Body as subject

Abstract

The notion of subject in human language has a privileged status relative to other arguments. This special status is manifested in the behavior of subjects at the morphological, syntactic, semantic and discourse levels. Here we bring evidence that subjects have privileged status at the lexical level as well, by analyzing lexicalization patterns of verbs in three different sign languages. Our analysis shows that the sublexical structure of iconic signs denoting state of affairs in these languages manifests an inherent pattern of form-meaning correspondence: the signer's body consistently represents one argument of the verb, the subject. The hands, moving in relation to the body, represent all other components of the event - including all other arguments. This analysis shows that sign languages provide novel evidence in support of the centrality of the notion of subject in human language. It also solves a typological puzzle about the apparent primacy of object in sign language verb agreement, a primacy not usually found in spoken languages, in which subject agreement ranks higher. Our analysis suggests that the subject argument is represented by the body and is part of the lexical structure of the verb. Because it is always inherently represented in the structure of the sign, the subject is more basic than the object, and tolerates the omission of agreement morphology.

Indicating verbs as typologically unique constructions: Reconsidering verb ‘agreement’ in sign languages

“…In fact, Taub (2001) argues that much of the directionality of indicating verbs in ASL is iconically-motivated as it typically represents physical interactions between animate referents, or more abstract interactions represented metaphorically as if they were a physical interaction. Taub (2001) explores how each case involves different trade-offs between formational features, iconicity and metaphor (see also Meir et al 2007;. It is the different combinations of each factor, together with verb semantics, which result in cross-linguistic differences we see across sign languages.…”

A frame-based approach for capturing semantics from Arabic text for text-to-sign language MT

“…The relation between form (linguistic means) and meaning is more explicit in Sign languages than in Spoken languages (Taub 2001;Meir et al 2007). In a study of how SL signers spatially perform motion event expressions, Taub and Galvan (2001) claim that SL signers incorporated much more conceptual information into their descriptions of motion events than do English speakers.…”

“…Information about sign features are transcribed in XML format from which, we can re-use existing simple signs in order to generate new complex sequences in systematic ways. Taub (2001) and Meir et al (2007) argued that form-meaning mapping system is motivated in SLs rather than spoken languages, providing some mappings examples.…”

What sign language creation teaches us about language

“…These are referred to as 'village sign languages'. This occurred on the island of Martha's Vineyard in the 17th century 26 , in the case of Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL) in Israel [27][28][29] , and in the village sign languages of Africa 30 , India, Pakistan, and other countries. 31 For example, at its height, the proportion of deaf users of Martha's Vineyard Sign Language (relative to the total hearing population) was between 2 and 4%, and the proportion for ABSL is also approximately 4%.…”