homesign system from the homesigner himself? Is the homesigner innovating structures that the hearing people then do or do not adhere to? These questions have been addressed in other research on homesign systems. Goldin-Meadow and Mylander (1990) found that in general, the gestures produced by the mothers of homesigning children do not match their children’s productions. Furthermore, the chil- dren’s gesture was more complex, suggesting that homesigning children were not learning from their mothers. Carrigan and Coppola (2017) found similar results with adult homesigners. In general, the mothers of homesigners did not adhere to the system produced by their children and differed in word order. However, younger siblings of the homesigners acquired the system better than the mothers.

Given the results presented in this chapter, I argue that the basic struc- ture of the homesign system is generated by RCM and acquired by the hearing

99 signers, rather than RCM picking up his structures from the hearing signers. Although the hearing signers are highly consistent with one another, they are only consistent with RCM in certain respects. They match his consistent word orders, but do not fully match his use of space. The hearing signers rely more on word order than spatial modulation whereas RCM relies more on spatial modulation than word order. Spatial modulation and agreement is a more complex linguistic mechanism than word order, as demonstrated by the acquisition of children and late learners. Deaf children acquiring sign lan- guage natively learn word order rules before acquiring agreement morphology (see Meier, 1982). Similarly, late sign language learners perform like native learners on word order tasks, but perform significantly worse on spatial agree- ment tasks, suggesting that late learners cannot fully learn complex spatial agreement (see Newport, 1990)

Were RCM learning exclusively from his interlocutors, we would expect that he would produce more reliable word orders. Given the lack of complete overlap between hearing signers and RCM, it could be the case that hearing signers, while consistent with each other, are not actually learning from RCM. However, when RCM is consistent, the hearing signers match his productions (such as in spatial layout and the orders involving themes). While they may not have acquired the entire system as RCM produces it, they appear to have acquired the structures that RCM is most consistent with, suggesting that they are sensitive to RCM’s structured productions. Interestingly, if we take RCM to be the ‘native’ signer of his own system and the hearing signers

100 to be ‘late non-native’ learners, the community mirrors the native and late learners mentioned above. RCM, the ‘native’ signer, uses more complex spatial morphology, while the hearing ‘non-native’ signers rely more on word order, the simpler mechanism for marking argument structure. This then, suggests that RCM innovated more complex spatial modulation that the hearing signers were unable to fully acquire, as it is the more complex mechanism.

The data discussed in this chapter show that RCM has several commu- nication partners who are consistent in their productions, not only internally but also across signers. This is a community of signers who have all acquired – albeit to varying degrees – the homesign system. That variation speaks to the social conditions under which the system arose. As discussed in chapter 2, the social expectations for men and women result in gender segregated tasks. When it comes to RCM’s homesign system, these differences seem to have influenced who best acquired the system. Of the four hearing signers analyzed in this chapter, the males, including an older friend, were more consistent than the homesigner’s mother. These results demonstrate the effects of indi- vidual relationships and of cultural practices on the maintenance of homesign systems.

101 Chapter 4

Across Signer and Within-Community Lexical Consistency

4.1 Introduction

This chapter focusses on the individual and within-community consis- tency of the homesign systems of RCM and ST. There are two main sections: section 4.2 discusses the individual lexicons of RCM and ST, section 4.3 dis- cusses the consistency within the hearing community of signers in both Nueva Vida and Totoya. The primary analysis of forms will be taken from elicitation data. Consistency of labeling (using the same label across multiple contexts) and the consistency of form were analyzed. For RCM, data at different time points will be considered. This is not possible with ST, however, because data was collected at only one point in time. For both signers, interactional data will be used to support and further build on conclusions from the elicitation data.

4.1.1 Methodology and Rationale

Previous studies on the lexicons of homesign and emerging sign systems deal primarily with elicitation data (see Sandler et al., 2011; Richie, Coppola, & Yang, 2014 and Richie, Fanghella, & Coppola, 2012 for examples). However,

102 as with my analysis of argument structure, I collected data using multiple methodologies, including elicitation and natural conversation. As has been observed in other studies, even when using basic pictures to elicit lexical items, homesigners tend to respond with lengthy descriptions, presenting a challenge when it comes to identifying a single or multi-sign label or even to determining if the signer has a label at all. Distinguishing between a label and a description is also difficult. Due to this particular challenge in studying homesign systems, I use multiple strategies for data collection in order to identify RCM’s and ST’s lexemes.

Interactions between the homesigners and other signers can tell us a great deal about standards of well-formedness and what should be considered as the lexical form of a sign. For example, a single sign made by the home- signer in response to a long multi-sign description from a hearing signer tells us that he considers that sign to be a concise label for the concept. In contrast, corrections of form identify disallowed variants of signs. Using these various methodologies gives a fuller pictures of the lexicon and enables the identifica- tion of crucial concepts such as standards of well-formedness and duality of patterning.

Elicited and naturalistic data have pros and cons. However, when taken together, these two methodologies complement one another. Elicitation using picture stimuli has the advantage of allowing us to know exactly what the participant is describing. There is no question as to the general reference of the response. There is also the advantage of being able to use the same

103 stimuli across different participants, thus facilitating coding, providing easily comparable data. The same stimuli can also be used with the same participants at different time points, in order to explore changes in the lexicon over time. The resulting data can then be compared for changes in the lexicon or within signer variation. However, as mentioned above, in the case of homesigners, identifying a label is not always straightforward. A homesigner may give a long description that includes a single label or not have a label at all. Even a single response may have been made up on the spot to describe the particular stimulus. Determining how generalized the label is creates another question. Is there a specific label for RAT or are all rodents described with the same sign, for example?

Finally, with simple elicitation, especially if only conducted once, it is not clear what the form restrictions are on signs. Particularly in homesign systems, where variation is expected, elicitation does not provide examples of disallowed forms. If a homesigner responds to a stimulus item with a single sign with a particular form, there is no evidence that there is or isn’t a variant form. Alternatively, if the same sign is used multiple times for different stim- uli, perhaps it is a hypernym or the same sign may have multiple meanings associated with it.

For the reasons above, I modified the standard elicitation technique and aimed to conduct elicitation in pairs. One signer viewed the stimulus images on a laptop and signed their response; the other signer was seated out of view of the laptop screen. Using two cameras, I filmed both participants in

104 order to capture any responses from the partner. I also did not discourage the participants from interacting with each other and holding a brief conversation prompted by the stimulus item. This provided me with both elicited responses as well as more naturalistic production. In addition, when the homesigner was the receiving partner, this setup prompted corrections which give informa- tion about standards of well-formedness and the emergent phonology of the homesign system.

Using natural conversation as a source for data collection also has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantages of this type of data collection are that we can observe lexical items used in different contexts. The pro- ductivity of the sign can thus be determined, as elicitation may result in ad hoc descriptions that are not standard signs in the lexicon of the homesigner. Without conversational data to compare with the elicitation data, productivity is difficult to determine. Additionally, interactions between signers may result in clarification requests or corrections on form, which inform us of disallowed variations and forms. Drawbacks of this methodology, however, are that the stimulus cannot be controlled. It is therefore more difficult to determine what is being discussed. Translations from hearing signers and familiarity with the homesign system must be relied upon to provide glosses for the signs, making it difficult, if not impossible, to ensure complete reliability.

For these reasons, both types of data collection were used. Each type of data collection supports and informs the results from the other. In the follow- ing sections, which describe the methodology in more detail, I provide further

105 explanation for how these techniques were used to construct a description of the lexicon.

4.1.2 Stimuli

Stimuli were presented to participants on a laptop computer. Three different images were used for each stimulus item in order to encourage par- ticipants to provide a lexical sign that described the group of images rather than a descriptive terms for the particular image. The stimuli was made up of animals, objects and foods common to the area (for example, armadillo, canoe and aguaje).

Due to logistical issues that resulted in being unable to return for field- work in Totoya, the Nueva Vida – but not the Totoya – participants completed an updated task that contained more lexical items. Therefore, the compar- isons all involve the same number of lexical items. The lexicons of RCM and ST were compared with a set of 40 signs. The Totoya participants were com- pared with a set of 42 signs. And the Nueva Vida participants were compared with a set of 48 signs. The full set of lexical elicitation items can be found in Appendix B.

4.1.2.1 The assignment of lexical meaning to gestures

As the system of communication was completely unknown to me when I first began working with RCM and it had not yet been documented, assign- ment of lexical meanings to specific gestures was completed over several steps.

106 The lexical interpretation of individual signs was based on the form of the gesture, the stimulus event and comments from hearing consultants familiar with the homesign system. Many of the gesture forms involved iconicity and this iconicity was used in interpreting and glossing the gestures. The stimulus event, specifically during the elicitation task, was also used to assign lexical meaning to gestures. Hearing interlocutors experienced with the sign system were asked for translations of specific gestures or gestural utterances produced by RCM when iconicity or context could not be used to determine meaning. Depending on the task, hearing consultants were asked for translations at the time of the utterance or while reviewing recordings at a later time. Gestures that were used across multiple contexts with the same meaning were coded using the same gloss. Per convention, glosses are given in English and written with capital letters.

4.1.2.2 Lexical coding

Responses to the lexical elicitation task were coded for the first sign or set of signs that identified the stimulus item. Additional descriptive signs or information were disregarded for the purposes of this study. This method, however, can create an issue when it comes to determining which sign in a sequence represents the stimulus item. In elicitation with the hearing partic- ipants, it was possible to simply direct them in Spanish to give a single sign or set of signs that ‘named’ what was in the picture and to ask for clarifica- tion. However, for the homesigners, this was not possible. For this reason,

107 the homesigner’s responses were also cross checked with the conversation data and with any corrections given by the homesigner during paired elicitation in order to determine the individual sign or set of signs that labeled the stimulus item.

After segmentation, the first pass of coding labeled Conceptual Com- ponents (CC) (Richie et al., 2012). The notion of a CC refers to the feature of the referent that is being represented iconically by the sign. If multiple signs were used to refer to a single item (i.e. a compound sign) then each individual sign was coded for its CC. For example, RCM’s response to a picture of a dog included two gestures. The first iconically represents paws and the second ears. The two signs were therefore coded as PAW and EAR for the CCs that referred to ‘dog’.

Once identified, signs were coded along three form parameters: hand- shape, location and movement. These three parameters were based on Stokoe notation (Stokoe, 1960), using his inventory of handshapes, locations and movements. Handshapes were additionally coded for any modifications such as “bent”, “clawed” or “extended thumb”, if relevant. Location was coded for 18 different locations. Movement was coded using basic description of the movement of each hand. If the entire hand moved through the signing space, the direction of the path was described (e.g. ‘rightward movement’ or ‘up and down movement’). Movement internal to the sign, that is movement of the fingers or wrist, was also included (e.g. ‘pronating rotation’ or ‘wiggling fingers’). In addition to the three parameters, signs were coded for what I

108 term “laxness”. This was the degree to which the produced handshape dif- fered from the prototypical citation form of that coded handshape (as defined by conventional sign languages). Signs were coded on a three-tier scale with one being the most lax and three meaning that the produced handshape was on target for the citation form. Details of these parameters are included in Appendix C.

4.1.2.3 Measuring consistency

Consistency within the lexicon was measured based on both Conceptual Components as in Richie et al. (2012) and on form. This type of measurement accounts for compound signs and for the use of multiple sign forms for a ref- erent. Variation of labels can be taken into account on an individual and community level. In addition, measures for partial concordance can be com- puted. For example, if one signer uses only part of a compound sign (such as PAW for ‘dog’ from the example above) and not the entire compound (PAW EAR), then the two signers are in partial concordance with each other. The analysis of CCs measures consistency of the iconic motivation and therefore does not take form differentiation into account.

In addition to the measurement of CCs, measurements of form were included. For each pair of signers, responses that matched on CCs were com- pared for form. That is, signs were only compared if they were already de- termined to share the same CC for that item. Therefore, a pair of signers could theoretically have lower overall consistency in the lexicon but high form

109 consistency for those signs that they did share. Signers’ results on both types of measurements will thus be considered together to determine the overall consistency of each signer.

Consistency of form was measured using a Simple Matching Coefficient for each pair of signers on each sign. If two signers matched on each param- eter for each hand, than the result was 1 for that pair of signers. If none of the parameters matched for that pair, the result was a 0. One-handed and two-handed signs were measured separately. For one-handed signs, the three parameters were compared for the single hand. If the sign was two-handed, then each parameter for each hand was compared. For a one-handed sign, if the signers matched on two of the three parameters, this was measured as .66 for that sign. For a two-handed sign, if the signers matched on only one parameter for one hand, then that pair was measured as .166 for that sign. The average could then be taken for each pair of signers to find their overall measurement for consistency of form.

If a sign was one-handed, then each parameter was compared for the dominant hand, regardless of whether or not the signer was signing with the left or right hand (this varied dependent on the signer, see section 4.2.6 for a brief discussion on handedness). If both hands were used, then the form of the dominant hands were compared to each other and the non-dominant hands were compared to each other. In a few cases where both signers used the same CC, one signer produced a sign with one hand while the other signer produced it with two hands. In these cases, the one-handed sign was compared to the

110 dominant hand of the two-handed sign and the second, non-dominant hand, was disregarded in that comparison.

4.2 RCM and ST

This section covers the comparison between the two homesigners, RCM and ST. Here, I simply provide a direct measurement of the overlap in CCs and the consistency of form. I do not yet speculate as to whether or not these results suggest a shared system. Later, in chapter 5, I discuss possible sources of the consistency between their two lexicons and discuss the possibility that the homesigners share a single system, at least at a lexical level.

4.2.1 Results

ST and RCM show high consistency when comparing both CCs and sign form. For the comparison of CCs, a total of 40 elicitation items were compared. ST and RCM shared 32 signs (80%) when analyzing just their CCs. Of these 32 signs, the forms of each sign were then compared using a Simple Matching Coefficient (SMC).

Table 4.1 shows the percentage of overlap of CCs and the SMC mea- surement for one-handed and two-handed signs. As can be seen, not only do RCM and ST overlap in a high percentage of elicited signs, they are also highly consistent in their sign forms.

Table 4.2 shows a breakdown of these measurements for each hand (dominant hand and non-dominant hand) and each of the three parameters.

111 CCs One-handed Two-handed 32 .81 .77

Table 4.1: Number of signs that shared a CC out of the 40 elicited items. SMC measurement for one-handed (23) and two-handed (9) signs.

Most consistent were the forms for the dominant hand (this includes both one-handed and two-handed signs) as compared with the non-dominant hand (measurements only for two-handed signs). Thus, the reason for the lower consistency in two-handed signs is due to differences in the non-dominant hand, specifically in the production of handshape. In two-handed signs, when the non-dominant hand acted as the base hand, the handshape contributed little to the iconicity. For signs that were not symmetrical (the dominant hand and non-dominant did not share the same handshape and movement or mirrored movement), the base hand’s handshape was typically lax and more variable. The complete consistency of the non-dominant hand location was partially due to lack of variability in that parameter. If the sign was symmetrical, the non- dominant hand matched the dominant hand. If it was not symmetrical and the non-dominant hand acted as a base-hand, then it was always in neutral space. Therefore, there was little option for variability in that parameter.

Of the 40 stimulus items elicited from RCM and ST, there were 8 for which there were no shared CCs. These were eel, egg, harness, piranha, squir- rel monkey, masato, mototaxi and pig. For both signers, each of these eight

112 D-hs D-loc D-mov ND-hs ND-loc ND-mov .85 .91 .64 .5 1 .72

Table 4.2: SMC measurement for each hand and each parameter.

signs are iconic, but the motivation for these iconic forms differs. For eel, ST produces a sign depicting the eel’s head bobbing in the water, while RCM’s sign for eel references electric eels, produced with a sharp movement of the arms. For pig, ST produces a sign representing the hoofed foot of the animal1, while RCM sign referenced the ears. ST’s sign for egg was produced with a flicking motion of the thumb and middle finger. RCM’s sign for egg was pro- duced with an open-O handshape, showing the shape of the egg. ST’s sign for harness depicted the act of climbing, while RCM’s sign traced the shape of the harness on the body. RCM’s signs for piranha and squirrel monkey both depict behavioral characteristics. He produced BITE-HOOK, showing how the piranha bites a fishing hook for piranha, while ST’s sign for piranha indicates the size of the fish. For squirrel monkey, RCM produced a CLIMB gesture, while ST’s sign for squirrel monkey depicts the brown marking around the animal’s mouth. RCM produced a sign like SQUEEZE for masato, refer- encing the straining process, while ST simply produced DRINK. Their signs

1It is important to note that this sign is in RCM’s lexicon. He produced it in reference to peccary. AMM, a hearing signer in Nueva Vida, also uses this sign for pig, which RCM recognizes. However, he did not produce it when completing the task himself.

113 for mototaxi each depict different actions associated with the vehicle. ST signs STEER. RCM signs STEP-ON-GAS.

These cases where there is no overlap illustrate the variety of iconic motivations that can be exploited. Both signers produce iconic forms for these 8 items, but the motivations differ. These 8 signs, then, further underscore the consistency in the rest of the lexicon. There are other available iconic representations, yet ST and RCM share signs for 80% of the elicited items. The shared influences that may be shaping their lexicons and encouraging certain forms more than others will be explored in chapter 5.

These results show both high overlap in terms of CCs and in the pro- duction of sign form. Overlap of 80% is significantly higher than what would be expected for a conventional sign language if they were unrelated (23% es- timated by Currie, Meier, & Walters, 2002 and up to 35-40% estimated by Woll, 1983). Taking into account the age of a homesign system and the shared cultural context of RCM and ST, however, it is not surprising that the two lexicons would overlap more than a conventional sign language. The possible sources for this overlap will be discussed in further detail in chapter 5. Sec- tion 4.2.2 provides a more in depth discussion of the sign forms and the sign parameters measured here. Subsequent sections discuss these features more in depth in terms of RCM’s productions.

114 4.2.2 Discussion of Sign Form

Despite the majority of the signs in the elicited sample being clearly iconic, we can still examine the forms of these signs along the parameters of handshape, location and movement. Both RCM and ST displayed consistency in their productions of these parameters. In fact, RCM, at times, even explic- itly corrected small variations in productions from hearing signers, showing that he does have standards of well-formedness involving these parameters. By examining these examples of corrections, we can better understand which features are mandatory. As there are no true examples of minimal pairs (sec- tion 4.2.3 on iconic mappings touches on potential minimal pairs), we must look to other types of evidence to understand the extent to which there may be sub-lexical features in the homesign system.

In chapter 2, I discussed an example of RCM correcting a signer from an L-handshape to a Y-handshape. Figure 4.1 below shows another example of correction from RCM. When signing COLLARED-PECCARY, WMR and HMR, on different occasions, produced the sign beginning at the neck with movement downwards, toward the center of the chest. RCM clearly understood the meaning of both WMR’s and HRM’s sign. However, he still chose to correct the form based on the movement parameter. RCM repeated the erroneous form followed by a headshake and then signed the corrected form which began at the center of the chest and moved upwards, toward the shoulders. Both of these forms trace the same area and therefore maintain the same iconicity (the white marking on the chest and around the neck of the animal). However, RCM

115 rejects one on the basis of the movement parameter, showing that iconicity is not sufficient for the sign to be judged as correct. Corrections of this sort were observed from RCM with regards to the handshape and movement parameters.

(a) WMR produces the (b) RCM corrects the sign with a movement production with a move- downwards. ment upwards.

(c) HMR produces the (d) RCM corrects the sign with a movement production with a move- downwards. ment upwards.

Figure 4.1: RCM corrects WMR’s and HRM’s productions of COLLARED- PECCARY on two different occasions.

116 Although the iconicity of the sign was not lost in either case with these variations in handshape and movement, RCM was exact in his correction and his rejection of the produced variations. Such corrections show that these pa- rameters are distinctive and, although there may be some internal variation to RCM’s signing, certain forms are unacceptable. Based on these corrections from RCM and the consistency of forms, I constructed an inventory of hand- shapes, location and movement features that appear to be significant in the sign system. See Appendix C for the full list of features with examples.

Table 4.3 shows the inventory of handshapes, locations and movement types which were produced in response to the elicitation list. Although they may not be exhaustive, given that the elicited list does not represent the entire lexicon, it exemplifies the diversity of parameter features in the homesign system.

Corrections in form suggest sub-lexical sign structure. Were maintain- ing the iconicity of the sign the only concern, then small differences in a single parameter, such as that shown in Figure 4.1, should not present an issue. RCM does make corrections on the basis of these features, however, and actively re- jects certain forms based on feature variation, showing that he is able to parse signs into distinct, meaningless parts, even when the sign as a whole is highly iconic. The division of meaningful units into meaningless parts is a precursor to phonological structure. In COLLARED-PECCARY, the direction of move- ment does not hold any meaning itself, it is the path traced by that movement that provides the iconicity (the location of marking on the animal). The re-

117 quirement of this movement suggests at least the beginnings of a system that possesses duality of patterning.

Handshape Location Movement 1 Ear Outwards A Arm Repeated tap 5 Calf Up and down Bent-5 Cheek Downwards Claw-5 Chest Back and forth B Eye Upwards Bent-B Forehead Pronating rotation C Hand Circular E Head Forwards Open-9 Mouth No movement H Neck Half-circle L Neutral space Twist Pinch-G Nose Rightwards O Shoulder Repeated internal Open-O Stomach Toward contact Flat-O Torso Forwards and backwards V X

Table 4.3: Inventory of handshapes, locations and movements as produced by RCM and ST in the lexical elicitation task. Values in red cells were not produced by ST. There were no features that were produced by ST but not RCM.

118 Handshape

For both homesigners, handshapes strongly tended to represent an ob- ject itself as opposed to how one would handle that object. That is, the shape of the hand iconically represented the shape of the object. Even when describing an action or an action associated with the object, the handshape corresponded to the shape of the object. For example, PADDLE (as a re- sponse to the canoe stimulus) was produced with a B handshape rather than a handshape that represented the action of handling the paddle itself. The sign SHOOT (as a response to the gun stimulus) was produced with a 1 handshape, representing the shape of a shotgun, as opposed to how you might hold a gun. See example 4.2 for stills of these signs. This was true across several different kinds of objects, including HAMMER, MACHETE and CHAINSAW.

(a) RCM signs PADDLE. (b) RCM signs SHOOT

Figure 4.2: Handshapes represent the objects, not the actions associated with the objects.

Another common tendency in the handshape parameter was in the

119 iconic indication of shape or pattern. As will be discussed further in sec- tion 4.2.3, a set of signs for animals were produced by showing their distinct markings. In these cases, the handshape of the sign did not contribute to the meaning of the sign, but rather traced the location of the pattern of the markings. These signs were produced with either an open hand (B hanshape) or a 1 handshape to indicated the location of the markings on the body.

Location

The most common location for both signers was simply neutral space. Most signs did not contact other parts of the body. When a sign did contact the body, it was most often either with an indexical function (STINGRAY signed with a stabbing motion toward the calf or POLICE signed at the shoulder to indicate the stripes on the sleeves of their uniforms). In these cases, the location of the sign on the body corresponded to the iconic basis of the sign. The body itself was used to represent a human or animal body and the location of the sign was indexical of that body part which contributed to the iconic motivation of the sign. This strategy was also used to indicate relevant body parts of both animals and humans: for example, the nose as the beak (e.g. PAUFIL or HEN) or the face as the snout (e.g. WHITE-LIPPED-PECCARY).

The other main type of body contact for location, though less common than body-as-body, was when parts of the signer’s body were used to represent other objects. For example, the forearm of the non-dominant hand in COIL2

2Glossed as such to highlight the CC and to distinguish from SNAKE, a non-manual sign.

120 represented a tree branch (response to boa) and in BANANA, the hand and forearm of the non-dominant hand represented the banana while the dominant hand moved in a peeling motion. As discussed above with respect to hand- shapes, the handshapes for these signs also represent the object, rather than being in a handling hanshape.

Movement

The most common movement feature were ‘no movement’, ‘outwards’ (away from center), ‘up and down’ and ‘back and forth’. There were three different types of movement that made up this parameter of the lexicon. I refer to these as ‘tracing’, ‘enactment’ and ‘no movement’. A tracing movement traced an outline or shape, either in neutral space (e.g. a round shape in the sign for BALL) or on the signer’s body (e.g. spots on the torso in the sign for JAGUAR). An enacting movement iconically represented an action that is made with the body that corresponds to the meaning of the sign (e.g. the movements of DRINK or PADDLE). Finally, many signs had no movement associated with their form. The majority of these signs were made in neutral space. Therefore, the handshape of these signs contributed the most meaning to the formation of the sign. For example, the V handshape for animals with hoofed feet, which was signed in neutral space with no movement.

4.2.3 Iconic Mappings

RCM and ST’s sign systems make use of iconic mappings. These are signs with related meanings that exhibit stable phonological mappings

121 (Occhino, Anible, Wilkinson, & Morford, 2017). That is, signs with related meanings make use of similar iconic motivations and therefore share similarities in form. In particular, RCM and ST show two prominent semantic mappings for animals: 1) Foot shape and 2) Distinctive markings. In the ‘foot shape’ category are tapir, animals with hooves (e.g. pigs, deer, peccary) and animals with paws (e.g. dogs, cats). For these animals, the form of the sign represents the shape of the animal’s foot.

Figure 4.3: RCM signs DOG, a compound sign made up of PAW and EAR. The second part of the compound distinguishes the meaning from other animals with paws, such as CAT.

The second prominent iconic mapping is the ‘distinctive markings’ cat- egory. The form of the sign for these animals corresponds to markings on the body or face, using the signer’s body to represent that of the animal, as discussed above. In this category are baby tapir, jaguar, collared-peccary, white-lipped peccary, armadillo, squirrel monkey and white-faced capuchin. The combination of handshape, movement and location served to depict the

122 (a) ST signs DOG. The clawed (b) ST signs the PIG. The V handshape represents the paw of handshape represents the hoof of the dog. the pig.

Figure 4.4: The same iconic mapping representing the foot of the animal is used.

markings. The location on the signer’s body indicates, by analogy, where the markings are on the animal’s body. The handshape and movement depict the configuration and shape of the markings. For example, BABY-TAPIR and JAGUAR both have similar locations, but the differences in handshape and movement distinguish them. See Figure 4.5 for the differences between these forms.

In some cases, the lexicon favors forms that fit into these iconic map- pings over what might be a more transparent form. A tapir has very distinctive features that separate it from other animals: for example, its long nose or the coarse hair on its neck and back. The sign for TAPIR, however, does not pick out either of these features, instead fitting within the group of animals defined by foot-shape. This suggests some pressure to conform to categories of signs rather than simply producing the most iconic representation available. As we

123 (a) RCM signs BABY-TAPIR. (b) RCM signs JAGUAR. The The 5 handshape and the move- lax 1 handshape and the circular ment represent the striped pat- movement represent the spotted tern on the animal. pattern of the animal.

Figure 4.5: These two signs make use of the same iconic mapping, both de- picting patterns on the animals being labeled.

will see in chapter 5, other homesigners from Iquitos do not pick out these same features, suggesting that there are additional motivations for these sign forms apart from general perceptual experience. The existing structures within the system may be influencing sign forms (such as the CC for TAPIR as opposed to a more transparent form). While the Iquitos homesigners’ signs are also motivated by iconic representations, they produce signs that highlight other features, such as the long nose of the tapir or the snout of the pig. Although there are strong iconic bases for their signs, the M´a´ıj`un`aproduced signs that were unique to the community. The signs are motivated both by iconicity and by the semantic domains that have been established for certain types of animals.

Full sign languages also make use of these types of iconic mappings.

124 For example, the ASL signs for DANCE, JUMP, FALL and STAND all use two extended fingers to represent legs (Anible, 2016). These mappings show a degree of internal structure in the lexicons that is rooted, not just in trans- parency and iconicity, but in culturally specific mappings that emerged in the particular signing community.

4.2.4 Semantic Extensions and Lexicalization

In chapter 3, I discussed examples in which iconicity is sacrificed for structural reasons. For example, to maintain a consistent spatial layout, RCM produces signs that are not fully iconic of the action he is representing. This sacrifice of iconicity can also be seen in the lexicon. There are several signs for which the iconic basis is clear. However, the meanings of the signs have been extended in such a way as to render them no longer iconic of the full range of meanings denoted by the sign. This demonstrates that the meaning of the sign has been disconnected from the iconic motivation and extended to an abstract meaning. Such examples show that, although iconicity is strongly exploited in the creation of lexemes, it does not necessarily limit meaning.

The sign DEAD is signed by extending the arms away from the body stiffly (see Figure 4.6). This form evokes the image of an animal with rigor mortis, specifically an animal with four legs. However, despite this iconic mapping between the arms of the signer and the stiff legs of the dead animal, this sign can be used to describe any dead thing, including people – who typically do not die with arms extended away from the body – and animals

125 without legs at all, such as snakes and fish. The particular example in Figure 4.6 was taken from an utterance in which RCM describes killing a fish. As can be seen in the figure, the arms extend away from the body. The form that represents deadness here does not map iconically onto the physical features of a fish.

Figure 4.6: RCM signing DEAD referring to a fish (s´abalo). RCM: SABALO CL:fish IX:fish CUT DEAD.

Similarly, the signs for FEMALE and MALE, which both derive from features of the human anatomy, can be used to refer to animals. The sign for FEMALE, in particular, illustrates the bleaching of the relationship between iconic motivation and meaning. The sign used in the community for FEMALE is produced with a claw-5 handshape at the chest (see Figure 4.7a) and the sign for MALE is produced with a 1 handshape tapped in the palm of the non-dominant hand (see Figure 4.8).

Iconically, the form of the sign for FEMALE clearly refers to the breasts of a woman. However, this sign can be used to refer to animals other than humans. As in example 4.7, RCM signs FEMALE when labeling a stimulus

126 of a hen. As hens do not have breasts or even mammary glands, there is no iconic mapping between the sign and the specific referent. We can see, then, that the meaning that may have originally – though we cannot know for sure – been limited to women specifically, has been extended to mean female animals in general.

(a) RCM signs FEMALE in re- (b) RCM points to the stimulus sponse to a stimulus of ‘hen’. directly after signing FEMALE.

Figure 4.7: This example demonstrates the semantic extension of FEMALE which is here being used to describe a hen.

Similarly, the sign for MALE can be used to refer to non-human an- imals, including animals that do not obviously have external genitalia. For example, RCM produced the sign MALE to refer to roosters.

Figure 4.8: RCM signing MALE.

127 RCM displayed some productivity when it came to being able to dis- connect the iconicity of the sign from the referent. For example, the lexical task included both pictures of a puma and pictures of a jaguar in the stimulus (both shown in Figure 4.9 below). As can be seen, a puma does not have spots while a jaguar does. As it turns out, jaguars are much more common in this area than pumas. The community did not have a distinct sign for PUMA to contrast it with JAGUAR. When presented with the stimulus for ‘puma’, RCM and AMM both separately produced the SPOTS sign (as in Figure 4.5b) for jaguar and then added an additional descriptor that it did not have spots. Despite the sign specifically describing the spotted pattern on the animal, signers were able to disconnect the spotted meaning and use this sign to refer to a similar animal that did not have spots.

(a) Puma (b) Jaguar

Figure 4.9: The sign for JAGUAR is produced by iconically representing the spots on the animal’s body.

As discussed in section 4.1.1, determining what is a label and what is a descriptor in homesign systems can be a challenge. How can we know that a sign means ‘jaguar’ and not ‘spotted animal’? Or that a sign means ‘female’ and not ‘person with breasts’? The basic use of the sign (in this

128 case, the meaning of ‘woman’) does not distinguish between a label and a descriptor. Data such as that presented in this section provides evidence for truly lexicalized signs in the homesign system. Although the iconic basis for FEMALE is the breasts on a post-pubescent female woman, the sign itself does not mean ‘breasts’.

Likewise, the sign for JAGUAR does not strictly refer to an animal with spots, despite the form of the sign specifically describing the spots on the animal. Due to the lexicalization of the sign to the specific referent of ‘jaguar’, the utterance ‘a jaguar without spots’ is a possible means of describing a puma when no sign for puma is available. If the sign broadly referred to any animals with spots, and not specifically a jaguar, this utterance would not be possible as ‘a spotted animal without spots’ is semantically nonsensical.

The disconnection between iconicity and meaning represents an impor- tant step in the development of the homesign system. Through this disconnec- tion, the sign’s meaning can expand to include referents that do not conform to the iconicity of the sign form. Through this process, the sign begins to take on the feature of arbitrariness, as the form and the meaning are no longer so closely connected.

4.2.5 Non-manual signs

The literature on the non-manual components of signs focusses on non- manual grammatical markers (see Baker & Padden, 1978; Coulter, 1978; Lid- dell, 1978) and mouthing to disambiguate lexical items (such as Bank, Cras-

129 born, & Hout, 2011 on mouthing in NGT). The homesign system used by the M´a´ıj`un`asigners, however, includes lexical items that are produced without the hands. These differ from pantomime in that they are conventionalized, consistent signs and do not simply act out an action. When produced in an utterance, they are incorporated with the same prosody as the manually pro- duced signs. Some of these non-manual signs involve the feet while others are produced on the face.

The two lexicalized, non-manual signs expressed on the face were AN- GRY and SNAKE. Both of these signs were used frequently in natural con- versation by RCM and the signers in Nueva Vida. The sign for ANGRY was produced by rapidly closing the mouth and puffing out the cheeks. This sign could be produced mid utterance and occurred as a distinct sign. That is, it was not a facial expression that was produced at the same time as a man- ual sign. I did not encounter any other sign for ANGRY, whether manual or non-manual. In fact, the sign itself did not always describe a facial expression at all, as it could be used to describe angry animals as well as people (thus another example of a semantic extension).

Apart from these lexical signs produced on the face, there were also lex- ical items produced with the feet. These signs were MOTOR-CYCLE, which is produced with both a manual component and a non-manual component, and KICK.

Conventionalized sign languages are described as manual languages with additional information produced on the face (such as grammar or descrip-

130 (a) RCM signs ANGRY by clos- (b) RCM signs SNAKE by re- ing his mouth and puffing out his peatedly flicking his tongue out of cheeks. his mouth.

Figure 4.10: Examples of two non-manual lexical signs. There is no manual component for either sign.

tive information). When young sign languages use other parts of the body apart from the hands to convey information, it is seen as an indicator that they are less complex than older, more conventionalized sign languages. The assumption is that as sign languages develop, the signing space will become smaller and restricted to the hands (Frishberg, 1975). Similar non-manual signs have been described in Sivia Sign Language, a village sign language in Peru (Clark, 2017). These examples show that non-manual signs can be lexi- calized and are not limited to pantomime. While it may be the case that these signs would disappear as the sign system became more conventionalized over time, they do represent a possible stage of sign language development in which non-manual signs are a fully integrated part of the lexicon.

131 (a) RCM signs KICK. (b) RCM signs MOTORCYCLE.

Figure 4.11: Example of signs with non-manual components signed with the leg.

4.2.6 A note on handedness

As discussed in the methodology section, dominant and non-dominant hands were compared regardless of handedness. If the sign was produced with one hand, this was easy to determine. For two handed signs, if only one hand did not move, it was considered the base hand and the non-dominant hand in the sign.

In conventional sign languages, one is expected to maintain a consistent dominant hand when signing. While coding for consistency, some differences in hand dominance between the signers became apparent. ST, the older home- signer, was not consistent in his dominant hand. Of the 26 one-handed signs he produced, 18 were produced with a dominant right hand and 8 were pro- duced with a dominant left hand. RCM, however, produced all of his signs – both one-handed and two-handed – with a dominant right hand.

132 This difference may represent a generational shift between an older signer and a younger signer. RCM’s consistent hand dominance in signing is more conventionalized than ST’s lack of a consistent dominant hand.

4.2.7 A note on laxness

In addition to the three main parameters of a sign, I measured what I termed the ‘laxness’ of the sign. This was coded on a three point scale with 1 being lax and 3 being on ‘target’ for the coded handshape. The motivation for this additional parameter was because signers did not always produce a form that was on target for the citation form of the coded handshape. Incorpo- rating this difference in handshape production into the handshape parameter would have created an unwieldy number of handshape features. Furthermore, creating additional handshapes would have suggested that there was a phono- logical difference between a lax 5 handshape, for example, and a tense 5 hand- shape. Leaving out laxness entirely, however, misses differences between the productions of the different signers. The laxness parameter accounted for this variation while still maintaining the coding procedure for handshape.

RCM’s productions were less lax than ST’s. RCM averaged a rating of 2.8 for his dominant hand (67 tokens, standard deviation .41) and ST aver- aged a rating of 2.4 for his dominant hand (26 tokens, standard deviation .66). Overall, ST’s handshapes were less distinct than RCM’s. For example, figure 4.12 shows RCM and ST responding to the same stimulus (banana). Both of these signs were coded with the same CC (PEEL) and the same handshape

133 parameters (both hands coded with an A handshape). However, RCM’s hand- shapes are much clearer, with all fingers closed, while ST’s are very lax, with the fingers open and more relaxed. The parameter of laxness captures this dif- ference in their productions of this sign. As was the case for handedness, this difference may represent an evolution in the sign system from one generation to the next.

(a) RCM signing BA- (b) ST signing BA- NANA. NANA.

Figure 4.12: Comparison between the two signs for BANANA.

4.3 Hearing signers

This section covers the consistency of the hearing signers as compared to RCM and ST. Section 4.3.1 compares the hearing signers in Totoya to ST and section 4.3.2 compares the hearing signers in Nueva Vida to RCM The same methodology is used to compare between signers as was used in section 4.2 to compare between RCM and ST. All signers within the same

134 village are compared to each other in pairs to give an overall measurement of consistency in the signing community of each village. Section 4.3.4 compares the consistency of LTN, LMM and AMM, the signers who represent the shared acquaintances between RCM and ST.

4.3.1 Consistency with ST in Totoya

This section focusses on the consistency within the Totoya community. The participants included in this task were the homesigner ST, the home- signer’s niece GLT, the homesigner’s sister GTM and the the homesigner’s nephew RI. The signers were each compared to ST and to each other, re- sulting in six pairwise comparisons. The signers were compared both on the Conceptual Components and on form.

4.3.1.1 Results

Comparing the consistency of CCs tells us whether or not signers are displaying the same iconic motivation in their representations. High consis- tency of CCs in the community is likely the result of a shared system. As has been shown in several studies on iconicity (see Occhino et al., 2017; Grote & Linz, 2003; Ormel, Knoors, Hermans, & Verhoeven, 2009), different sign lan- guages can each have an iconic sign for the same referent and each exploit dif- ferent iconic motivations for their respective sign. Comparing the consistency of CCs provides an initial measurement of consistency within the community.

As described in section 4.1.1, responses were coded for the first sign or

135 set of signs that identified the stimulus item, including compounds or when multiple signs were produced to identify the item. Because signers differed in terms of how many signs they used to identify an item, the total number of tokens differs between participants and was not always equal to 42, the number of stimulus items in the task. ST averaged 1.14 signs per stimulus (50 total tokens), GLT averaged 1.2 signs per stimulus (50 total tokens), GTM averaged 1.2 signs per stimulus (50 total tokens) and RI averaged 1.26 signs per stimulus (53 total tokens).

Results in the comparison of CCs between all participants shows high consistency for all pairs. There was no statistical difference between any of the pairs. All measured between 71% and 78%. Table 4.4 shows the number of matching CCs for 42 stimulus items for each pair of signers.

ST GLT GTM RI ST GLT 33 GTM 32 33 RI 32 30 33

Table 4.4: This table shows the number of matching CCs for the set of 42 stimulus items. Note that, in some cases, signers produced more than one sign in response to the stimulus item. All participants averaged between 1.14 and 1.26 signs per stimulus item.

In addition to the comparison of CCs, I also compared the consistency in form for each sign that shared a CC between two signers. Therefore, the

136 presented measurements of form are the percentage of the signs that were coded as sharing a CC, not the percentage of the total elicited set. For example, ST and GLT matched on .75 of 33 signs, not on all elicited signs. Table 4.5 shows the average Simple Matching Coefficient measurements of form for the matching CCs for each pair of signers.

ST GLT GTM RI ST GLT .76 GTM .76 .71 RI .76 .62 .64

Table 4.5: Measures of consistency in form for each pair of Totoya signers using a Simple Matching Coefficient.

There were few stimuli for which there was no overlap between signers at all. The majority of the inconsistencies were due to parts of multi-sign utterances that were not shared across signers. ST and GLT did not share any signs for 6 stimuli (these were boa, egg, hammock, paujil, piranha and spider monkey). For the first of these 5, GLT provided signs descriptive of the behavior associated with the stimulus item. Boa and piranha were described with a ‘biting’ sign, hammock with a sequence of signs describing how the hammock is made and egg with the signs for BEAK and LAY-EGG. Due to these more descriptive utterances, it would seem that she did not know the lexical signs for these items, rather than that she had entirely different lexemes. For spider monkey, however, it may be the case that she had a different lexeme.

137 Both GLT and GTM used the same sign in response to spider monkey, which differed from that produced by ST.

ST and GTM did not share any signs for 4 stimuli (eel, fire, piranha and spider monkey). As mentioned above, the sign produced by GTM in response to spider monkey matched that of GLT. Additionally, GTM and RI produced the same sign for eel, which differed from that produced by ST. The sign she produced for fire (FAN) was not shared for that particular stimulus. However, ST did produce the same sign in response to the cooking fire stimulus.

ST and RI did not share any signs for 4 stimuli (cooking fire, eel, mototaxi and piranha). The sign for eel was shared between RI and GTM. It is possible that there is another source for this sign or that it is a variation of ST’s signing of this referent.

It was only in the responses to spider monkey and eel that the hearing signers produced a shared sign that was not also shared by ST. That is, when the hearing signers diverged from what was produced by ST, they produced new forms that were not consistent with each other. This suggests, then, that the hearing signers are adhering to a system produced by ST, rather than that ST has learned from the hearing signers. If lexemes were being innovated by hearing signers, than we would expect to see more consistency between the hearing signers than with ST.

The remaining variability is attributed to stimulus items for which sign- ers produced multiple signs. In some cases, there was convergence on only one

138 form. For example, ST produced TWO-TOES WHITE-COLLAR and TWO- TOES WHITE-SNOUT for collared peccary and white-lipped peccary. How- ever, all three hearing signers produced only WHITE-COLLAR and WHITE- SNOUT for these stimuli. There was convergence, then, on only one part of a two-part compound sign which affected the overall overlap of CCs.

4.3.1.2 Discussion

Including both the measurement of CCs and of form gives a clearer picture of consistency within the community. All four signers were consistent in terms of the overlap of CCs. These results show high overlap (71% to 78%) for all community members. Not only are the signers consistent with ST, they are consistent with each other.

The measurements of form allow us to delve deeper into how consistent the community is in their signing. Consistency of CCs does not necessarily mean that signers will be consistent in their productions of the forms of those signs. The CC PAWS or HORNS can be produced with a variety of different handshapes, movements and even locations. Even if signers were trying to intentionally copy the sign, variation could still arise. Studies show that hand- shape is the most difficult parameter for non-signers and beginning signers to accurately produce. Signs that were highly iconic or similar to convention- alized gestures were more likely to result in handshape errors (Rosen, 2004; Chen Pichler, 2015).

Interestingly, though all signing pairs showed similar levels of consis-

139 tency when measuring CCs, there was moderately more variability between signers when it came to form consistency. Furthermore, all three hearing sign- ers were more consistent with ST than they were with each other. Therefore, in the cases that they differed from ST, they differed in different ways. This suggests a convergence to ST specifically and that hearing signers learn their forms from ST, not the other way around. If ST was learning his forms from the hearing community, than we would expect the opposite pattern. That is, for the hearing signers to be more consistent with each other than with ST.

4.3.2 Consistency with RCM in Nueva Vida

In this section, I focus on the consistency of the Nueva Vida hearing signers with RCM. The participants included in this task were the homesigner RCM, his mother HMR, his father ACC, his uncle WMR, his friends LTN, OMT and JMR, and two additional men in the community who identified themselves as proficient in the homesign system, LMM and AMM. Three of these participants, LTN, LMM and AMM, had also known ST before he moved from Puerto Huam´anto Totoya. Therefore, some of their knowledge of the sign system may come from their experience with ST.

4.3.2.1 Results

Tables 4.6 and 4.7 show results for both CC and form consistency in the Nueva Vida signers.

Of immediate interest is the lower CC consistency scores for both ACC

140 and HMR, the homesigner’s parents. We might expect RCM’s mother and father to be the most consistent, given that they would have had the longest exposure to the homesign system. However, HMR and ACC have the lowest consistency scores for CCs. When comparing the form of those signs matching in CCs, both score lower than other more consistent signers in the community.

Taking both CCs and form consistency into account, WMR, JMR and LTN are the most consistent with RCM and with each other. These results show that it is WMR, JMR and LTN who have acquired the lexicon of the homesign system with the highest proficiency. These results are somewhat surprising given that we might expect the most proficient signers to be RCM’s direct family members. Possibilities for why this may not be the case are discussed in more detail in section 4.3.3.

While some of the hearing signers shared 48 or more signs with RCM, this does not mean that they matched on every stimulus item. Because signers often responded to a stimulus item with more than one sign, a pair could produce all parts of a compound or multi-sign form for one stimulus but then not match at all on another stimulus, resulting in a higher raw number than the proportion of stimulus matches.

RCM and his mother HMR did not match on 11 stimulus items. These were pig, jaguar, armadillo, chacra, hen, mototaxi, piranha, spider monkey, tapir, soldier and police. For this set, her signs tended to be more descriptive of actions, such as LAY-EGG for hen or DIG for armadillo. For others, the physical trait picked out for the iconic motivation differed from that of RCM’s

141 RCM HMR ACC WMR LTN OMT JMR LMM AMM RCM HMR 35 ACC 37 30 WMR 50 33 35 LTN 50 32 29 40 OMT 45 28 32 36 36 JMR 43 35 34 46 40 36 LMM 42 30 30 39 36 36 38 AMM 45 28 30 39 46 37 40 41

Table 4.6: The number of matching CCs for the set of 48 stimulus items. Note that, in some cases, signers produced more than one sign in response to the stimulus item. All participants averaged between 1.3 and 1.9 signs per stimulus item.

sign, such as SNOUT for pig. For tapir and jaguar, she produced similar signs depicting how they walk, but not the lexical item produced by RCM.

RCM and his father ACC did not match on 10 stimulus items. These were agouti, banana, chacra, egg, hen, rooster, glasses, spider monkey, po- lice and piranha. For spider monkey and piranha, ACC simply produced pantomime like gestures that were difficult to parse into individual signs. Like HRM, he also produced LAY-EGG for hen. His sign for egg, which also showed the shape of the egg, was a different form from that produced by RCM (with a clawed-L handshape instead of an open-O handshape). His response to rooster

142 RCM HMR ACC WMR LTN OMT JMR LMM AMM RCM HMR .77 ACC .75 .73 WMR .81 .71 .74 LTN .73 .73 .59 .71 OMT .75 .73 .71 .79 .74 JMR .83 .72 .68 .83 .74 .77 LMM .74 .77 .76 .76 .71 .74 .78 AMM .74 .67 .69 .75 .66 .68 .72 .66

Table 4.7: Measures of consistency in form for each pair of Nueva Vida signers.

was notable as a highly iconic sign with a different CC, a 5 handshape at the top of the head to indicate the rooster’s crown. This contrasted with RCM’s sign of BEAK, a 1 handshape at the nose.

RCM and his uncle WMR did not match on 4 stimulus items. These were armadillo, harness, piranha and police. For armadillo, WMR referred to RCM and asked for the sign, then repeated it after RCM signed it. For police, he signed SALUTE, which is RCM’s sign for soldier. His response to harness was an action depicting climbing with a harness and piranha was a sign for BITE.

RCM and his friend LTN did not match on just 3 stimulus items, which

143 were harness, hen and piranha. He signed harness around his waist, similar to RCM’s sign but describing a different part of the harness. He did not produce BEAK for hen, but rather only WINGS, which is a sign that RCM produces for other birds. Finally, his sign for piranha was a point at the teeth.

RCM and his friend OMT did not match on 5 stimulus items. These were boa, spider monkey, cooking fire, pig, and piranha. Both boa and piranha were signed with biting gestures. Spider monkey was described with the action signs CLIMB and RUB-EAR. His sign for cooking fire was the same as that for FIRE, which was produced by RCM in response to fire but not cooking fire. OMT produced TWO-TOES in response to pig, which was the same sign produced by LTN, LMM and AMM, as well as ST.

RCM and his friend JMR did not match on 4 stimulus items. These were armadillo, cooking fire, hen, piranha and spider monkey. For armadillo, piranha and spider monkey, JMR produced action signs associated with those animals: DIG, BITE and CLIMB respectively. Like OMT, he produced FIRE for cooking fire, a sign which RCM signed for the fire stimulus. In his response to hen, he produced WINGS, which was the same as LTN’s response.

RCM and LMM did not match on 7 stimulus items. These were ar- madillo, boa, cooking fire, hammock, harness, piranha and spider monkey. As with other participants, for armadillo, boa and spider monkey, he produced actions associated with those animals: DIG, BITE and CLIMB, respectively. He also produced FIRE in response to cooking fire. He produced CLIMB for harness and LIE-DOWN for hammock.

144 RCM and AMM did not match on 4 stimulus items. These were paufil, chacra, spider monkey and police. For paufil, AMM did not respond to the stimulus, instead he referred to RCM for the sign. For chacra, he gave signs for various plants, but not the lexical item produced by RCM. His sign SPIDER- MONKEY was also produced by GLT and GTM, two hearing signers in the Totoya community. His sign for police was SALUTE, which was the same sign that RCM produced for soldier.

There was a fair amount of overlap between the stimulus items that were not shared with RCM. The following stimulus items were not shared between RCM and at least 3 signers: Armadillo, spider monkey, piranha, police, cooking fire, hen and harness. These 7 stimulus items proved to elicit the most inconsistent responses. Apart from some exceptions, the hearing signers tended not to be consistent with each other on these forms. Even when the CC was the same, the form differed such as various productions for BITE, which ranged from non-manual signs to signs produced with various handshapes. For some of these items, it may be the case that there are not conventional forms or that there is variation in how RCM refers to these items. Given that the signers are not themselves consistent with each other, these results suggest that the hearing signers are learning their lexicon from RCM.

An important additional observation comes when specifically compar- ing the productions of LTN, LMM and AMM, the three hearing signers who had been acquaintances of ST. Each produced at least one sign that matched ST’s production but not RCM’s (compared against the signs that were not

145 shared between ST and RCM reported in section 4.2). All three produced TWO-TOES for pig, the same sign produced by ST. AMM produced the same sign for squirrel monkey and eel as ST. LMM produced the same sign for har- ness as ST. This maintained consistency with ST over RCM further suggests that they first acquired the sign system through interaction with ST and sup- ports the possibility that hearing signers who knew ST have served to maintain the lexicon between the two homesigners.

Figure 4.13 illustrates the consistency of each signers’ lexical produc- tions through a network graph, combining their CC and form scores. RCM is the central node and each hearing signer is their own node. A node that is close to RCM denotes higher consistency in both CCs and form. Those that are farther away were less consistent.

4.3.3 Discussion

The most surprising result in these measurements was that HMR and ACC, the homesigner’s parents, were the least consistent with RCM. We might expect, given their experience with the homesign system, that they would match most closely with RCM. However, we see that it is WMR, JMR, AMM and LTN who are closest to RCM. First, I will address some of the qualitative differences between their signing and then make a few speculations as to why we may see these differences.

The main qualitative difference between ACC’s signing as compared to RCM and other hearing signers, was that ACC produced more pantomime.

146 JMR

OMT LMM

WMR RCM LTN

AMM

ACC HMR

Figure 4.13: Network based on combined CC and form scores. Nodes closer to the central node (RCM) represent higher consistency with RCM’s signing.

His signs were less obviously parseable into individual segments. Considering the interactions between the two, RCM seemed to be aware of this difference in his father’s signing. As discussed in chapter 2, RCM would correct his father when he produced pantomime, providing him with the correct lexical sign to describe what was being communicated by his gestures. Although ACC sometimes repeated this sign, he still often used pantomime to communicate with RCM. These pantomime-like sequences of gestures resulted in lower scores on both the CC analysis and the form analysis.

Similarly, HMR, the homesigner’s mother, scored lower than most other

147 hearing signers on both the CC analysis and the form analysis. Her gestures were not as pantomime-like as ACC’s; however, her signs were more action- based. That is, she tended to perform actions associated with the stimulus object rather than the lexical sign produced by RCM. For example, her de- scription of the armadillo stimulus included gestures for digging and eating aguaje, but not the lexical label for armadillo. HMR also seemed the least sure of her fluency when participating in the lexical elicitation task. She often began her response and then looked to RCM. If he provided a correction, she repeated it. However, while she appeared receptive to corrections from RCM, her initial response – and the only response that was coded – was typically not the lexical sign.

It was RCM’s uncle WMR, cousin JMR and friend LTN who produced forms most consistent with RCM. Although they likely began interacting with RCM when he was older and therefore have less experience with the system, they aligned more closely with his signing than did his parents. Our discussion now ties back to the individual ideologies discussed in chapter 2. While it may seem counterintuitive that those who have been interacting with RCM for the longest amount of time are the least consistent, the later exposure to RCM’s system may be what leads to more consistency. HMR’s and ACC’s interactions with RCM are perhaps more akin to what they were when RCM was a child and therefore did not progress to more complex mastery of the homesign lexicon.

These conclusions also come from observations of RCM’s interactions

148 with his parents. During a focal follow of RCM and HMR, I observed that most of HMR’s interactions with her son were directives. There was little extended conversation between the two. The limited type of interactions that the two engage in may have resulted in less proficiency in the homesign system on the part of HMR. Similarly, ACC’s interactions may have been more limited in scope than those between RCM and his close friends, who engage in discussions on a wide variety of topics.

There may be an additional aspect of the social relationships that factor into the way RCM’s parents and his friends interact with him. A child-parent relationship means that RCM’s parents typically have authority in their in- teractions with him. However, in the context of his communication system, RCM is the authority figure and the most knowledgeable. For those outside of his family, however, this same power asymmetry does not exist or may ex- ist to a lesser extent. As a young man with strong skills, RCM is afforded certain prestige in the community. The differences in the power dynamics be- tween his parents – with whom he still lives – as compared to his peers may lead to differences in how individuals acquire and treat the homesign system, manifesting in proficiency disparities.

Furthermore, the fact that the other hearing signers acquired the system later than HMR and ACC may have also resulted in higher proficiency for those signers. If RCM’s system became more conventionalized as he grew older, than the system to which the other hearing signers were exposed may have been more conventionalized than the system of communication that HMR

149 and ACC participated in when RCM was a young child. In contrast to the more limited types of interaction between RCM and his parents, there may have been more opportunities for hearing signers such as WMR and JMR to acquire the sign system due to more varied types of interaction. In particular, JMR and RCM are the same age and attended the village school at the same time. The combination of early exposure and varied interaction may be what resulted in JMR acquiring the system more fully than RCM’s parents, at least at a lexical level.

Finally, an additional aspect to consider is the influence of ST on the Nueva Vida signing community. As described in chapter 2, some hearing villagers in Nueva Vida were friends with ST. LTN, AMM and LMM all report having been friends with ST and having an ability to sign with him. All three are near ST’s age and LMM, who was born in Puerto Huam´an,attended school with ST. This experience with a previous homesign system may have resulted in quicker and more complete acquisition of RCM’s system. Or, alternatively, they may have even influenced RCM’s system through transmission of ST’s signs. This possibility and the sources of lexical similarity in the two homesign systems will be discussed in more detail in chapter 5.

4.3.4 Consistency between Nueva Vida and Totoya

All results thus far show high levels of consistency within both Nueva Vida and Totoya, as well as consistency between RCM and ST, the two home- signers. I have posited that the consistency between RCM and ST may be

150 due, in part, to those in Nueva Vida who have known both RCM and ST. Hearing signers may have contributed by serving as a bridge between the two signers, transmitting the lexicon of ST to RCM – an extreme scenario that would have required hearing signers to have fully acquired the sign lexicon and then using it with RCM when he grew older – or by reinforcing the shared lexicon by maintaining consistency. This section aims to further explore the across-community consistency between Nueva Vida and Totoya in order to understand the direction of convergence.

4.3.4.1 Results

Tables 4.8 and 4.9 show results of CC and form consistency between the Totoya signers and RCM and between the hearing signers in Nueva Vida who knew ST and ST. Measurements from the previous two sections are also included in these tables in order to provide a comparison. These score are based on the 40 stimulus items that were elicited from all signers.

Based on CC measurements, the Totoya signers are more consistent to RCM than the Nueva Vida signers are to ST. This is interesting as the potential bridge between RCM and ST consists of the Nueva Vida signers, not the Totoya signers. However, the Nueva Vida signers still share a large portion of their lexicon with ST.

On important detail to note is that RCM averaged more responses per stimulus than ST and so there was more opportunity for partial matches. This accounts for the high consistency between RCM and ST, RCM and the

151 RCM ST ST 32 GLT 28 33 GTM 30 32 RI 31 32 LTN 36 28 LMM 31 27 AMM 36 29

Table 4.8: The number of matching CCs for the set of 40 stimulus items (adjusted to 40 to ensure that each signer had responded to the same stimuli in both communities). Signers in Totoya compared to RCM and signers in Nueva Vida who knew ST compared to ST. Within community scores included for comparison.

Nueva Vida signers, but the lower consistency between ST and the Nueva Vida signers. In other words, there were instances where there were partial matches between RCM and ST, but on the same stimulus item, there were no matches between Nueva Vida signers and ST.

All hearing signers show comparable form consistency with both home- signers, with little variation across and within groups. On the CCs that did match, then, all signers tend to be equally consistent on the production of form, regardless of which village they are from or with whom they sign.

Figures 4.14 and 4.15 provide network graphs for RCM and ST, illus-

152 RCM ST ST .79 GLT .74 .76 GTM .72 .76 RI .71 .76 LTN .73 .75 LMM .74 .74 AMM .74 .77

Table 4.9: Measures in consistency on form. Signers in Totoya compared to RCM and signers in Nueva Vida who knew ST compared to ST. Within community scores included for comparison.

trating the consistency of each signers’ lexical productions through networks graphs, combining their CC and form scores. In Figure 4.14, RCM is the cen- tral node with ST and each hearing signer as their own node. In Figure 4.15, ST is the central node with RCM and each hearing signer as their own node. Nodes that are closer to the central node denote higher consistency in both CCs and form.

4.3.4.2 Discussion

A potential explanation for the lexical consistency between RCM and ST is that the hearing signers in Nueva Vida who knew both homesigners have contributed in some way to maintaining a social and linguistic link between

153 ST*

RI* LMM

LTN RCM AMM

GLT* GTM*

Figure 4.14: Network based on combined CC and form scores. Nodes closer to the central node (RCM) represent high consistency to RCM’s signing. Nodes marked with an asterisk (*) live in Totoya.

the two homesigners. If LTN, LMM and AMM acquired ST’s system and then, through interaction, RCM acquired that lexicon from the hearing signers, we would expect high consistency between ST and those hearing signers in Nueva Vida.

While there is still significant overlap between the Nueva Vida signers and ST, they are not more consistent with ST than they are with RCM. The hearing signers are all more consistent with the homesigner in their village of residency. If LTN, LMM and AMM did acquire ST’s sign system first, they have since converged more toward RCM, resulting in more consistency with

154 LMM* RCM*

RI

LTN* ST AMM*

GLT GTM

Figure 4.15: Network based on combined CC and form scores. Nodes closer to the central node (ST) represent high consistency to ST’s signing. Nodes marked with an asterisk (*) live in Nueva Vida.

RCM than with ST.

4.4 Conclusions

In this chapter, I have discussed the consistency of lexical forms between the two homesigners, RCM and ST, and the communal consistency of hearing signers in their respective villages. Using both elicitation data and natural conversation data, I measured consistency of the iconic motivation behind each sign (that is, the Conceptual Component) and of the sign form itself.

Results show high consistency between RCM and ST, as well as be-

155 tween the hearing signers in both Nueva Vida and Totoya. Compared to other signing communities of similar size, such as ABSL (Sandler et al., 2011; Meir et al., 2012), the two M´a´ıj`un`ahomesigners are considerably more consistent in lexical form. There is little lexical variation between signers. This is especially striking when considering ST and RCM. Although they have never lived in the same village and are an entire generation apart, they are as consistent with each other as the most consistent hearing signers are with them. In fact, RCM is just as consistent with ST as ST is with the most consistent hearing signer in Totoya (GTM). In Nueva Vida, only JMR and WMR are more consistent with RCM than ST is. The potential sources for this high level of community consistency will be discussed further in chapter 5. Regardless of the sources of this consistency, however, the results here show a wide community of sign- ers, across different villages and generations, who are all using the same basic lexicon.

In addition to consistency between signers, I also examined aspects of lexical structure, such as sign parameters and evidence of sub-lexical structure, looking primarily at RCM’s signing. This is a case in which using conversa- tional data supported and supplemented the findings from elicitation data. Homesign lexicons are typically discussed with reference to iconicity and how iconic motivations shape lexical forms. My results here, however, show evi- dence of sub-lexical structure in the homesign system. RCM corrects signs on the basis of slight form differences to the handshape and movement parame- ters. Furthermore, iconic mappings lead to near minimal pairs in signs that

156 share iconic motivations. Although there is still some form variation within the community (as evidenced both by the form comparisons and RCM’s need to correct signers), RCM, at least, shows evidence of sub-lexical structure to his signs. As this is not seen in other small communities, such as ABSL, which shows no evidence of duality of patterning (Sandler et al., 2011). This suggests that it is the community-wide consistency that may have led to a system with emergent properties of duality of patterning.

157 Chapter 5

Shared influences on RCM’s and ST’s lexicons

5.1 Introduction

In the previous chapter, I established the extent to which RCM and ST share lexical items between their two systems. This chapter addresses the shared influences between RCM’s and ST’s sign systems and discusses how these may have influenced the development and maintenance of the two systems’ lexicons. As they developed and are used within the same larger community and there are several people who have known both RCM and ST, there are, of course, overlaps between the two systems. They are clearly related in the sense that they developed under similar conditions and with shared interlocutors. This chapter explores these conditions and discusses how they may have affected the development of the systems. This type of work helps us understand how the environment under which a homesign system emerges influences the structure and features of that system and the contributions of the community in which the system emerged. The case of RCM and ST provides us with an interesting opportunity to compare across different signers who did not develop their systems together, but did develop within the same cultural context

158 In order to explore the different influences on the two systems, I con- ducted three experiments. Experiment 1 was designed to examine the influence that iconicity has on the development of lexical items. Even unrelated, full sign languages have a certain degree of overlap in their lexicons due to the exploitation of iconicity in sign forms. These estimations vary between 23% reported by Currie et al. (2002) and 35-40% reported by Woll (1983). A num- ber of studies claim that sign languages become less iconic over time due to phonological changes in sign form that obscure the original iconic motivation (Frishberg, 1975; Klima & Bellugi, 1979). Therefore, it follows that homesign systems and younger sign languages will be more iconic and thus share more of their lexicons, even if they developed under completely different circum- stances. In the unique case of homesigners, where they are developing a new communication system among non-signing hearing people, there may be strong communicative pressures to develop iconic signs in order to make themselves understood (Goldin-Meadow, 2003). Following these assumptions and given that RCM and ST developed their systems with the same cultural influences and in similar environments, we would expect even more overlap due to shared iconicity than in two unrelated sign languages.

As has been noted by Bellugi and Klima (1976) and Klima and Bellugi (1979), a sign can have an iconic motivation for its sign form without the meaning being readily available to a sign-naive observer. Klima and Bellugi identified signs for which the meaning can be guessed solely on the basis of the iconic form as ‘transparent’, while a sign is ‘translucent’ if the iconic motivation

159 for the sign becomes apparent only after the meaning is given.

In three related studies Bellugi and Klima (1976) explored the trans- parency and translucency of ASL signs and whether comprehension of ASL signs by sign naive hearing participants was facilitated by iconicity. In a study with 10 American hearing non-signers with no experience with sign language, participants were shown 90 ASL signs that corresponded to common concrete and abstract nouns (signed by a native signer on videotape) and were asked to write down their best guess for the meaning of each sign. Only 9% to 10% of signs were given the appropriate meaning by at least one participant. The remaining 81 signs were not recognized by the participants. These results indicate very limited transparency of the ASL signs tested.

In their second study, the authors used the same set of 90 signs but pre- sented participants with a multiple choice test. Four options were presented, the correct English translation and three other possible answers which were selected from the wrong responses given by participants in the first study. The 10 new sign-naive participants performed below chance on this task (18% ac- curacy). These results further strengthen the conclusion from the first study, that even iconic ASL signs are not transparent.

In their third study, the authors tested the translucency of the same 90 ASL signs. Participants were presented with a video the ASL sign accompanied by its spoken English translation, then instructed to describe the relationship between the meaning of the sign and its form. For more than half the signs, subjects showed agreement on the basis of the connection between the sign

160 form and its meaning. For example, participants could not determine the meaning of the ASL for WOOD without context, but once they were given the meaning, they reliably agreed on the iconic motivation as “sawing a board” or “sawing action”. The authors conclude, then, that although ASL signs may have representational, iconic aspects, these do not necessarily render the sign “transparent” to the naive observer.

Here, I adopt the notions of ‘transparency’ and ‘translucency’ in my exploration of iconicity in the homesign systems. Following Bellugi and Klima (1976), I designed my iconicity experiment around the concepts of trans- parency and translucency. This allowed for measurements based on the per- ceived iconicity of signs, rather than coding schemes that could be affected by linguistic knowledge, graded on a somewhat arbitrary likert scale. By run- ning the experiment both within the community where the homesign systems emerged as well as with American non-signers who lack that cultural con- text, I was also able to better understand the effects of cultural knowledge on participants’ results.

Experiment 2 considered gestures as a potential source of shared influ- ence. Given that the two systems developed in the same culture and wider speech community, RCM and ST would have been exposed to similar co-speech gestures. The gestures used by hearing people in the community are the only available input to homesigners, since they cannot hear the spoken language. Simply by virtue of being exposed to similar gestures from the hearing com- munity, we would expect RCM and ST to share certain signs, regardless of

161 possible shared interlocutors. Experiment 2 aims to determine the influence that gestural conventions in the hearing community had on the development of the signs systems. In this experiment, I elicited silent gestures from hearing non-signers in Nueva Vida and compared their productions to the lexical items shared by RCM and ST.

With these shared influences established, Experiment 3 compares the lexicons of the M´a´ıj`un`ahomesigners to those of homesigners in Iquitos. While these homesign systems were developed by deaf individuals isolated from a full language, either spoken or signed, in the same broad culture of Peru, they did not develop with the same influences particular to the M´a´ıj`un`acommunity. Thus, by comparing the lexicons of M´a´ıj`un`ahomesigners to homesigners in Iquitos, we can better understand the specific contributions of the M´a´ıj`un`a community and culture on the development of the homesign systems.

5.2 Experiment 1 - Iconicity

The goal of this study is to identify iconic signs in the lexicon and ex- plore how that iconicity may contribute to the maintenance and development of the lexicon. If there is communicative pressure on homesigners to create iconic signs in order to make themselves understood, then we would expect their signs to be highly transparent. Furthermore, given this communicative pressure, we would expect homesigners from the same cultural context to de- velop signs with similar iconic motivations. The similarities between RCM’s and ST’s lexicons might then be due to the pressure to produce iconic signs

162 and, thus, with the same cultural experience independent innovation of similar signs. As has been observed previously, cultural experience affects how sign- ers rate the iconicity of a sign (Adam, Iversen, Wilkinson, & Morford, 2007). Therefore, in this experiment, I test iconicity with two groups of participants: non-signers from Nueva Vida and non-signers from the United States. If cul- tural experience plays a significant role in the perceived transparency of signs, then the Nueva Vida non-signers should score higher than the American non- signers.

5.2.1 Methods

The participants in this study were two sign-naive M´a´ıj`un`awomen in Nueva Vida (age 37 and 49) and eight (one female) sign-naive American college students (aged 18 to 28). At the beginning of the experiment, both groups of participants were given a brief definition of iconicity in sign languages and provided with an example of an iconic sign. It was also explained that some signs are compounds and consist of multiple signs to describe a single item. This too was followed by an example.

The design of the experiment differed slightly between the two groups in order to accommodate the participants (e.g. differences in literacy and computer skills). Both groups were presented with 46 short clips of signs produced by RCM. These clips were taken from the lexical elicitation task and presented in isolation. The full list can be found in Appendix D.

The first portion the experiment tested the “transparency” of the sign.

163 That is, the ability of participants to guess the meaning of the sign based solely on its form and without any context clues. Participants were allowed to view the video clip as many times as they wished. They were then asked to provide a meaning for the sign using the form of the sign to inform their guess.

For the Nueva Vida participants, I conducted the experiment by show- ing the clips on a laptop computer, replaying them when requested. Responses were given in spoken Spanish, which I transcribed. This was to avoid discom- fort on the part of the participants if asked to complete a written task.

In the case of the American participants, the experiment was conducted using OpenSesame (Mathˆot,Schreij, & Theeuwes, 2012), a program designed for conducting psychology experiments. The video clip of the sign played on loop until the participant chose to continue to the next screen where they typed their answers in a text box displayed in OpenSesame. There was no time limit to the task, but participants were told to base their judgments on the form of the sign and their initial perception of the sign’s meaning.

Directly following their meaning guess for each sign, the participants were then immediately provided with the meaning and then asked to guess the iconic motivation of the sign. This second portion of the experiment tested the “translucency” of the sign. For Nueva Vida participants, I provided the meaning in spoken Spanish. If there was any confusion, I showed the picture that was used to elicit that particular sign. However, pictures were not presented for each sign. For the American participants, after inputing

164 their meaning guess, they were shown a screen with a picture corresponding to the sign’s meaning and a still of the homesigner’s sign to remind them of the sign form. When they chose to continue, the next screen asked for a brief explanation of the iconic motivation.

For scoring purposes, the correct meaning of the sign was determined by the elicitation image used to elicit that particular sign. That is, for example, if a picture of aguaje was used to elicit the sign, then the meaning of the sign was determined to be ‘aguaje’. Guesses that matched that meaning were coded as correct.

Coding responses regarding the motivation of the sign form, however, is not so straightforward. In order to score the responses for the translucency task, the iconic motivation of the sign most first be determined. As the home- signer cannot be directly asked about his sign forms, a multi-step process was used to best determine the iconic motivations of the signs. I relied partially on my own familiarity with and intuitions about the sign system. Across the many elicitation sessions and the recorded conversations with RCM, I have seen several tokens of each of these signs in a variety of contexts. However, I do not rely solely on my own intuitions about the sign system. I also took into account the judgments of the hearing signers in Nueva Vida. Finally, although RCM could not give meta-linguistic commentary on his own sign system, there were examples of corrections that made the iconic property of the sign form clearer. For example, he corrected his father’s sign for TAPIR, emphatically producing a 6 handshape, which displays three fingers, over a 5 handshape,

165 which displays five fingers. I therefore interpret the iconicity of that sign as referring to the three prominent toes on a tapir’s foot, despite the fact that the sign form not always conforming to the 6 handshape in RCM’s productions. My coding for meaning and motivation can be found in Appendix D.

5.2.2 Results

On the transparency portion of the experiment, Nueva Vida non-signers scored higher than the American non-signers. Interestingly, between the two Nueva Vida Non-signers, there was a notable difference in their correct guesses on the transparency task. Nueva Vida Non-signer 1 correctly guessed 59% of the signs based only on their form while Nueva Vida non-signer 2 guessed 34%. It may be the case the NV-NS 1 was simply better at the task or that she had perhaps more experience with the homesign system than she had reported. Complete ignorance of the sign system in a village the size of Nueva Vida is unlikely, even for those who did not interact a great deal with RCM. Regardless, the lower score of NV-NS 2 demonstrates that even those in the same small community cannot necessarily easily guess the meaning of RCM’s signs based solely on the form. These results show that RCM’s signs were not uniformly transparent, even to those in the same culture who had access to the same culturally or environmentally specific information and experiences. While both non-signers from Nueva Vida scored better on the transparency task than has been shown for full sign languages such as ASL, the full lexicon was not entirely accessible.

166 The eight American Non-signers (A-NS) guessed the meaning of, on average, 10% of the signs on the transparency task, which is on par with what was found in Bellugi and Klima (1976). This was markedly lower than either NV-NS 1 or NV-NS 2. One obvious factor is cultural context. The wordlist included several items that the American participants would not be familiar with and thus would not be able to name, such as animals specific to the region (tapir, agouti) or culturally specific items (masato, aguaje). However, even on items which did not require any specific cultural knowledge, such as GLASSES or TREE, American subjects could not reliably guess the meaning.

When it came to the translucency task, which asked participants to give the motivation of the sign form after their response to the transparency task, both NV-NS and A-NS improved their scores. Most drastic was the difference between the two tasks for the American participants. However, they still did not score as well as either NV-NS 1 or NV-NS 2 on this task. Despite being given images for the items depicted, the iconic motivation of some signs was still opaque to American participants. For example, only two of the eight participants recognized that the sign for TAPIR (Figure 5.1) represented the three prominent toes of the animal. Although they were shown a picture that included this iconic motivation, they were not able to recognize what the sign form represented. Both Nueva Vida participants, however, were able to identify the motivation for nearly all the signs, missing only 1 and 3 of their guesses respectively.

167 Transparency Translucency guess Participants guess percentage percentage correct correct NV-NS 1 59% 97% NV-NS 2 34% 93% A-NS (total 8) 10% (1.8) 85% (2.4)

Table 5.1: Individual scores given for the Nueva Vida non-signers. Average scores (standard deviations for number of tokens) given for the American non- signers.

(a) Image showing named item. (b) RCM’s sign for TAPIR.

Figure 5.1: Subfigure (a) shows the image of a tapir. Subfigure (b) shows the still of RCM’s sign for TAPIR. Note that the tapir’s three toes are visible in the photograph. Both images were shown to American participants before they were asked to guess the motivation of the sign form.

168 5.2.3 Conclusion and Discussion

The exploration of iconicity in young sign systems, such as homesign systems, helps us to understand how sign lexicons emerge and how meaning is established between community members. To summarize the results here, RCM’s signs were found to be more transparent to Nueva Vida non-signers than to American non-signers. Nueva Vida non-signers performed better than what has been reported for similar studies with ASL. However, while cultural context and knowledge clearly play a role in the Nueva Vida participants’ ability to understand RCM’s signs, even non-signers from his community could not access the full lexicon, meaning that the consistency seen in chapter 4 from the hearing signers cannot be solely attributed to a transparent lexicon.

For both groups, the homesigns were highly translucent. Both groups performed significantly better on the translucency portion of the experiment than on the transparency portion. From these results, I draw the following conclusions: cultural experience plays a role in how well non-signers perform on both tasks. However, even for those within the same village, the lexicon is not completely transparent or translucent. These results, taken with the results on communal consistency from chapter 4, suggests that hearing signers are required to acquire the lexicon through interaction with the homesigners and cannot access the lexicon based solely on the iconicity of the signs.

Goldin-Meadow (2003) describes homesign systems as more iconic than full sign languages. As discussed above, however, iconicity does not necessarily equate to transparency. The results presented here show that the sign system is

169 highly translucent but not entirely transparent, even to those in close proximity to the homesigner and with access to the same cultural experiences. While it may be the case that there are communicative pressures for homesigners to produce iconic signs, iconicity alone does not provide full access to the lexicon and interaction with the homesigner is still necessary in order to acquire the lexicon.

Of the shared signs between RCM and ST, the NV-NS were able to both guess the meaning of 6 of those signs. An additional 8 were guessed by one of the two non-signers.1 The motivation of this experiment was to explore the potential influence of iconicity in the lexicons of RCM and ST. The results show that the lexicon is relatively transparent and highly translucent. They also show that not all of the shared signs between RCM and ST are transparent to non-signers. I posited that highly transparent signs would be more likely to be shared by RCM and ST. However, this does not appear to be the case as many of the overlapping signs were not guessed by either of the non-signing participants. The two homesigners share signs that are not readily understood by non-signers, suggesting that this set of shared signs may not have been inde- pendently innovated due to an easily exploited iconic motivation. Experiment 2 and 3 explore additional potential sources of influence.

1This does not add up to the total guesses by NV-NS 2 as I am considering only the signs that overlapped between RCM and ST. Some signs in the iconicity task either were not elicited from ST or were not shared between the two homesigners.

170 5.2.3.1 Recognition of Patterns

Recall from chapter 4 the discussion of stable phonological mappings in RCM’s lexicon. These were consistent iconic mappings in a particular seman- tic domain that recruited a similar iconic form for related meanings. As noted in Occhino et al. (2017) these types of iconic mappings are not accessible to non-signers. Indeed, although ARMADILLO, BABY-TAPIR, JAGUAR, WHITE-LIPPED-PECCARY and COLLARED-PECCARY were all included in this study and all use the same iconic mapping of depicting their particular markings on the body, only one of the eight American participants appeared to become aware of this pattern over the duration of this experiment. This par- ticipant, after seeing BABY-TAPIR answered that JAGUAR, ARMADILLO and COLLARED-PECCARY were animals with distinct markers, but could not determine the specific animal.

5.3 Experiment 2 - Gesture

The goal of this second experiment was to identify possible gestures used by the hearing non-signing community and determine their influence on the two sign systems. As RCM and ST both live in M´a´ıj`un`avillages and interact exclusively with hearing people, they were likely exposed to the same co-speech gestures to the extent that there exists a conventionalized gesture system in the communities. Therefore, some of the consistency between their two lexicons may be due to shared borrowing from the conventionalized gesture system already in use by hearing community members.

171 5.3.1 Methods

In order to best replicate the kind of gestures that hearing people may have used with RCM and ST, I conducted a gesture-only task with hearing non- signers in Nueva Vida who did not interact with RCM regularly. This was to replicate the type of condition that RCM and ST are likely to have encountered early in the development of their systems. As discussed in chapter 2, a distinct feature of the M´a´ıj`un`acommunity was a lack of mouthing or speaking when interacting with RCM and ST. This experiment, then, attempts to replicate the gestural conventions that are and would have been used with both RCM and ST during the conventionalization of their systems.

I used the same stimulus items that were used with RCM and ST in order to elicit gestures from hearing people. Participants were three hearing women in Nueva Vida: ERT, EMR and RTT. All three were self-reported as having little interaction with RCM and claimed to have no proficiency in the homesign system. The participants were limited to women because all of the men in Nueva Vida regularly interacted with RCM and could communicate with him to some extent. Participants were presented the stimuli on a laptop computer and then asked to make up gestures to describe what was seen in the images without using words. The goal was to elicit conventionalized gestures associated with the stimulus that RCM and ST may both have been exposed to and thus better understand the shared influences on their systems.

Video data was first segmented for each stimulus response and then coded for gestures. Following methodology from chapter 4, gestures that

172 were not indexical points (of which there were many from the gesturers) were coded for Conceptual Components. Results were then compared to the set of signs that overlapped between ST and RCM in order to determine which gestures/signs were shared between the hearing gestures and the homesigners.

5.3.2 Results

Across the three gestures, 19 signs/gestures were identified that were shared between at least two of the gesturers. If a gesture was used by only one participant in the task, it was not included in the analysis of shared signs/gestures with RCM and ST because use by a single participant does not suggest a strong cultural convention among hearing people.

In chapter 4, I found 32 signs that were shared between RCM and ST of the 40 elicited signs. Comparing between these 32 shared signs and the 19 shared signs/gestures of the hearing participants, 9 signs/gestures overlapped in these two sets (gesturers and homesigners). These were DRINK, PADDLE, CHAINSAW, SWING (hammock), CUT, POUND (masato), BALL, STAB- LEG (stingray) and HAMMER. Of the set of shared signs elicited from RCM and ST, these results suggest that around 28% of the shared system may come from the gestural conventions of hearing people.

Of the 8 signs that were not shared between RCM and ST (EEL, EGG, HARNESS, MOTOTAXI, PIG, PIRANHA, MASATO and SQUIRREL- MONKEY), there were no gestures that were produced by at least 2 gesturers that matched the signs produced by RCM or ST from this set. There were,

173 Comparison Group Proportion of Overlap Percentage of Overlap ST & RCM 32/40 80% Gesturers & RCM/ST 9/32 28%

Table 5.2: This tables illustrates the breakdown by proportion and percentage of each group. The first line shows the comparison between ST’s and RCM’s lexicon. The second line takes that total overlap (32) and shows the proportion and percentage that overlapped between the gesturers and the homesigners.

however, individual gesturers that produced gestures from this set of signs that matched either RCM’s production or ST’s production. The gesturer EMR produced the same sign for EEL as RCM. ERT produced the same sign for HARNESS and EGG as RCM. The gesturer EMR produced the same sign for HARNESS as ST. ERT produced the same sign for MOTOTAXI as ST. While these signs may have been influenced by gesturers, the fact that they were only produced by one gesturer suggests that they are not highly conventionalized within the hearing community.

5.3.3 Conclusion and Discussion

These results show, unsurprisingly, that a portion of signs may be bor- rowed from or influenced by gestures in the hearing community. These gestural borrowings can account for some, but not all, of the similarities between the two homesign systems.

Only CCs were taken into account when coding for the shared ges-

174 tures/signs. That is, form differences did not factor into this comparison. There were, however, form differences observed between the homesigners and the gesturers. Of the 9 overlapping gestures, the gesturers produced CHAIN- SAW, STAB-LEG and SWING with different forms as compared to RCM and ST. RTT’s produced CHAINSAW with a 1 handshape compared the the B handshape of RCM and ST. EMR produced STAB-LEG with an O handshape compared to the x handshape of RCM and ST. Figure 5.2 below illustrates the form differences in the production of SWING (in response to the hammock stimulus). As can be seen, RCM and ST share the same form – produced with closed hanshapes – for this sign while EMR and RTT both produce a different form – with open handshapes – from that of the homesigners but the same form as each other. While this gesture may be present in the general hear- ing community, both RCM and ST produce a form that is distinct from the hearing non-signers.

Aside from the gestures that were shared between the homesigners and the gesturers, I also observed more general conventions that may have influ- enced the homesign systems. As discussed in chapter 4, the homesigners pro- duced significantly more object handshapes than handling handshapes. This is a generalization that also occurs in the gestures of hearing people. The gestur- ers all produced CUT, CHAINSAW, PADDLE and HAMMER with an object handshape rather than a handling hanshape, as was also the case with the homesigners. This may be a generalization within the gestures of the hearing community that has had a broad impact on the sign system.

175 (a) RCM signs SWING. (b) ST signs SWING.

(c) EMR gestures in re- (d) RTT gestures in re- sponse to hammock. sponse to hammock.

Figure 5.2: RCM and ST sign SWING with a closed handshape. EMR and RTT gesture in response to hammock with an open handshape.

A common feature of the gestures was the use of their body to represent parts of an animal body. As discussed in chapter 4, this type of iconic motiva- tion represented a class of iconic mappings in the homesign systems. Although

176 the gesturers did not produce gestures that matched the animal signs of the homesign system, they did produce other gestures that made use of the body- as-body setup. For example, when gesturing about butchering an animal, the hearing participants produced gestures on their bodies to represent where on the animal the cuts would be made.

Another notable observation worth discussing was the comfort with which hearing participants completed the task. None of the gesturers voiced while completing the task or skipped any of the stimuli. They also tended to produce strings of several gestures in response to each stimulus item. This ties back into the discussion from chapter 2 on community attitudes regarding use of gesture for communication. Even hearing non-signers, with limited interaction experience with RCM or ST, were able to comfortably complete a gesture-only task. Taken with the lack of voicing on the part of the hearing signers, the viewpoints expressed by hearing signers as explored in chapter 2 and the overall fluency in the community, these results suggest a distinct acceptance of gesture as a communicative option.

Through experiment 2, I identified 9 gestures that were produced by at least two of the three gesturing participants as well as by ST and RCM in their respective elicitation tasks. Of the 32 shared signs between RCM and ST, 9 of them (28%) were found to be produced by hearing gesturers. These results suggest that approximately 28% of the shared lexicon is due to the shared influence of gestural conventions in the hearing M´a´ıj`un`apopulation. Of course, these 9 signs are by no means the only signs in the homesign lexicon

177 that were potentially borrowed from hearing gestures. However, by using the same stimulus items to elicit from all RCM, ST and the hearing gesturers, the results give us an estimation as to the total proportion of the lexicon that is borrowed from conventionalized gesture forms.

5.4 Experiment 3 - Iquitos homesigners

The goal of experiment 3 was to identify shared signs that were po- tentially innovated independently by RCM and ST. Due to the highly iconic nature of sign languages, even unrelated conventional sign language may share iconic signs. This may be particularly true of homesign systems which, as we saw in experiment 1, may be more translucent than full sign languages.

In order to further explore this question of independent innovation, I elicited lexical items from homesigners in Iquitos. These homesigners are not M´a´ıj`un`aand so did not have the same input from the gestural conventions of M´a´ıj`un`apeople. However, they are Peruvian and familiar with jungle life (e.g. local animals and plants). As homesigners, they have the same experience of interacting primarily with hearing people, but not in the same community setting as RCM and ST. Thus, this experiment attempts to isolate the pro- cess of sign innovation and how similar signs may be innovated by separate homesigners due to the communication pressures face by homesigners, while maintaining the broad cultural context of Peru and life in the Amazon.

178 5.4.1 Methods

The setup and methodology in Experiment 3 is similar to that described in chapter 4 for eliciting from RCM, ST and the hearing signers in Nueva Vida and Totoya. However, in this case, elicitation was conducted with signers in Iquitos. Homesigners in the city were located using my own contacts with another researcher, Sara Goico, who is familiar with the Iquitos deaf commu- nity. We identified homesigners as those who were not part of either of the two Associations for the Deaf and had not attended a school, either one of the two deaf schools in Iquitos or a special education school, with other deaf students.

Data was elicited from three adolescent male homesigners in Iquitos. This gender distribution was not intentional as I was only able to locate these three homesigners who had not had sustained contact with the deaf commu- nity of Iquitos. The stimulus were presented on a laptop computer. In this case, contrary to most elicitation in Nueva Vida and Totoya, elicitation was conducted only with the deaf signer, not in pairs with a familiar interlocutor.

The coding methodology differed somewhat due to the fact that I was not familiar with the homesign systems in Iquitos and only elicited vocabu- lary from each participant on one occasion. Therefore, the multi-stage coding used for RCM and ST could not be repeated here. Instead, responses were segmented into separate gestures and annotated for each stimulus. Signs were coded for CC based on form using my own judgments. I make no claims as to the productivity or conventionalization of these signs in the Iquitos home- signers’ lexicons as I am only interested in how they compare to RCM and

179 ST. Even ad hoc gestures produced in response to the stimulus serve to help answer the research question as I am concerned with the signs innovated by homesigners.

5.4.2 Results

Comparing the set of signs shared by RCM and ST (32 signs) with the signs produced by the three homesigners in Iquitos, 11 signs were identi- fied that shared the same CC between at least two of the Iquitos homesign- ers. There were SCRAPE-TEETH (aguaje), HAMMER, DRINK, HORNS (buffalo), CHAINSAW, FIRE, POINT-FLASHLIGHT, SWING (hammock), BEAK, CUT and BALL.

Of these 11 signs that shared the same CC, 7 of them shared the same form (SCRAPE-TEETH, HAMMER, DRINK, FIRE, POINT-FLASHLIGHT, CUT and BALL). Comparing between the set of shared signs elicited from RCM and ST, these results suggest that around 22% of RCM’s and ST’s shared signs may be due to independent innovation of the same form.

Comparing across all three sets of participants in Experiment 2 and Experiment 3 (RCM/ST, hearing gesturers and Iquitos homesigners), we find that 7 of these 11 overlap in CCs (HAMMER, DRINK, CHAINSAW, FIRE, SWING, CUT and BALL). That is, just 4 signs overlap exclusively between the two groups of homesigners and do not appear to have any gestural influence. These were SCRAPE-TEETH, HORNS, POINT-FLASHLIGHT and BEAK. Of these 4 signs, HORNS and BEAK did not have a consistent form between

180 Comparison Group Proportion of Overlap Percentage of Overlap ST & RCM 32/40 80% IHS & RCM/ST CCs 11/32 34% IHS & RCM/ST Form 7/32 22%

Table 5.3: This tables illustrates the breakdown by proportion and percentage for the comparison between ST/RCM and the Iquitos homesigners (IHS). The first line shows the comparison between ST’s and RCM’s lexicons. The second line takes that total overlap (32) and shows the proportion and percentage of signs that overlapped in CCs between RCM/ST and the Iquitos homesigners. The third line shows the proportion and percentage of signs that overlapped in both CCs and form between RCM/ST and the Iquitos homesigners.

both groups, meaning that although the motivation was the same, the iconic form that was innovated and expressed by these signers differed between the two groups (RCM/ST and the Iquitos homesigners). Therefore, only 2 signs shared the same CC and form between the two groups of homesigners, just 6% of the shared lexicon that was not also produced by the gesturers.

5.4.3 Conclusion and Discussion

Results from this experiment bring us closer to understanding the shared influences on RCM and ST’s lexicons. Interestingly, although 11 signs produced by the Iquitos homesigners shared the same CC (35%) as that pro- duced by RCM and ST, only 7 signs shared the same form (22%). The Iquitos homesigners also shared 7 of those 11 signs with the hearing gesturers from

181 Nueva Vida. That is, all three groups produced the same iconic motivation for those 7 signs. Therefore, only 4 signs shared the same iconic motivation between the RCM/ST and the Iquitos homesigners that were not also shared by the gesturers and of these 4 only 2 shared the same form. That leaves 19/32 (59%) of the shared elicited lexicon that cannot be accounted for by either independent innovation or by shared gestural input.

As discussed above, RCM, ST and the M´a´ıj`un`agesturers all tended to produce object handshapes over handling handshapes. Due to this similar- ity in gestural forms, I suggested that this generalization from gesture may have affected the homesign system. Results from experiment 3 support this argument. All three Iquitos homesigners favored handling handshapes when producing signs that referred to instruments. Figure 5.3 shows production ex- amples of the responses to chainsaw from RCM (the same form was produced by ST), ERT, a hearing gesturer, homesigner 1 and homesigner 3 from Iqui- tos. RCM and ERT both produce the sign/gesture with an object handshape while both the Iquitos homesigners produce their signs with a handling hand- shape. This was also seen in productions of GUN by homesigner 1, PADDLE by homesigner 2 and HAMMER by homesigner 3.

Examples such as tapir, illustrate the differences in iconic motivation between the two sets of homesigners. RCM and ST shared the same sign, producing a bent-5 handshape that represented the foot. As discussed in chapter 4, this sign fell into a set of animal signs that all had the same iconic mapping. In that chapter, I argued that tapirs have more prominent features

182 (a) RCM signs chainsaw. (b) ERT chainsaw.

(c) homesigner 1 signs (d) homesigner 3 signs chainsaw. chainsaw.

Figure 5.3: RCM and ST sign CHAINSAW with an open object handshape. home- signer 1 and homesigner 3 sign CHAINSAW with a closed handling handshape.

than their feet and that the use of ‘foot’ as the Conceptual Component was likely due to other structural features of the lexicon. This argument is further strengthened by the productions of the Iquitos homesigners. Homesigners 1

183 and 3 both produced signs that made reference to the large nose of the tapir, as can be seen in figure 5.4.

(a) RCM signs tapir. (b) ST signs tapir.

(c) homesigner 1 signs (d) homesigner 3 signs tapir. tapir.

Figure 5.4: RCM and ST produce the same sign for TAPIR, with a bent-5 hand- shape in neutral space. The two Iquitos homesigners, however, produce entirely different signs, the iconic motivation of which is the prominent nose of the tapir.

184 5.5 Discussion

The goal of this chapter was to identify the shared influences on RCM’s and ST’s lexicons. We learned from chapter 4 that 32/40 (80%) of RCM’s and ST’s lexicons are shared. This is significantly higher than the 23% (Currie et al., 2002) to 35-40% (Woll, 1983) overlap we would expect of two unrelated full sign languages. Due to the two systems being homesign systems, however, it is not unexpected that there would be more similarities. The three experiments in this chapter explored the possible sources of these similarities.

Experiment 1 investigated the transparency and the translucency of the homesign system by asking Nueva Vida non-signers and American non-signers to guess the meaning and motivation behind signed forms. The Nueva Vida non-signers were more accurate on the transparency task than the American non-signers, suggesting that cultural context and knowledge play a significant role in the forms produced by the homesigners. However, even for those who had that cultural knowledge, the homesign system was not entirely transpar- ent.

Experiment 2 investigated possible influences from the gestural con- ventions of the hearing community. Three hearing non-signers were asked to produce silent gestures in response to lexical stimulus items. I found that 9 of the 32 shared signs overlapped with productions from at least 2 of the gesturers. This accounts for only 28% of the shared system. Other, broader, gestural conventions seem to have also influenced the forms produced by RCM and ST. The gesturers tended to produce object handshapes rather than han-

185 dling handshapes when describing instruments and they produced gestures on their body to represent the body of an animal. These gestures did not always match the lexical item produced by RCM and ST, but the overall tendency appears to have carried over into the homesign systems. Although hearing gestures clearly influenced the homesign system, they can only account for a portion of the consistency between RCM and ST.

Experiment 3 investigated the possibility of independent innovation of the same forms. Homesigners, due to the communicative pressures of inter- acting with hearing people, may produce the same forms despite not sharing a lexicon. Lexical items were elicited from homesigners in Iquitos and compared to the shared lexicons of RCM and ST. I found that 11 out of 32 signs shared the same CC but that only 7 of the 32 shared the same form. These are even smaller percentages than is expected of full sign languages (note that that Iquitos homesigners are being considered together and, as they do not share a single system, this smaller overlap is not unexpected).

Through these three experiments, I have explored the different possible factors that have influenced the two systems. I have attempted to disentan- gle the different ways in which the circumstances under which the homesign systems of RCM and ST emerged would have resulted in similarities in the communication systems that developed. Experiment 1 investigated the influ- ence of iconicity, asking the extent to which the lexicons were transparent to sign naive individuals and the role of cultural familiarity in interpreting the meaning of signs, and how that may have contributed to shared sign forms. Ex-

186 periment 2 investigated the role of gestural conventions in the shared hearing community of the two homesigners. Experiment 3 investigated the likelihood of independent innovation of similar forms by unrelated homesigners.

Considering the results of these experiments together, I found that only a portion of the shared lexical items could be accounted for using these three different metrics. Table 5.4 summarized the results from all three experiments and compares across them. While each experiment provided a different kind of insight into how homesign lexicons development and emergence, there was also a clear interaction between these factors. That is, for example, signs that were transparent to the Nueva Vida non-signers were also signs that appeared in the gestures of hearing non-signers. Similarly, while some gestural conventions appear more specific to the M´a´ıj`un`a(e.g. object handshapes), others were present in the Iquitos homesigners lexicons as well (e.g. DRINK produced with an L handshape).

Although it may not be possible to determine what constitutes a com- pletely “shared system” in the case of homesigners such as RCM and ST, this study contributes to our understanding of how influences specific to the larger community (such as gestural conventions) and more general influences specific to the communicative pressures of homesigners contribute to similarities across unrelated homesign systems. In these three experiments, I was able to find specific influences for 41% of the shared lexicon. The remaining 58%, however, remains unaccounted for.

I have posited that a potential source for the shared consistency between

187 Proportion of Percentage of Comparison Group Overlap Overlap ST & RCM 32/40 80% IHS & and RCM/ST CCs 11 /32 34% IHS & RCM/ST form 7/32 21% Gesturers & RCM/ST 9/32 28% NV-NS Transparency & RCM/ST 6/32 19% IHS & Gesturers 7/11 64%

Table 5.4: The results from all three experiments.

ST’s and RCM’s lexicons is transmission by hearing signers. This is only possible if these hearing signers are consistent and produce the same forms as the homesigners. There are three hearing participants who knew ST and now know RCM: LTN, AMM and LMM. They serve as examples of hearing signers who connect the social networks of ST and RCM.

The first question that must be addressed, then, is are they consistent? If they do not produce signs that are consistent with the homesigners, then they could not have adequately transferred any signs between ST and RCM. For this we refer to chapter 4. In fact, LTN, AMM and LMM are more consistent than either RCM’s mother or his father. As discussed, it may be the case that various social factors lead RCM’s parents to be less consistent in their lexical productions than those outside his family. One of those factors may be experience with ST.

188 Examining the signs produced by LTN, AMM and LMM that are not consistent with RCM, provides additional insight. Recall that ST and RCM did not share any signs for 8 stimulus items. These were eel, egg, harness, piranha, squirrel monkey, masato, mototaxi and pig. Examining the produc- tions of LTN, AMM and LMM, we see that for some of these items, the three signers share the variant produced by ST, not by RCM. Since RCM doesn’t use these variants, it seems, then, that LTN, AMM and LMM acquired these forms from ST. Results from chapter 4 showed that hearing signers in both Totoya and Nueva Vida were highly consistent in their productions of lexical items. It may be possible, then, that RCM’s and ST’s systems have been maintained, to an extent, by their hearing interlocutors and that some of the additional shared lexemes were transmitted, not directly between RCM and ST, but through a shared network of proficient hearing signers with whom they both interact.

This scenario also fits with the results from RCM’s parents, ACC and HMR. If their signing reflects an earlier stage of RCM’s signing, then he may not have acquired these lexical items from the hearing signers until he was older, as those who have known both RCM and ST are older and not a part of his household. If ACC and HMR did not reacquire these new lexical forms, they would become less consistent than RCM.

There is, however, a potential paradox to this narrative. Examples in chapter 4 show correction from RCM. If he were acquiring this lexicon from hearing signers, why would he correct their forms? There are two points

189 to be made here, which may account for this behavior. The first is that form corrections were most typically made between RCM and his parents, neither of whom had known ST. The second point is that this may be an indication that RCM acquired the system and is further conventionalizing it. As observed in other emerging sign languages, subsequent generations of signers tend to add additional structure to the system (Senghas, 1995). RCM’s corrections of features suggest that he has attributed sub-lexical structure to sign forms. His corrections on the basis of individual parameters that do not contribute any additional iconicity are evidence of this, something that was not observed in ST’s productions.

As demonstrated by the case study with Simon (Singleton, 1989; Single- ton & Newport, 2004) and the creolization that took place in Nicaraguan Sign Language (Senghas, 1995), young learners are able to build on impoverished input. It is not necessary that the language model provide 100% consistency. Young learners can attribute structure to unstructured input. The consistency provided by the hearing signers may have been enough for RCM to begin to attribute additional structure, as evidenced by his corrections of handshape and movement features.

Given this evidence, this narrative seems most likely. The experiments reported here in chapter 5 were able to identify certain factors that would similarly influence the two homesign systems. However, only a small portion of the shared lexicon could be accounted for. If hearing signers were transmitting signs between ST and RCM, that would explain the high proportion of shared

190 signs that were otherwise not accounted for. It may, then, be more accurate to describe ST and RCM as users of a “multi-generation homesign system”.

191 Chapter 6

Conclusion

A community of speakers (or signers) is necessary for a language to emerge. Although the homesign system of a single individual may gain some linguistic structure, it is the process of being transmitted and acquired na- tively that allows a full sign language to emerge. As demonstrated by Senghas (1995), with a community of signers and early acquisition, children are able to surpass their older peers in linguistic complexity. The contributions of the signing community have been further explored in community and village sign languages, which show the effects of various community makeups. What hap- pens, however, when a signing community is made up primarily of hearing people? Or when deaf individuals are dispersed and seldom in direct contact with one another? What features arise in such a system?

The sign system used in the M´a´ıj`un`acommunities differs from the prototypical definitions of a homesign system or of a village sign language. The deaf population is small (2 individuals, 3 in recent memory) and dispersed. Nonetheless, the time-depth of the sign system is approximately 65 years (the age of ST, the oldest deaf individual) and there is evidence that RCM, a younger deaf signer, may have acquired lexical items that originated with ST,

192 despite RCM and ST never having lived in the same village.

This dissertation explores lexical and grammatical features that have arisen in the sign system with specific attention to the contributions of com- munity structure.

6.1 Argument Structure and Spatial Modulation

Chapter 3 described the strategies that RCM and several hearing sign- ers use to mark argument structure. Although previous studies on homesign systems have found homesigners to be more consistent in their use of sign order to mark arguments than are hearing signers (Coppola, 2002; Carrigan & Coppola, 2012; Goldin-Meadow & Mylander, 1998), I found the hearing signers relied more on word order than RCM. All hearing signers were highly consistent with each other and, contrary to expectations, more consistent in their productions than RCM. Instead, word order was not RCM’s primary strategy for marking argument structure.

Evidence from both elicited and conversation data show that RCM displays productive use of space to mark two animate arguments. Productions from the hearing signers suggest that this use of space is a feature of the home sign system that has arisen with RCM and that he did not learn it from hearing signers. His use of space was more productive and complex than hearing signers’ usage; they relied more heavily on word order to express relationships between arguments.

193 The use of space to mark two animate arguments is surprising given the age of the sign system. Minimal use of grammatical space has been found in adult homesign systems (Coppola, 2002; Coppola & So, 2005) and village sign languages tend not to develop spatial modulation (Meir et al., 2010). I posit that the development of spatial modulation in RCM’s system is due, in part, to the structure of the signing community and the opportunities for com- munication not typically afforded to a homesigner. Although RCM did not have access to a full language, he was born into a community with prior expe- rience with signed communication. This community-wide familiarity with the communicative needs of deaf people, and consequent reduction in the burden of communication placed on the homesigner, may have allowed for the devel- opment of grammatical features not typical of a single generation homesigner.

6.2 Lexical Consistency

Chapter 4 explored lexical consistency, comparing across signers and across communities. I found high levels of consistency within both Nueva Vida and Totoya, as well as consistency between RCM and ST, including high form consistency. The overlap of the two lexicons was considerably higher than what is expected of two unrelated sign languages. However, given that homesign systems are iconic and given the potential shared gestural input, overlap between the systems could be due to a number of different factors.

A surprising result from these measurements of consistency was that RCM’s parents were not the most consistent in their productions. Others in the

194 community, some older than RCM (such as LTN) were more consistent with RCM than were his parents. These results show that non-family members can be privileged interlocutors who are proficient in the homesign system. I suggest that the interactions with RCM’s friends and peers may have facilitated their acquisition of the sign system. Additionally, the familiarity of LTN, AMM and LMM with ST and their experience with his sign system may also have contributed to their acquisition of the system.

6.3 One system or two?

The results from chapter 4, which showed high consistency between ST and RCM, prompted three studies described in chapter 5. Through these three studies I aimed to understand the factors that could have contributed to the high degree of overlap between ST’s and RCM’s lexicons. Given their shared cultural and community context, there are several factors that could result in a high lexical consistency. These three studies reported in Chapter 5 were designed to tease apart these influences.

Study 1 explored the role of iconicity. I hypothesized that the shared signs that were “transparent” to non-signers were more likely to have been independently innovated by ST and RCM. Testing both hearing non-signers in Nueva Vida and hearing non-signers in the United States, I found that even the participants from Nueva Vida could not easily identify the meaning of lexical signs. While the lexicon was more transparent than a full sign language, it was not entirely accessible to non-signers. Crucially, the set of

195 non-transparent signs included signs that were shared between RCM and ST, suggesting that these signs may not have been independently innovated.

Study 2 aimed to identify conventional gestures that were borrowed into the sign system. I elicited silent gestures from hearing non-signers in Nueva Vida. I was able to identify 9 gestures that appear to be conventionalized and were also part of the sign lexicon. This finding does not, however, account for the entirety of the lexical overlap between RCM and ST.

Study 3 examined the likelihood of independent innovation of lexical forms by eliciting the same set of lexical signs from homesigners in Iquitos. Although the forms produced by these signers were also iconic, they highlighted different features of the referent. Only 21% of these signs matched those produced by the M´a´ıj`un`asigners, illustrating the fact that there are multiple possible iconic forms for a single referent.

Considering these results together suggests that only a small proportion of RCM’s and ST’s shared lexicon can be attributed to independent innova- tion due either to iconicity or conventionalized gesture. The M´a´ıj`un`asign system is used as the primary means of communication for ST and RCM, two deaf individuals in the same community but living in different villages and a generation apart. It is perhaps better described, then, as a multi-generation homesign system rather than two separate homesign systems.

196 6.4 Building on impoverished input

Previous studies provide evidence for the ability of children to build on impoverished input. Singleton (1989) reports on Simon, a child who was able to compensate for the impoverished input of his late-learning parents and Senghas (1995) argues that Nicaraguan deaf children were able to reanalyze their input and expand on the limited structure of their older peers’ productions. As a “second generation” communal homesigner, RCM may have built on the impoverished input of the community in similar ways as Simon or second generation learners of Nicaraguan Sign Language.

The evidence of sub-lexical structure presented in chapter 4 suggests that RCM may have engaged in this type of reanalysis. If portions of his lexicon were learned from the community of signers, this may have reduced the burden of innovating a lexicon. Instead, reanalysis took place, resulting in emergent features of duality of patterning. Furthermore, RCM displays more conventionalization than ST. His use of a single dominant hand is more consistent than ST, who switches between using his right hand and left hand as dominant and RCM’s productions were less lax than ST’s, resulting in more clearly defined handshape parameters. RCM also engaged in form corrections, which I did not observe from ST. RCM had a strong sense of well-formedness, evidenced by his corrections of handshape and movement.

There is no evidence, however, that the grammatical structures present in RCM’s signing are a result of a shared system between RCM and ST. These structures, namely spatial modulation to mark argument structure, seem to

197 have been innovated by RCM. The hearing signers in the Nueva Vida, even those who do use some spatial modulation, do not employ it to the degree that RCM does. That is, RCM’s use of spatial modulation is more complex and more frequent than the hearing signers’ use.

This advanced use of space, which typically develops in community sign languages, may be due, in part, to the structure of the sign community. RCM grew up with many interlocutors in an insular village that was already familiar with deafness and signed communication. The hearing signers are highly consistent in their productions of word order, contrary to the results from other homesign studies. This foundation, then, may have allowed for RCM to innovate more complex structures.

6.5 Future Research

I was unable to capture all of the possibilities for research involving the M´a´ıj`un`asigning community. This dissertation was only able to cover the sign system and the signing community as it existed over the period of research from 2014 to 2017. It may be the case that the sign system, especially as used by RCM, continues to develop over time. There are still possibilities for longitudinal work as RCM grows older and possibly marries and has children. If his social circles grows, so will the community of signers. Furthermore, any subsequent deaf children born into the community may result in the trans- mission of the sign system to another generation, allowing for the study of a communal home sign system across three generations of signers.

198 Additionally, this dissertation does not cover all of the possible lin- guistic features exhibited by the system. Further research could focus on other grammatical devices such as negation, modifiers or pointing. I focussed primarily on the consistency of the lexicon. However, a more detailed and thorough analysis of the lexicon and sub-lexical features, particular with re- gards to RCM, would further our understanding of language emergence and the process by which sub-lexical structure develops.

RCM’s apparent status as a second generation signer also raises ques- tions regarding non-linguistic features of his communication and development. For example, how does he perform on Theory of Mind and False Belief tasks? Does he perform better than a typical adult home signer? Has he developed a more complex number system?

Finally, continuing the comparative work of this project is another pos- sible path for future research. Other villages in the Peruvian Amazon are home to deaf people who use their own sign systems. Comparative work with other small communities would allow for more thorough and extensive research on the effects of culture and community on the development of sign systems.

6.6 Significance

The primary aim of this dissertation was to investigate the contribu- tions of the entire community to the development and maintenance of the M´a´ıj`un`ahomesign system. That is, I ask how the interactions between hear- ing and deaf individuals in the community shape the homesign system and

199 contribute to conventionalization, both grammatical and lexical. This type of research contributes to our understanding of how and why community struc- ture affects the types of linguistic features that emerge in a new language.

This question – how does community structure affect language emer- gence? – has been of ongoing interest in the field of sign language linguistics. Previous research on village sign languages and community sign languages has suggested that specific linguistic features arise in particular types of commu- nities (e.g. spatial modulation in community sign languages). Socio-cultural features of the community influence the types of interactions that occur be- tween deaf and hearing community members, which in turn condition the emergence of young languages. By studying a variety of emerging languages, particularly those in communities that do not fall into the prototypical cate- gories of homesign system, village sign language or community sign language, we can better understand the role of community structure on the emergence of language.

This dissertation, by focussing on a community that falls between the definitions of a prototypical homesign community and a village sign language community, advances our understanding of the contributions of community makeup on language emergence. In particular, this work shows that a com- munity of cooperative hearing people can play a vital role in the maintenance and transmission of a sign language. Hearing M´aij`un`asigners provided a link between RCM and ST and through this shared network of willing signers, a single sign system has emerged and persisted.

200 Appendices

201 Appendix A

Sign Order Full Results

A.1 Results from RCM’s productions with hearing part- ners A.1.1 Results with RCM as producer and ACC as partner

Intransitive Oberved Expected p-value Actor >Act 3 2.5 0.5 Act >Actor 2 2.5

Table A.1: Orders for Intransitive action. No statistically significant orders.

Transitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Patient 1 1.5 0.5 Patient >Actor 2 1.5 Actor >Act 8 5 0.057779571 Act >Actor 2 5 Patient >Act 8 5.5 0.131668016 Act >Patient 3 5.5

Table A.2: Orders for Transitive action with two animate arguments. Actor > Act order approaches statistical significance.

202 Transitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Theme 1 2 0.3125 Theme >Actor 3 2 Actor >Act 5 5.5 0.763024601 Act >Actor 6 5.5 Theme >Act 19 16.5 0.384088249 Act >Theme 14 16.5

Table A.3: Orders for Transitive action with one animate argument. No sta- tistically significant orders.

Ditransitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Patient 1 1 0.75 Patient >Actor 1 1 Actor >Act 6 5 0.527089257 Act >Actor 4 5 Patient >Act 5 5.5 0.5 Act >Patient 6 5.5 Patient >Theme 0 0 ∅ Theme >Patient 0 0 Theme >Act 12 9.5 0.251349109 Act >Theme 7 9.5 Actor >Theme 0 0 ∅ Theme >Actor 0 0

Table A.4: Orders for Ditransitive actions. No statistically significant orders.

203 A.1.2 Results with RCM as producer and HMR as partner

Intransitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Act 7 5.5 0.365712296 Act >Actor 4 5.5

Table A.5: Orders for Intransitive action. No statistically significant orders.

Transitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Patient 5 5.5 0.763024601 Patient >Actor 6 5.5 Actor >Act 8 9 0.637351888 Act >Actor 10 9 Patient >Act 10 9 0.637351888 Act >Patient 8 9

Table A.6: Orders for Transitive action with two animate arguments. No statistically significant orders.

Transitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Theme 2 2.5 0.5 Theme >Actor 3 2.5 Actor >Act 9 7 0.285049407 Act >Actor 5 7 Theme >Act 19 11.5 0.001761702 Act >Theme 4 11.5

Table A.7: Orders for Transitive action with one animate arguments. Theme > Act order statistically significant.

204 Ditransitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Patient 5 4.5 0.5 Patient >Actor 4 4.5 Actor >Act 11 10.5 0.827259347 Act >Actor 10 10.5 Patient >Act 13 14.5 0.577468662 Act >Patient 16 14.5 Patient >Theme 1 3 0.109375 Theme >Patient 5 3 Theme >Act 18 13 0.049860204 Act >Theme 8 13 Actor >Theme 2 2 0.6875 Theme >Actor 2 2

Table A.8: Orders for Ditransitive action. Theme > Act order statistically significant.

A.1.3 Results with RCM as producer and LTN as partner

Intransitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Act 7 5.5 0.365712296 Act >Actor 4 5.5

Table A.9: Orders for Intransitive action. No statistically significant orders.

205 Transitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Patient 2 1.5 0.5 Patient >Actor 1 1.5 Actor >Act 5 5 1 Act >Actor 5 5 Patient >Act 5 4 0.36328125 Act >Patient 3 4

Table A.10: Orders for Transitive action with two animate arguments. No statistically significant orders.

Transitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Theme 2 2 0.6875 Theme >Actor 2 2 Actor >Act 7 6 0.563702862 Act >Actor 5 6 Theme >Act 3 3.5 0.5 Act >Theme 4 3.5

Table A.11: Orders for Transitive action with one animate argument. No statistically significant orders.

206 Ditransitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Patient 0 2 0.0625 Patient >Actor 4 2 Actor >Act 5 7 0.285049407 Act >Actor 9 7 Patient >Act 12 8.5 0.089555074 Act >Patient 5 8.5 Patient >Theme 1 0.5 0.5 Theme >Patient 0 0.5 Theme >Act 9 6 0.083264517 Act >Theme 3 6 Actor >Theme 0 0 ∅ Theme >Actor 0 0

Table A.12: Orders for Ditransitive action. No statistically significant orders. Patient > Actor approached statistical significance.

A.1.4 Results with RCM as producer and WMR as partner

Intransitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Act 4 3 0.414216178 Act >Actor 2 3

Table A.13: Orders for Intransitive action. No statistically significant orders.

207 Transitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Patient 0 1 0.25 Patient >Actor 2 1 Actor >Act 8 7.5 0.796253415 Act >Actor 7 7.5 Patient >Act 6 5.5 0.763024601 Act >Patient 5 5.5

Table A.14: Orders for Transitive action with two animate arguments. No statistically significant orders.

Transitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Theme 0 0.5 0.5 Theme >Actor 1 0.5 Actor >Act 3 2.5 0.5 Act >Actor 2 2.5 Theme >Act 16 10 0.007290358 Act >Theme 4 10

Table A.15: Orders for Transitive action with one animate arguments. Theme > Act order is statistically significant.

208 Ditransitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Patient 0 1.5 0.125 Patient >Actor 3 1.5 Actor >Act 5 6 0.563702862 Act >Actor 7 6 Patient >Act 15 12.5 0.317310508 Act >Patient 10 12.5 Patient >Theme 0 0.5 0.5 Theme >Patient 1 0.5 Theme >Act 8 5.5 0.131668016 Act >Theme 3 5.5 Actor >Theme 0 1 0.25 Theme >Actor 2 1

Table A.16: Orders for Ditransitive action. No statistically significant orders.

A.2 Hearing signers results partnered with RCM A.2.1 ACC orders

Intransitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Act 10 8 0.317310508 Act >Actor 6 8

Table A.17: ACC’s production orders for intransitive events.

209 Transitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Patient 9 6.5 0.165517859 Patient >Actor 4 6.5 Actor >Act 27 14.5 3.44413E-06 Act >Actor 2 14.5 Patient >Act 13 9 0.059346439 Act >Patient 5 9

Table A.18: ACC’s production orders for transitive events with two animate arguments. Actor > Act is statistically significant and Patient > Act is near statistical significance.

Transitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Theme 15 9 0.004677735 Theme >Actor 3 9 Actor >Act 20 11.5 0.000392993 Act >Actor 3 11.5 Theme >Act 19 10.5 0.000207502 Act >Theme 2 10.5

Table A.19: ACC’s production orders for transitive events with one animate argument. Actor > Theme, Actor > Act and Theme > Act were all statisti- cally significant orders.

210 Ditransitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Patient 7 7.5 0.796253415 Patient >Actor 8 7.5 Actor >Act 23 12.5 2.66915E-05 Act >Actor 2 12.5 Patient >Act 19 11.5 0.001761702 Act >Patient 4 11.5 Patient >Theme 4 3 0.6875 Theme >Patient 2 3 Theme >Act 14 7.5 0.000789113 Act >Theme 1 7.5 Actor >Theme 7 3.5 0.0078125 Theme >Actor 0 3.5

Table A.20: ACC’s production orders for ditransitive events. Actor > Act, Theme > Act and Actor > Theme were all statistically significant orders.

A.2.2 HMR orders

Intransitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Act 4 2 0.0625 Act >Actor 0 2

Table A.21: HMR’s productions orders for intransitive events. Actor > Act is near statistical significance.

211 Transitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Patient 3 2 0.3125 Patient >Actor 1 2 Actor >Act 6 4.5 0.25390625 Act >Actor 3 4.5 Patient >Act 8 5 0.057779571 Act >Patient 2 5

Table A.22: HMR’s productions for transitive events with two animate argu- ments. Patient > Act is near statistical significance.

Transitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Theme 1 2 0.3125 Theme >Actor 3 2 Actor >Act 12 7 0.007526315 Act >Actor 2 7 Theme >Act 13 8 0.012419331 Act >Theme 3 8

Table A.23: HMR’s productions for transitive events with one animate argu- ment. Actor > Act and Theme > Act were statistically significant.

212 Ditransitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Patient 3 2.5 0.5 Patient >Actor 2 2.5 Actor >Act 10 6.5 0.052203635 Act >Actor 3 6.5 Patient >Act 7 5 0.205903211 Act >Patient 3 5 Patient >Theme 0 0.5 0.5 Theme >Patient 1 0.5 Theme >Act 1 0.5 0.5 Act >Theme 0 0.5 Actor >Theme 0 0.5 0.5 Theme >Actor 1 0.5

Table A.24: HMR’s productions for ditransitive events. Actor > Act was produced at near statistical significance.

A.2.3 LTN orders

Intransitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Act 14 7 0.000182811 Act >Actor 0 7

Table A.25: LTN’s productions for intransitive events. Actor > Act is statis- tically significant.

213 Transitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Patient 9 6.5 0.165517859 Patient >Actor 4 6.5 Actor >Act 27 14 8.94473E-07 Act >Actor 1 14 Patient >Act 17 10 0.001745119 Act >Patient 3 10

Table A.26: LTN’s productions for transitive events with two animate ar- guments. Actor > Act and Patient > Act were produced with statistical significance.

Transitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Theme 14 7.5 0.000789113 Theme >Actor 1 7.5 Actor >Act 25 13 2.51651E-06 Act >Actor 1 13 Theme >Act 17 9 0.000162441 Act >Theme 1 9

Table A.27: LTN’s productions of transitive events with one animate argu- ment. Actor > Theme, Actor > Act and Theme > Act were produced with statistical significance.

214 Ditransitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Patient 7 4.5 0.08984375 Patient >Actor 2 4.5 Actor >Act 25 12.5 5.73303E-07 Act >Actor 0 12.5 Patient >Act 14 7.5 0.000789113 Act >Patient 1 7.5 Patient >Theme 1 1 0.75 Theme >Patient 1 1 Theme >Act 7 3.5 0.0078125 Act >Theme 0 3.5 Actor >Theme 3 1.5 0.125 Theme >Actor 0 1.5

Table A.28: LTN’s productions of ditransitive events. Actor > Act, Patient > Act and Theme > Act were produced with statistical significance.

A.2.4 WMR orders

Intransitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Act 8 5.5 0.131668016 Act >Actor 3 5.5

Table A.29: WMR’s productions of intransitive events. No statistically signif- icant orders.

215 Transitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Patient 1 1.5 0.5 Patient >Actor 2 1.5 Actor >Act 9 4.5 0.001953125 Act >Actor 0 4.5 Patient >Act 11 7 0.032509445 Act >Patient 3 7

Table A.30: WMR’s productions of transitive events with two animate argu- ments. The orders for Actor > Act and Patient > Act were produced with statistical significance.

Transitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Theme 4 2 0.0625 Theme >Actor 0 2 Actor >Act 7 3.5 0.0078125 Act >Actor 0 3.5 Theme >Act 20 11 0.000124236 Act >Theme 2 11

Table A.31: WMR’s productions of transitive events with one animate argu- ment. Actor > Act and Theme > Act were produced with statistical signifi- cance. Actor > Act was produced with near statistical significance.

216 Ditransitive Observed Expected p-value Actor >Patient 1 3 0.109375 Patient >Actor 5 3 Actor >Act 18 10.5 0.001063115 Act >Actor 3 10.5 Patient >Act 12 6.5 0.002281937 Act >Patient 1 6.5 Patient >Theme 1 1 0.75 Theme >Patient 1 1 Theme >Act 11 5.5 0.000911119 Act >Theme 0 5.5 Actor >Theme 4 2 0.0625 Theme >Actor 0 2

Table A.32: WMR’s productions for ditransitive events. Actor > Act, Patient > Act and Theme > Act were produced with statistical significance. Actor > Theme was produced with near statistical significance.

217 Appendix B

Elicitation List

1. agouti

2. aguaje (type of fruit)

3. armadillo

4. banana

5. bat

6. bathe

7. beer

8. boa

9. buffalo

10. caiman (river alligator)

11. canoe

12. chacra (jungle garden)

13. chainsaw

218 14. coke

15. collared peccary

16. computer

17. cooking fire

18. dog

19. eel

20. egg

21. fire

22. flashlight

23. glasses

24. golden tamarin (monkey)

25. gun (shotgun)

26. hammer

27. hammock

28. climbing harness

29. helicopter

30. jaguar

219 31. machete

32. masato (type of drink)

33. mototaxi

34. paufil (type of bird)

35. pig

36. piranha

37. police

38. rain

39. rooster

40. soccer ball

41. soldier

42. spider monkey

43. stingray

44. sugar/salt

45. tapir

46. turtle

47. white-lipped peccary

220 48. wooly monkey

221 Appendix C

Sign Parameters

Coded Handshape Stokoe Notation Description Picture

1 Index finger extended

Hand closed into fist. A Thumb in varying positions.

222 5 All fingers extended.

All fingers extended. Bent-5 Bent at most proximal finger joints.

Fingers spread and bent Claw-5 at all joints.

Flat hand. Fingers B extended and together.

223 Flat hand. Fingers extended and together. Bent-B Bent at most proximal joint.

Curved fingers and C thumb.

All fingers folded and E touching. Thumb in varying positions.

224 Thumb and index finger Open-9 bent toward each other. Other fingers extended.

Index and middle finger H extended and touching.

Index finger and thumb L extended. Other fingers bent toward palm.

Index finger and thumb extended and touching. Pinch-G Other fingers bent toward palm.

225 All fingers curved and O touching thumb.

All fingers curved but Open-O not touching thumb.

All fingers extended and Flat-O touching thumb.

226 Index and middle finger V extended. Not touching.

Index finger extended X and bent.

Table C.1: Inventory of coded handshapes with descriptions and example images.

Coded Location Description Picture

Sign produced near the Ear ear or with contact with the ear.

227 Sign produced near the Arm opposite arm or with contact with the arm.

Sign produced near the Calf calf or with contact with the calf.

Sign produced near the Cheek cheek or with contact with the cheek.

Sign produced near the Chest chest or with contact with the chest.

228 Sign produced near the Eye eye or around the eye.

Sign produced near the Forehead forehead or with contact with the forehead.

Sign produced near the Hand opposite hand or with contact with the hand.

229 Sign produced near the Head head, above the head or on the side of the head.

Sign produced near the Mouth mouth or with contact with the mouth.

Sign produced near the neck or with contact Neck with the neck, both in front and behind.

Sign produced in front of the signers, without Neutral space an contact with the body or near a particular body part.

230 Sign produced near the Nose nose or with contact with the nose.

Sign produced near the opposite shoulder or Shoulder with contact with the shoulder.

Sign produced near the Stomach stomach or with contact with the stomach.

231 Sign produced near the side of the torso or Torso which moves between the chest and the stomach.

Table C.2: Inventory of coded locations with descriptions and example images.

232 Appendix D

Iconicity coding

Sign Image Motivation

Agouti: Two rodent teeth

Aguaje: Scraping across teeth to eat.

Armadillo: Outline of shell.

233 Baby tapir: Stripes on the side of the body.

Banana: Peeling a banana.

Bathe: Washing hair with soap.

234 Beer: Opening bottle.

Boa: Boa wrapped around something.

Caiman: Protruding eye.

235 Canoe: Paddle a canoe.

Chacra: Path into chacra.

Chainsaw: Blades of a chainsaw.

236 Coke/soda: Twisting the cap and drinking.

Collared peccary: Tracing of marking.

Computer: Typing on computer.

237 Dog: Paws and ears of the dog.

Drink: The act of drinking.

Eel: Coloring on the eel.

238 Female: Breasts of a woman.

Cooking fire: Fanning cooking fire.

Flashlight: Holding flashlight.

239 Glasses: Shape of glasses.

Hammock: Swinging movement.

Helicopter: Spinning blades of helicopter.

240 Hot: Fanning from heat.

House: Roof of the house.

Jaguar: Spots on the body.

241 Machete: A cutting action.

Male: External genitals.

Masato: Squeezing masato pulp.

242 Monkey: The prehensile tail.

Motorcycle: Starting the ignition.

Paujil: The large beak.

243 Police: The shoulder patches.

Rain: Rain falling from sky.

Snake:Tongue flicking out.

244 Soldier: Saluting action.

Stingray: Stinging the leg.

Strong: Flexing muscles.

245 Sugar/salt: Tasting sugar or salt.

Speak: Moving lips to speak.

Tapir: Three prominent toes.

246 Tree: The trunk of a tree.

Turtle: A turtle walking.

White-lipped peccary: The white marking.

247 References

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255 Vita

Grace Kathleen Neveu was born in San Francisco, California. She was homeschooled through her early schooling. After attending the City College of San Francisco, she transferred to the University of California, Berkeley in 2011 and received her BA in linguistics in 2013. In September, 2013, she entered the PhD program in linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin.

Address: [email protected]

This dissertation was typeset with LATEX† by the author.

†LATEX is a document preparation system developed by Leslie Lamport as a special version of Donald Knuth’s TEX Program.

256