Aspects of the syntax of American Sign Language
Temas
Detalles
This dissertation offers an analysis of the syntactic structure of American Sign Language, within the context of X'-theory. The internal structure of the sentence is examined. Despite the difference in modality between signed and spoken languages, one important consequence of this analysis is the conclusion that the basic syntactic structure of American Sign Language conforms to the same fundamental pattern as other natural languages that have been more thoroughly studied by syntacticians. The first chapter provides background information about the context for linguistic research on American Sign Language, and the methodology involved in the elicitation of native judgments. Chapter 2 discusses previous linguistic research relevant to word order, non-manual marking, wh-questions, and topic constructions in ASL.