There once was a verb

Abstract

Overview of the dissertationThis dissertation comprises two extensive case studies in the morpho-syntactic structure and semantic interpretation of possessive (1) and nominalization (2) constructions in American Sign Language (ASL) using fieldwork data collected with native, deaf signers.(1) [ i bruno poss i book ] arrive ' A book of Bruno's arrived. ' y/n (2) ix 2 finish hear about [ vote-for. Nmz-Red ] 'Did you hear about the election?'In human language, possessives are tasked with encoding the relation between the possessor and possessee while nominalizations have the potential to import verbal predication structure to the nominal domain. Thus, the investigation of these topics in ASL broadens our typological and theoretical understanding of how relational meaning is established in nominal structures. Moreover, given the proposed verbal classification of poss (Study #1) and the morpho-semantic decomposition necessitated by nominalization patterns in the language (Study #2), the analyses developed also advance greatly our knowledge of verbal structure across languages, signed and spoken.

Language Emergence

“…Many well-established sign languages use loci in space, and movement toward and away from these loci, to indicate shared reference or coreference (Padden 1988, Meir 2002, Liddell 2003, Abner 2012, Flaherty 2014, Schlenker 2015; J. Fenlon, A. Schembri & K. Cormier, manuscript under review). These spatial modulations, as they are known, are used to situate arguments in signing space; the marked spaces can then be indicated later to refer back to the arguments.…”

What You See Is What You Get.Get: Surface Transparency and Ambiguity of Nominalizing Reduplication in American Sign Language

“…nmlz ‐ red ‘acceptance’ in figure , whereas repeating an outward rotation of the wrist to produce the derived nominal announce . nmlz ‐ red ‘announcement’ constitutes an instance of reduplicated palm orientation change (see Abner for an inventory of result‐ and concrete object‐denoting derived nominals classified by component reduplicated). Thus, the pattern of phonologically predictable allomorphy attested in the class of concrete object‐denoting nominals is exactly that attested in the class of result‐denoting nominals.…”

“…The repeated diagonal movement of DEVELOP.NMLZ-RED 'development' in figure 1 and the repeated downward movement of VOTE.NMLZ-RED 'election' (or 'ballot', as discussed in section 2.2.3) in figure 4 exemplify reduplicated movement within the class of resultdenoting nominals. Reduplicated aperture change is evident in the repeated handshape closure of ACCEPT.NMLZ-RED 'acceptance' in figure 7, whereas repeating an outward rotation of the wrist to produce the derived nominal ANNOUNCE.NMLZ-RED 'announcement' constitutes an instance of reduplicated palm orientation change (see Abner 2012 for an inventory of result-and concrete object-denoting derived nominals classified by component reduplicated). Thus, the pattern of phonologically predictable allomorphy attested in the class of concrete object-denoting nominals is exactly that attested in the class of result-denoting nominals.…”

“… An additional locus of variation not heretofore mentioned is the use of nominalizing reduplication to form nominals referring to individuals that typically perform the activity associated with the verb. (i)a. advise.nmlz‐red ‘adviser’b. move‐in‐air‐by‐plane.nmlz‐red ‘pilot’c. measure.nmlz‐red ‘engineer’ As discussed in Abner , these forms alternate with a structure in which an overt sign person follows the reduplicated noun and the availability of the “bare” option in (i) is subject to intersigner variation. (ii)a. advise .…”

Gettin’ together a posse

“…In Sections 4 and 5, these reflect quantificational and interpretive properties of the ASL structures. Discussion of these and other conventions can be found in Abner (2012), which also provides details of poss structures that lie outside the scope of the present research and analyses of other attributive possessive structures in ASL. For a comprehensive typological discussion of possessive constructions in ASL, the reader is referred to Chen Pichler & Hochgesang (2008).…”