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Abstract Studies of homesigns have shed light on the human capacity for language and on the challenging problem of language acquisition. The study of homesign has evolved from a perspective grounded in gesture studies and child development to include sign language linguistics and the role of homesigns in language emergence at the community level. One overarching finding is that homesigns more closely resemble sign languages used by linguistic communities than they resemble the gestures produced by hearing people along with spoken language. Homesigns may not exhibit all of the linguistic properties of community languages, but the properties they do exhibit are language properties, and for the people who use them, homesigns are their language. Further, the linguistic structures in homesigns are innovated by the deaf people who use them and are imperfectly learned by their hearing communication partners. I close with a call to action: We cannot celebrate discoveries about the mind made possible by studies of homesigns and emerging languages while ignoring the pervasiveness of language deprivation among deaf people, and the relative lack of deaf participation in science, even in studies of sign languages. While the scientific community learns much from studying homesigns and sign languages, we also have a responsibility to work toward ensuring that every deaf person has access to language, communication, and education. 

Abstract: Common features in sign languages that have no history of contact present a puzzle. The current article brings together findings from three studies of Lengua de Señas Nicaragüense (LSN) to identify processes that underpin the inception and changes in language as it emerges. We use an apparent time approach to capture language change in three domains: pointing and deixis, nonmanual markers with Wh-questions, and spatial differentiation for locatives and arguments. By comparing the language of Nicaraguan homesigners, three successive cohorts of LSN signers, and the signing of hearing children of deaf LSN signers (Codas), we propose that language change is characterized by two complementary processes, in balance: emergence and convergence. Emergence is the constructive process by which forms arise, such as new lexical items, new patterns of word order, and new mappings between forms and functions, such as a pointing sign taking on a pronominal function (study 1). We argue that vertical transmission from a more experienced user to a less experienced learner drives emergence, often via linguistic reanalysis in which the learner assigns a different function to a form than the one used in the grammar of the experienced user. Complementing the process of emergence, convergence is the reductive process by which competing forms and structures are condensed to a smaller set to achieve parity across a group of language users, a process exemplified by the selection of the brow furrow and head tilt to accompany Wh-questions (study 2). We argue that horizontal peer interactions are key to convergence processes; the language of learners who do not experience such peer interactions, such as homesigners and Codas, shows less convergence (study 3). Taken together, these studies illustrate how the developmental characteristics of the learner intersect with the characteristics of their language (internal ecology), environments, and interactions (external ecology) to drive the processes of language change. We conclude that both vertical transmission and horizontal peer interactions are key to the emergence of new languages, enabling the mechanisms responsible for the typological similarities observed across unrelated languages. 

Two strong hypotheses bridge between typological studies of the frequency of different marking patterns and psychological studies of how these patterns are acquired. The word-order hypothesis proposes that order is a cognitively-salient cue, available to children before linguistic cues and thus appears early in language emergence. The agent-first hypothesis proposes that agents hold a privileged role in event representations and shape emerging languages. A recent study of Lengua de Señas Nicaragüense (LSN) found no preference for consistent or agent-initial word order. Instead LSN-signers used other linguistic devices. We looked at homesigners, each representing a different origin point for language emergence. We found no support for the agent-first hypothesis: most homesigners produced more patient-initial responses than agent-initial responses. We found no support for the word-order hypothesis: only one homesigner produced the same order on more than half the trials. Instead homesigners used a variety of other devices for marking participant roles. 

A key question in developmental psychology and linguistics is whether language merely expresses pre-existing concepts or provides new cognitive tools. De Villiers and colleagues suggest that abstract transitive relationships can only be reliably encoded via language, supporting this claim with evidence that infants and adults struggle with transitive role differentiation without language. This study examines adult Nicaraguan homesigners, an ideal case study because they lack conventional language but create personal communication systems. Homesigners and English-speaking five-year-olds were tested in an imitation task, revealing that both groups could accurately encode transitive relationships, with no significant differences between groups or event types. In the critical two-participant condition, performance was well above chance for both groups. These results suggest that the ability to encode and generalize transitive relationships exists independently of conventional language. 

In this article, we compare two languages that are approximately fifty years old—Central Taurus Sign Language (CTSL) and Lengua de Señas Nicaragüense (LSN)—by employing two studies. Study 1 analyzes emerging phonology , specifically the size and complexity of the handshape inventories of the two languages, and Study 2 analyzes emerging information packaging in complex predicates, specifically for agency and number. In both studies, we compare data across three groups of CTSL signers and three groups of Nicaraguan signers. The results of both studies show variation across languages and cohorts; the patterns of variation, we argue, are grounded in factors of community size, contact among signers, and the sociocultural makeup of the community, factors that are used in large typological studies on spoken languages. The main findings are as follows: (1) The patterns observed across the Nicaraguan groups display more variation than those across the CTSL groups and (2) The variation among Nicaraguan groups demonstrate that homesigns exhibit a wide range of forms that were pared down in the first decade of LSN and developed and reorganized during LSN's second decade. We suggest that a more precise and nuanced manner of describing sign language communities that considers the following is needed: (1) the degree to which the cultural practices are shared; (2) the size of the deaf community; (3) the ratio of deaf signers to hearing L2 signers; and (4) the rate that new child learners are added. We also call for more comparative work on new sign languages that will assist in determining the effects and interactions of factors of interest to researchers of signed and spoken languages. 

Language plays a large role in our lives and influences many mental processes. But does every mental process require language? This dissertation investigates how language experience influences the development of thematic roles and pragmatic knowledge, specifically looking at deaf homesigners who have limited to no exposure to spoken or signed language and innovate their own homesign language systems in order to communicate with the people around them. I address methodological questions such as Will these novel tasks work with homesigners? as well as theoretical questions such as Is language required to develop concepts of agents and patients? and Can pragmatic knowledge exist without exposure to typical discourse? I used novel tasks (i.e., referential communication pragmatics tasks and an eye tracking paradigm) in order to investigate homesigners’ pragmatic knowledge and event representation. I found that homesigners will often use pragmatic knowledge and produce necessary relevant information (e.g., modifiers with nouns, or agents and patients with actions). Regarding event representation, homesigners did not appear to use systematic conventionalized strategies (e.g., word order, use of space) to distinguish between agents and patients, although I did observe some preliminary strategies. I also did not find evidence that homesigners used nonlinguistic agent-patient concepts on the eye tracking task. The findings of this dissertation suggest that basic pragmatic knowledge may not require full access to language, but concepts of agent and patient may require more language to fully develop than previously expected. In the absence of early language exposure, lifelong communicative experience may help homesigners to develop pragmatic skills, which then might guide later linguistic structure formation.