Lexical nonmanuals in German Sign Language (DGS)

Pendzich, Nina-Kristin

doi:10.1075/sll.00015.pen

Cited by 39 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Starting with phonology, non-manual markers can be lexically specified representing an inherent phonological feature of an individual sign (cf. Coerts, 1992 ; Brentari, 1998 ; Woll, 2001 ; Liddell, 2003 ; Pfau and Quer, 2010 ; Pendzich, 2016 ). The sign recently in DGS is, for instance, produced with a slightly protruded tip of the tongue (cf.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Production and Comprehension of Prosodic Markers in Sign Language Imperatives

et al. 2018

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In signed and spoken language sentences, imperative mood and the corresponding speech acts such as for instance, command, permission or advice, can be distinguished by morphosyntactic structures, but also solely by prosodic cues, which are the focus of this paper. These cues can express paralinguistic mental states or grammatical meaning, and we show that in American Sign Language (ASL), they also exhibit the function, scope, and alignment of prosodic, linguistic elements of sign languages. The production and comprehension of prosodic facial expressions and temporal patterns therefore can shed light on how cues are grammaticalized in sign languages. They can also be informative about the formal semantic and pragmatic properties of imperative types not only in ASL, but also more broadly. This paper includes three studies: one of production (Study 1) and two of comprehension (Studies 2 and 3). In Study 1, six prosodic cues are analyzed in production: temporal cues of sign and hold duration, and non-manual cues including tilts of the head, head nods, widening of the eyes, and presence of mouthings. Results of Study 1 show that neutral sentences and commands are well distinguished from each other and from other imperative speech acts via these prosodic cues alone; there is more limited differentiation among explanation, permission, and advice. The comprehension of these five speech acts is investigated in Deaf ASL signers in Study 2, and in three additional groups in Study 3: Deaf signers of German Sign Language (DGS), hearing non-signers from the United States, and hearing non-signers from Germany. Results of Studies 2 and 3 show that the ASL group performs significantly better than the other 3 groups and that all groups perform above chance for all meaning types in comprehension. Language-specific knowledge, therefore, has a significant effect on identifying imperatives based on targeted cues. Command has the most cues associated with it and is the most accurately identified imperative type across groups—indicating, we suggest, its special status as the strongest imperative in terms of addressing the speaker's goals. Our findings support the view that the cues are accessible in their content across groups, but that their language-particular combinatorial possibilities and distribution within sentences provide an advantage to ASL signers in comprehension and attest to their prosodic status.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Production and Comprehension of Prosodic Markers in Sign Language Imperatives

et al. 2018

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“…5). There are many instances where this specific mouth gesture did not have any other lexical or morphological function (see Pendzich (2020) for lexical non-manual markers in DGS). It is interesting to examine the relationship between the chin raiser and the conditional meaning of sentences.…”

Section: Chin Raisermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The AUs for body movements are a supplement to the Facial Action Coding System proposed inPendzich (2020).…”

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confidence: 99%

How do signers mark conditionals in German Sign Language? Insights from a Sentence Reproduction Task on the use of nonmanual and manual markers

Pendzich

Cramer

Finkbeiner

et al. 2022

Hrvat. rev. rehabil. istraž. (Online)

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This paper presents the results of a Sentence Reproduction Task (SRT) investigating conditional sentences in German Sign Language (DGS). We found that participants mark conditional sentences in DGS by systematically using different non-manual markers on the antecedent and the consequent. In addition, these non-manual markers were frequently used in combination with one or two manual signs. However, the manual markers were omitted in the test sentences, i.e., the input stimuli the participants were asked to reproduce. The results of our experimental study are, on the one hand, consistent with descriptions of manual and non-manual strategies used to mark conditional sentences in different unrelated sign languages. On the other hand, our findings provide new insights on the multi-layered marking of conditional sentences in DGS.

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The Oxford Handbook of Grammatical Number

2021

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This volume offers an overview of current research on grammatical number in language. The chapters Part i of the handbook present foundational notions in the study of grammatical number covering the semantic analyses of plurality, the mass–count distinction, the relationship between number and quantity expressions and the mental representation of number and individuation. The core instance of grammatical number is marking for number distinctions in nominal expressions as in English the book/the books and the chapters in Part ii, Number in the nominal domain, explore morphological, semantic, and syntactic aspects of number marking within noun phrases. The contributions examine morphological marking of number the relationship between syntax and nominal number marking, and the interactions between numeral classifiers with semantic number and number marking. They also address cases of mismatches in form and meaning with respect to number displayed by lexical plurals and collective nouns. The final chapter reviews nominal number processing from the perspective of language pathologies. While number marking on nouns has been the focus of most research on number, number distinctions can also be found in the event domain. Part iii, Number in the event domain, presents an overview of different linguistic means of expressing plurality in the event domain, covering verbal plurality marking, pluractional modifiers of the form Noun preposition Noun, frequency adjectives and dependent indefinites. Part iv provides fifteen case studies examining different aspects of grammatical number marking in a range of typologically diverse languages.

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Lexical nonmanuals in German Sign Language (DGS)

Cited by 39 publications

References 3 publications

Production and Comprehension of Prosodic Markers in Sign Language Imperatives

Production and Comprehension of Prosodic Markers in Sign Language Imperatives

How do signers mark conditionals in German Sign Language? Insights from a Sentence Reproduction Task on the use of nonmanual and manual markers

The Oxford Handbook of Grammatical Number

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