On Relativization and Clefting Sign Languages and Deaf Communities 5 Editors Annika Herrmann Markus Steinbach Ulrike Zeshan Editorial board Carlo Geraci Rachel McKee Victoria Nyst Marianne Rossi Stumpf Felix Sze Sandra Wood De Gruyter Mouton · Ishara Press On Relativization and Clefting An Analysis of Italian Sign Language By Chiara Branchini De Gruyter Mouton · Ishara Press ISBN 978-1-5015-1037-3 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-1-5015-0000-8 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-1-5015-0004-6 ISSN 2192-516X e-ISSN 2192-5178 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. ” 2014 Walter de Gruyter Inc., Boston/Berlin/Munich and Ishara Press, Preston, UK Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck Țȍ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com A Marcello e Paola Acknowledgements My deepest gratitude goes to Caterina Donati. She has introduced me to the study of linguistics and to sign language research. Her sharp insights and curiosity have guided me well after my doctoral studies. During the long gestational period this book underwent, I benefited from the comments of many people. For my Bostonian studies, I am grateful to Michela Ippolito, Robert Lee, Carol Neidle, and Michael Schlang at Boston University for valuable discussion and to Danny Fox and David Pesetsky for their lessons at MIT. My gratitude also goes to Alessandra Brezzi, Anna Cardinaletti, Carlo Cecchetto, Caterina Donati, Mara Frascarelli, Carlo Geraci, Roland Pfau, Elena Pizzuto, Paolo Rossini, Ur Shlonsky, Ilona Spector, Virginia Volterra and Sandro Zucchi for their observations and comments. Much appreciation also goes to Karine Arnéodo who provided the Japanese data and to the students of Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia for their questions which always challenged and stimulated a deeper under- standing of the linguistic phenomena. Many thanks to all my informants for their patience and enthusiasm, as without them this work would have never existed: Gabriele Caia, Corrado D’Aversa, Remo and Romolo Leonori, Mauro Mottinelli, Peter Pozzoli, Fiorella Yacommidakis, Pantelis Yacommidakis. I also wish to thank the National Deaf Institutes (ENS) of Ancona, Pesaro and Rome and the SILIS group of Rome for their kind hospitality and collab- oration in collecting the LIS data. I particularly thank the LIS interpreter Marzia Branchini and the president of the National Deaf Institute of Ancona, Adalberto Nisi, who has also been my first LIS teacher. Finally, I dearly thank Carlo Geraci who has supported me during my first attempts to become familiar with the technological equipment crucial in carrying out sign language research. Contents Acknowledgements ................................................................................................v List of figures ....................................................................................................... xiii Notational conventions .......................................................................................xiv Sign language acronyms ................................................................................... xvii General Introduction .............................................................................................1 Part I: Introducing Italian Sign Language (LIS) 1 Italian Sign Language and the Italian Deaf community ...............................9 1.1 Historical background .............................................................................9 1.2 The Italian Deaf community today ......................................................10 1.3 Linguistic research on LIS ......................................................................12 2 A syntactic outline of Italian Sign Language (LIS) ......................................15 Introduction ....................................................................................................15 2.1 Modality-specific characteristics ...........................................................15 2.1.1 The internal structure of signs ...................................................15 2.1.2 The linguistic use of space and movement ...............................17 2.1.2.1 Verb agreement .............................................................19 2.1.2.2 Space and referentiality ................................................21 2.1.3 The non-manual component ....................................................22 2.2 Representing LIS syntactic structure ....................................................29 2.2.1 The CP layer .................................................................................30 2.2.1.1 Interrogative pronouns ................................................32 2.2.1.2 Relative pronouns .........................................................36 2.2.1.3 Representing the CP layer ...........................................37 viii Contents 2.2.2 The IP layer ...................................................................................38 2.2.3 The VP layer .................................................................................40 2.2.4 The Determiner Phrase (DP) .....................................................41 2.2.4.1 Identifying D heads in LIS ..........................................42 2.2.4.2 Distribution of D-like elements in the sentence .......43 2.2.4.3. Reduplication of D heads.............................................43 2.2.4.4 Naked NPs .....................................................................45 2.2.4.5 Heavy NPs .....................................................................45 2.2.4.6 Summing up LIS DP ....................................................46 2.2.5 A structure ....................................................................................46 2.3 Introducing relative and cleft constructions in LIS: the challenges ..............................................................................48 2.4. Summary ...................................................................................................49 Part II: On Relativization 3 Relativization strategies in spoken languages ...............................................53 Introduction ....................................................................................................53 3.1 Defining relativization ............................................................................53 3.2. The relative option: some constitutive elements ..................................58 3.3 Syntactic typologies across languages ...................................................61 3.3.1 Internally Headed Relative Clauses (IHRCs) ...........................62 3.3.2 Externally Headed Relative Clauses (EHRCs) .........................66 3.3.3 Free Relatives (FRs) .....................................................................72 3.3.4 Correlative clauses .......................................................................81 3.3.5 Summing up the properties displayed by the main syntactic typologies .....................................................85 3.4 Three semantic interpretations of relative clauses...............................86 Contents ix 3.4.1 Restrictive relative clauses ..........................................................87 3.4.1.1 Antecedent-related properties ....................................87 3.4.1.2 Relative pronouns and pied-piping phenomena ......90 3.4.1.3 Scope phenomena ........................................................91 3.4.1.4 Reconstruction and binding phenomena ..................93 3.4.1.5 Extraposition .................................................................96 3.4.1.6 Stacking ..........................................................................96 3.4.1.7 Other properties ...........................................................97 3.4.1.8 Summing up .................................................................97 3.4.2 Non-restrictive relative clauses ..................................................98 3.4.2.1 Head-related properties ...............................................99 3.4.2.2 Relative pronouns and pied-piping phenomena ... 101 3.4.2.3 Scope phenomena ..................................................... 102 3.4.2.4 Reconstruction and binding phenomena ...............104 3.4.2.5 Extraposition ..............................................................108 3.4.2.6 Stacking .......................................................................108 3.4.2.7 Other properties ........................................................ 109 3.4.2.8 Summing up ...............................................................111 3.4.3 Maximalizing relative clauses: Grosu and Landman’s (1998) semantic scale ............................................111 3.4.4 Summing up the syntactic properties exhibited by restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses..................115 3.5 The syntactic representation of relative constructions .................... 116 3.5.1 The raising analysis ...................................................................117 3.5.1.1 Internally headed relative clauses ............................127 3.5.1.2 Externally headed relative clauses ........................... 130 3.5.1.3 Free relatives ..............................................................132 3.5.1.4.