{"title":"Aspectual reduplication in Sign Language of the Netherlands: reconsidering phonological constraints and aspectual distinctions","authors":"C. van Boven","doi":"10.1515/ling-2022-0076","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This study investigates the use of predicate reduplication to express aspectual meaning in Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT). The study focuses on three aspect types that have been found to be encoded by reduplication across sign languages – habitual, continuative, and iterative – and addresses potential phonological restrictions. Naturalistic corpus data and data elicited from six deaf NGT signers were taken into account. The results suggest that (i) predicate reduplication can express all three aspect types, but it is optional; (ii) reduplication expressing habitual and continuative aspect appears to be phonologically constrained; and (iii) such phonological constraints do not apply to iterative reduplication, whose form is different from the other two aspects, in that the reduplication cycles are separated by pauses. Since there is no formal difference between habituals and continuatives in the data, it is suggested that this semantic distinction may not be grammaticalized in the language, and that, possibly, the inflectional system of NGT instead more broadly distinguishes imperfective/perfective viewpoint. While this latter suggestion is in line with findings reported for many spoken languages, the results are different from what has previously been described for NGT as well as for other sign languages. Potential explanations for these differences can be found in both methodological and sociolinguistic factors.","PeriodicalId":47548,"journal":{"name":"Linguistics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Linguistics","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2022-0076","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"N/A","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract This study investigates the use of predicate reduplication to express aspectual meaning in Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT). The study focuses on three aspect types that have been found to be encoded by reduplication across sign languages – habitual, continuative, and iterative – and addresses potential phonological restrictions. Naturalistic corpus data and data elicited from six deaf NGT signers were taken into account. The results suggest that (i) predicate reduplication can express all three aspect types, but it is optional; (ii) reduplication expressing habitual and continuative aspect appears to be phonologically constrained; and (iii) such phonological constraints do not apply to iterative reduplication, whose form is different from the other two aspects, in that the reduplication cycles are separated by pauses. Since there is no formal difference between habituals and continuatives in the data, it is suggested that this semantic distinction may not be grammaticalized in the language, and that, possibly, the inflectional system of NGT instead more broadly distinguishes imperfective/perfective viewpoint. While this latter suggestion is in line with findings reported for many spoken languages, the results are different from what has previously been described for NGT as well as for other sign languages. Potential explanations for these differences can be found in both methodological and sociolinguistic factors.
期刊介绍:
Linguistics publishes articles in the traditional subdisciplines of linguistics as well as in neighboring disciplines insofar as these are deemed to be of interest to linguists and other students of natural language. This includes grammar, both functional and formal, with a focus on morphology, syntax, and semantics, pragmatics and discourse, phonetics and phonology, psycholinguistics, and sociolinguistics. The focus may be on one or several languages, but studies with a wide crosslinguistic (typological) coverage are also welcome. The perspective may be synchronic or diachronic. Linguistics also publishes up to two special issues a year in these areas, for which it welcomes proposals.