What the frequency list can teach us about Turkish sign language?

Abstract

Abstract Recent studies on linguistics, cognitive science and psychology have shown that describing lexical frequency characteristics can answer many critical questions on language acquisition, mental lexicon and language use. Given the importance of corpus-based methodology, this study reports the preliminary findings from the objective lexical frequency list in TİD based on 103.087 sign tokens. This paper shows that frequency occurrence has a very decisive role on the linguistics categories and language in use. With respect to the multi-functionality of pointing in signed languages, the top ranked ID-gloss occurrences are mostly shaped by the pronominal references. Moreover, when compared to previous studies in terms of lexical density and lexical diversity, TİD shares both similar and different statistical features observed in other signed languages.