A unified account of specificity in Catalan Sign Language (LSC)
Temas
Detalles
Sign Languages are natural languages that use the visual-spatial modality. Sign space is the three-dimensional space in front of the signer’s body, which is not only used for articulatory reasons but, more importantly, it also carries linguistic meaning (Klima and Bellugi, 1979). At the phonological level, sign space is used contrastively in the place of articulation parameter of signs. As for the morphosyntactic level, signs are modulated in space for grammatical purposes to denote person, number and the arguments of the predicate. At the discourse level, discourse referents (DRs) are associated with certain locations in space. Catalan Sign Language (LSC) makes systematic use of signs directed to the frontal plane, which extends parallel to the signer’s body.
This paper focuses on the grammatical distinction denoted by the two directions signs may take when localising DRs within the frontal plane, namely upper and lower. I argue that this relevant distinction stands for the overt marking of specificity and, unlike in spoken English or Catalan, indefinite noun phrases (NPs) in LSC are not ambiguous.
En: Norwen, R., A. Chernilovskaia & A. Aguilar-Guevara (eds.). “Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 16” (2012)