Sign languages: recent theoretical and methodological insights

Many - perhaps all - sign languages seem to make use of an information structural strategy of using a question and its answer in a single clause, similar in some ways to spoken language pseudoclefts but, unlike pseudoclefts and more like conditionals, including polar questions as well. We'll look at what the use of polar questions in Question-Answer Clauses in sign languages says about scope and information structure more generally.

--

Based on Gonzalez et al 2019, and Davidson and Caponigro 2011

Depiction accompanying spoken and written language can frequently be ignored when it comes to compositional semantics, but sign languages illustrate the tight connection, as well as important differences, between depictive and symbolic content. In particular, when it comes to reasoning over alternatives, as in negation and forming questions, we see depiction pulling apart from symbolic language in a way that speaks to theories of the connection between language and thought.

--

Based on Davidson 2024 (forthcoming in the CUP Elements in Semantics)

We identify several polar question forms in Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT) through a production experiment in which we manipulate two types of biases: (i) the prior expectations of the person asking the question, and (ii) the evidence available in the immediate context of utterance.

Based on Oomen and Roelofsen 2023 and recent further analysis.

  

This talk explores new methods for measuring, analyzing, and visualizing facial expressions and demonstrate the utility of these methods in a case study on polar questions in Sign Language of the Netherlands.

Based on Esselink et al 2023 and recent further developments.