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Dissertation Information
| Title: | Free Functional Elements of Tense, Aspect, Modality and Agreement as Possible Auxiliaries in Greek Sign Language | Add Dissertation |
| Author: | Galini Sapountzaki | Update Dissertation |
| Email: | click here to access email | |
| Institution: | University of Bristol, Centre for Deaf Studies | |
| Completed in: | 2005 | |
| Linguistic Subfield(s): | Language Documentation; Linguistic Theories; Typology; | |
| Subject Language(s): |
Greek Sign Language
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| Language Family(ies): |
Deaf Sign Language |
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| Director(s): |
Rachel Sutton-Spence |
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| Abstract: | This study investigates whether there is a consistent category of auxiliaries for Tense, Aspect and Modality (TAM) marking or Agreement in Greek Sign Language (GSL). It deals only with unbound grammatical markers (as opposed to lexical) markers, although where it is necessary, bound morphemes of TAM are also briefly discussed. These are described and compared with their possible counterparts in other signed and spoken languages, and their characteristics are examined in the scope of cross-linguistic tendencies. From the scope of sign language linguistics, a study of free-signed elements provides additional insight into the linear (i.e. sequential) grammatical properties of GSL. Simultaneous constructions, including the polysynthetic and non-concatenative nature of signed languages have been the focus of research (Stokoe, 1978; Kyle & Woll, 1985; Wallin, 1990; Webster, 1994) and some linear linguistic features of signed languages might need further exploration. Findings from the study indicate that GSL has signs that attach to the verb, similar to auxiliaries in spoken Greek or English. Characteristics of auxiliaries such as systematic use, use across all groups of verbs, load of semantic content, as they are illustrated in classic studies on cross-linguistic tendencies (Greenberg, 1968; Steele, 1978) provide the framework needed to identify potential members of a category of auxiliaries in GSL. Findings from research in wide samples of languages test the initial claim of a closed category AUX and imply that there is a broader, open-ended category of functional TAM and agreement markers, some members of which are finally 'drawn' into a closed class of AUX, often just to move further into grammaticising as free or bound markers. Such are the semantic approaches of Bybee (1985), Bybee, Perkins & Pagliuca (1994), Dahl (1984), Heine (1994) among others; using this framework, I discuss items in GSL that are at different stages in this continuum of grammaticisation, by means of examining the degree of desemanticisation, decategorisation, phonological reduction, and possible metaphorical shifts. Besides, GSL free functional TAM and agreement markers are compared to markers of languages that belong to different families: Chinese, a language typical for the absence of functional words; Arabic, typical for its rich inflectional morphology; Modern Greek and English, languages with a long written tradition; Creole languages, young and artificial to an extent; last but not least, GSL is compared to a set of other signed languages, all show similar characteristics as to the semantic notions and processes for content words / signs that evolve into auxiliaries, or into functional TAM or Agreement markers. Indications of gestural roots of several GSL markers are examined along with processes of metaphor and force dynamics in signed and spoken languages, and metaphorical processes in GSL seem compatible to findings from language universals. In this way, some apparent idiosyncratic processes of visual languages are found to comply to cross-linguistic tendencies irrespectively of the differences in modality. Some Creole characteristics and language contact phenomena also seem to follow cross-linguistic tendencies and their outcomes are more or less as expected by the patterns of borrowing between languages in the areas of TAM and Agreement. The use made of Greek mouthings in the area of TAM and Agreement is an exceptional example of assimilated loans between a language in visual modality and another in an oral/aural modality. Perhaps the only clear indication of modality-dependent features in the evolution of auxiliaries in the study is polysynthetic, non-concatenative evolution of GSL, and possibly of other signed languages. |
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