The noun–verb distinction has long been considered a fundamental property of human language, and has been found in some form even in the earliest stages of language emergence, including homesign and the early generations of emerging sign languages. We present two experimental studies that use silent gesture to investigate how noun–verb distinctions develop in the manual modality through two key processes: (i) improvising using novel signals by individuals, and (ii) using those signals in the interaction between communicators. We operationalise communicative interaction in two ways: a setting in which members of the dyad were in separate booths and were given a comprehension test after each stimulus vs. a more naturalistic face-to-face conversation without comprehension checks. There were few differences between the two conditions, highlighting the robustness of the paradigm. Our findings from both experiments reflect patterns found in naturally emerging sign languages. Some formal distinctions arise in the earliest stages of improvisation and do not require interaction to develop. However, the full range of formal distinctions between nouns and verbs found in naturally emerging language did not appear with either improvisation or interaction, suggesting that transmitting the language to a new generation of learners might be necessary for these properties to emerge.
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PARSING PARTICLES IN WA’IKHANA
This article analyzes the use of several response particles in face-to-face interaction in Wa’ikhana, an East Tukano language of northwestern Amazonia. Adopting a Conversation Analysis approach, we explore details of each particle, considering their prosodic shapes, the action contexts in which they occur, and their sequential positioning, all crucial to understanding their meanings in interaction. Our analysis shows that Wa’ikhana response particles exhibit both universal and language-particular properties, thus demonstrating the contributions of data from lesser-studied languages to research on language in social interaction, and the value of an interactional approach in the study of under-described, and often endangered, indigenous languages.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1664348
- PAR ID:
- 10315984
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Revista LinguiStica
- Volume:
- 16
- ISSN:
- 2238-975X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.31513/linguistica.2020.v16nEsp.a43715
