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Thematic Structure Verb Agreement Israeli Sign THEMATIC STRUCTURE AND VERB AGREEMENT IN ISRAELI SIGN LANGUAGE By Irit Meir Submitted to the Senate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 1998 Advisors: Dr. Yehuda Falk Hebrew University of Jerusalem Dr. Wendy Sandler University of Haifa “One must credit a hypothesis with all that has had to be discovered in order to demolish it.” Jean Rostand to my parents iv Acknowledgements It is a great pleasure to acknowledge the people who helped me and contributed to the work presented in this dissertation. First, I would like to thank my committee members, Yehuda Falk, Wendy Sandler and Yael Ziv. Yehuda Falk was ready to dive into an unknown territory for him, that of sign language linguistics, in order to guide me through the syntactic intricacies of the subject matter of my thesis. His ability to capture the whole picture, concerning both sign language and linguistics in general, as well as his broad knowledge of various linguistic theories and different linguistic areas, have made the past few years a valuable learning experience for me. Yehuda has the talent of asking challenging questions and insisting of getting answers to them. This has made a significant contribution in shaping my work into its present form. I owe special thanks to Wendy Sandler. Wendy got me interested in sign language in the first place, and made it possible for me to devote my time to this fascinating field. She insisted that I start writing this thesis, that I finish it within a finite period of time, and helped me in every possible way during the intervening period. Ever since I started working with her as her research assistant, she has generously shared with me her laboratory, equipment, consultants, her visiting colleagues, as well as her linguistic insight and expertise. I have benefited greatly from our long, thought- provoking discussions over the past years, and am looking forward to many more in the future. Without her extremely detailed comments on many earlier versions of this work, the argumentation in the sequel would have been much more difficult to follow. I hope I have learnt from her to work the details through without forgetting the big picture, and to strive to express my ideas as clearly as possible. v Yael Ziv took me under her wing from my first year as an undergraduate, introducing me to the challenges and beauty of linguistics. Throughout these years, she has always made herself available whenever I needed help, always willing to read whatever I have written and to talk at length, giving suggestions, making very helpful comments and being always supportive. A big thanks goes to my ISL consultants, Orna Levi, Doron Levi and especially Meir Etdegi, for teaching me so much about ISL, and sharing with me their insights about their native language. Working with them has been a fascinating experience for me, both personally and professionally. Without them this thesis would not have been possible. I would like to thank a number of people with whom I have discussed various issues related to my work. I owe a great deal to Mark Aronoff for reading and commenting on significant parts of the thesis. His challenging and encouraging remarks came at a time I needed them most. Diane Lillo-Martin’s thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this work have led to many important improvements. Discussing my work, as well as many other linguistic topics, with Edit Doron, has taught me a lot about syntactic theory and good linguistic argumentation. For helpful comments and discussions about topics related to this work, I thank Heleen Bos, Shmuel Eisenstadt, Marianne Mithun, Anita Mittwoch, Malka Rappaport and Tony Woodbury. Thanks to my fellow students in the English department at the Hebrew University - Miriam Englhart and Renana Landau. I have greatly benefited from the many vi stimulating linguistic discussions with Miriam. Renana was always ready to listen, and offer valuable comments as well as her support. Eden Orion at the University of Haifa’s Computer Center has helped me greatly in overcoming the numerous problems with bits and bytes. Finally, a heartfelt thanks to all my family: to my parents, for their love, encouragement and help, and for planting in me the seeds of curiosity; to my mother- in-law, for being such a supporting and devoted grandmother; and finally, to Ronny, Lee, Ella and Noa, for all their love and ‘firgun’, and for being a constant reminder that there is life beyond the realm of agreement verbs. iv Acknowledgements It is a great pleasure to acknowledge the people who helped me and contributed to the work presented in this dissertation. First, I would like to thank my committee members, Yehuda Falk, Wendy Sandler and Yael Ziv. Yehuda Falk was ready to dive into an unknown territory for him, that of sign language linguistics, in order to guide me through the syntactic intricacies of the subject matter of my thesis. His ability to capture the whole picture, concerning both sign language and linguistics in general, as well as his broad knowledge of various linguistic theories and different linguistic areas, have made the past few years a valuable learning experience for me. Yehuda has the talent of asking challenging questions and insisting of getting answers to them. This has made a significant contribution in shaping my work into its present form. I owe special thanks to Wendy Sandler. Wendy got me interested in sign language in the first place, and made it possible for me to devote my time to this fascinating field. She insisted that I start writing this thesis, that I finish it within a finite period of time, and helped me in every possible way during the intervening period. Ever since I started working with her as her research assistant, she has generously shared with me her laboratory, equipment, consultants, her visiting colleagues, as well as her linguistic insight and expertise. I have benefited greatly from our long, thought- provoking discussions over the past years, and am looking forward to many more in the future. Without her extremely detailed comments on many earlier versions of this work, the argumentation in the sequel would have been much more difficult to follow. I hope I have learnt from her to work the details through without forgetting the big picture, and to strive to express my ideas as clearly as possible. v Yael Ziv took me under her wing from my first year as an undergraduate, introducing me to the challenges and beauty of linguistics. Throughout these years, she has always made herself available whenever I needed help, always willing to read whatever I have written and to talk at length, giving suggestions, making very helpful comments and being always supportive. A big thanks goes to my ISL consultants, Orna Levi, Doron Levi and especially Meir Etdegi, for teaching me so much about ISL, and sharing with me their insights about their native language. Working with them has been a fascinating experience for me, both personally and professionally. Without them this thesis would not have been possible. I would like to thank a number of people with whom I have discussed various issues related to my work. I owe a great deal to Mark Aronoff for reading and commenting on significant parts of the thesis. His challenging and encouraging remarks came at a time I needed them most. Diane Lillo-Martin’s thoughtful comments on an earlier version of this work have led to many important improvements. Discussing my work, as well as many other linguistic topics, with Edit Doron, has taught me a lot about syntactic theory and good linguistic argumentation. For helpful comments and discussions about topics related to this work, I thank Heleen Bos, Shmuel Eisenstadt, Marianne Mithun, Anita Mittwoch, Malka Rappaport and Tony Woodbury. Thanks to my fellow students in the English department at the Hebrew University - Miriam Englhart and Renana Landau. I have greatly benefited from the many vi stimulating linguistic discussions with Miriam. Renana was always ready to listen, and offer valuable comments as well as her support. Eden Orion at the University of Haifa’s Computer Center has helped me greatly in overcoming the numerous problems with bits and bytes. Finally, a heartfelt thanks to all my family: to my parents, for their love, encouragement and help, and for planting in me the seeds of curiosity; to my mother- in-law, for being such a supporting and devoted grandmother; and finally, to Ronny, Lee, Ella and Noa, for all their love and ‘firgun’, and for being a constant reminder that there is life beyond the realm of agreement verbs. Irit Meir, Dissertation, 1998 vii Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………… 1 Chapter 1: Overview Introduction…………………………………………………………………. 5 1.1. Properties of agreement…………………………………………….. 8 1.2. Agreement in Sign Language research……………………………. 11 1.3. The analysis of verb agreement in ISL: Overview……………….. 16 1.3.1. Agreement verbs as complex verbs………………………….. 17 1.4. General theoretical framework……………………………………… 22 1.4.1. The structure of the Lexicon………………………………… 22 1.4.2. Lexical-semantic theory: Jackendoff (1990a)……………….. .27 1.4.3. Predicate Argument Structure……………………………….. 33 1.4.4. The phonology of signs……………………………………... 36 1.5. The structure of the thesis…………………………………………. 43 Chapter 2: Reference and agreement in ISL Introduction…………………………………………………………………. 48 2.1. The referential system of ISL…………………………………………50 2.1.1. Establishing reference points…………………………………51 2.1.2. The referential morpheme…………………………………… 56 2.1.3. Agreement as a copying procedure………………………….. 57 2.1.4. Pronominal vs. locative use of the referential system……….. 62 2.1.4.1. The differences between locative and personal pronouns………………………………………………….
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