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Rissman L, Horton L, Goldin-Meadow S. Universal Constraints on Linguistic Event Categories: A Cross-Cultural Study of Child Homesign. Psychol Sci 2023; 34:298-312. [PMID: 36608154 DOI: 10.1177/09567976221140328] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/09/2023] Open
Abstract
Languages carve up conceptual space in varying ways-for example, English uses the verb cut both for cutting with a knife and for cutting with scissors, but other languages use distinct verbs for these events. We asked whether, despite this variability, there are universal constraints on how languages categorize events involving tools (e.g., knife-cutting). We analyzed descriptions of tool events from two groups: (a) 43 hearing adult speakers of English, Spanish, and Chinese and (b) 10 deaf child homesigners ages 3 to 11 (each of whom has created a gestural language without input from a conventional language model) in five different countries (Guatemala, Nicaragua, United States, Taiwan, Turkey). We found alignment across these two groups-events that elicited tool-prominent language among the spoken-language users also elicited tool-prominent language among the homesigners. These results suggest ways of conceptualizing tool events that are so prominent as to constitute a universal constraint on how events are categorized in language.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lilia Rissman
- Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
| | - Laura Horton
- Language Sciences Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison
| | - Susan Goldin-Meadow
- Department of Psychology, The University of Chicago.,Center for Gesture, Sign, and Language, The University of Chicago
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Rissman L, Horton L, Flaherty M, Senghas A, Coppola M, Brentari D, Goldin-Meadow S. The communicative importance of agent-backgrounding: Evidence from homesign and Nicaraguan Sign Language. Cognition 2020; 203:104332. [PMID: 32559513 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104332] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/03/2019] [Revised: 05/11/2020] [Accepted: 05/18/2020] [Indexed: 10/24/2022]
Abstract
Some concepts are more essential for human communication than others. In this paper, we investigate whether the concept of agent-backgrounding is sufficiently important for communication that linguistic structures for encoding this concept are present in young sign languages. Agent-backgrounding constructions serve to reduce the prominence of the agent - the English passive sentence a book was knocked over is an example. Although these constructions are widely attested cross-linguistically, there is little prior research on the emergence of such devices in new languages. Here we studied how agent-backgrounding constructions emerge in Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL) and adult homesign systems. We found that NSL signers have innovated both lexical and morphological devices for expressing agent-backgrounding, indicating that conveying a flexible perspective on events has deep communicative value. At the same time, agent-backgrounding devices did not emerge at the same time as agentive devices. This result suggests that agent-backgrounding does not have the same core cognitive status as agency. The emergence of agent-backgrounding morphology appears to depend on receiving a linguistic system as input in which linguistic devices for expressing agency are already well-established.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lilia Rissman
- Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin - Madison, 1202 W. Johnson St., Madison, WI 53706, United States of America.
| | - Laura Horton
- Department of Linguistics, University of Texas at Austin, 305 E. 23rd Street, Austin, TX 78712, United States of America.
| | - Molly Flaherty
- Department of Psychology, Swarthmore College, 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, PA 19081, United States of America.
| | - Ann Senghas
- Department of Psychology, Barnard College, 3009 Broadway, New York, NY 10027, United States of America.
| | - Marie Coppola
- Department of Psychological Sciences, University of Connecticut, 406 Babbidge Road, Unit 1020, Storrs, CT 06269, United States of America; Department of Linguistics, University of Connecticut, 365 Fairfield Way, Unit 1145, Storrs, CT 06269, United States of America.
| | - Diane Brentari
- Center for Gesture, Sign, and Language, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, United States of America; Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago, 1115 E. 58th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, United States of America.
| | - Susan Goldin-Meadow
- Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, 5848 S. University Ave., Chicago, IL 60637, United States of America; Center for Gesture, Sign, and Language, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, United States of America.
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Rissman L, Goldin-Meadow S. The Development of Causal Structure without a Language Model. LANGUAGE LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT : THE OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT 2017; 13:286-299. [PMID: 28983210 PMCID: PMC5624539 DOI: 10.1080/15475441.2016.1254633] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/07/2023]
Abstract
Across a diverse range of languages, children proceed through similar stages in their production of causal language: their initial verbs lack internal causal structure, followed by a period during which they produce causative overgeneralizations, indicating knowledge of a productive causative rule. We asked in this study whether a child not exposed to structured linguistic input could create linguistic devices for encoding causation and, if so, whether the emergence of this causal language would follow a trajectory similar to the one observed for children learning language from linguistic input. We show that the child in our study did develop causation-encoding morphology, but only after initially using verbs that lacked internal causal structure. These results suggest that the ability to encode causation linguistically can emerge in the absence of a language model, and that exposure to linguistic input is not the only factor guiding children from one stage to the next in their production of causal language.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Susan Goldin-Meadow
- Department of Psychology, University of Chicago
- Center for Gesture, Sign, and Language, University of Chicago
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Abstract
Language emergence describes moments in historical time when nonlinguistic systems become linguistic. Because language can be invented de novo in the manual modality, this offers insight into the emergence of language in ways that the oral modality cannot. Here we focus on homesign, gestures developed by deaf individuals who cannot acquire spoken language and have not been exposed to sign language. We contrast homesign with (a) gestures that hearing individuals produce when they speak, as these cospeech gestures are a potential source of input to homesigners, and (b) established sign languages, as these codified systems display the linguistic structure that homesign has the potential to assume. We find that the manual modality takes on linguistic properties, even in the hands of a child not exposed to a language model. But it grows into full-blown language only with the support of a community that transmits the system to the next generation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Diane Brentari
- Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637
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Brentari D, Coppola M, Cho PW, Senghas A. Handshape complexity as a precursor to phonology: Variation, Emergence, and Acquisition. LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 2016; 24:283-306. [PMID: 33033424 PMCID: PMC7540628 DOI: 10.1080/10489223.2016.1187614] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/01/2023]
Abstract
In this paper two dimensions of handshape complexity are analyzed as potential building blocks of phonological contrast-joint complexity and finger group complexity. We ask whether sign language patterns are elaborations of those seen in the gestures produced by hearing people without speech (pantomime) or a more radical re-organization of them. Data from adults and children are analyzed to address issues of cross-linguistic variation, emergence, and acquisition. Study 1 addresses these issues in adult signers and gesturers from the United States, Italy, China, and Nicaragua. Study 2 addresses these issues in child and adult groups (signers and gesturers) from the United States, Italy, and Nicaragua. We argue that handshape undergoes a fairly radical reorganization, including loss and reorganization of iconicity and feature redistribution, as phonologization takes place in both of these dimensions. Moreover, while the patterns investigated here are not evidence of duality of patterning, we conclude that they are indeed phonological, and that they appear earlier than related morphosyntactic patterns that use the same types of handshape.
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Berent I. Commentary: "An Evaluation of Universal Grammar and the Phonological Mind"-UG Is Still a Viable Hypothesis. Front Psychol 2016; 7:1029. [PMID: 27471480 PMCID: PMC4943953 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01029] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/04/2016] [Accepted: 06/23/2016] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Everett (2016b) criticizes The Phonological Mind thesis (Berent, 2013a,b) on logical, methodological and empirical grounds. Most of Everett’s concerns are directed toward the hypothesis that the phonological grammar is constrained by universal grammatical (UG) principles. Contrary to Everett’s logical challenges, here I show that the UG hypothesis is readily falsifiable, that universality is not inconsistent with innateness (Everett’s arguments to the contrary are rooted in a basic confusion of the UG phenotype and the genotype), and that its empirical evaluation does not require a full evolutionary account of language. A detailed analysis of one case study, the syllable hierarchy, presents a specific demonstration that people have knowledge of putatively universal principles that are unattested in their language and these principles are most likely linguistic in nature. Whether Universal Grammar exists remains unknown, but Everett’s arguments hardly undermine the viability of this hypothesis.
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Affiliation(s)
- Iris Berent
- Phonology and Reading Laboratory, Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston MA, USA
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Horton L, Goldin-Meadow S, Coppola M, Senghas A, Brentari D. Forging a morphological system out of two dimensions: Agentivity and number. OPEN LINGUISTICS 2015; 1:596-613. [PMID: 26740937 PMCID: PMC4699575 DOI: 10.1515/opli-2015-0021] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
Languages have diverse strategies for marking agentivity and number. These strategies are negotiated to create combinatorial systems. We consider the emergence of these strategies by studying features of movement in a young sign language in Nicaragua (NSL). We compare two age cohorts of Nicaraguan signers (NSL1 and NSL2), adult homesigners in Nicaragua (deaf individuals creating a gestural system without linguistic input), signers of American and Italian Sign Languages (ASL and LIS), and hearing individuals asked to gesture silently. We find that all groups use movement axis and repetition to encode agentivity and number, suggesting that these properties are grounded in action experiences common to all participants. We find another feature - unpunctuated repetition - in the sign systems (ASL, LIS, NSL, Homesign) but not in silent gesture. Homesigners and NSL1 signers use the unpunctuated form, but limit its use to No-Agent contexts; NSL2 signers use the form across No-Agent and Agent contexts. A single individual can thus construct a marker for number without benefit of a linguistic community (homesign), but generalizing this form across agentive conditions requires an additional step. This step does not appear to be achieved when a linguistic community is first formed (NSL1), but requires transmission across generations of learners (NSL2).
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - M. Coppola
- University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, 06269, USA
| | - A. Senghas
- Barnard College, New York, NY, 10027, USA
| | - D. Brentari
- University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60637, USA
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Berent I, Goldin-Meadow S. Language by mouth and by hand. Front Psychol 2015; 6:78. [PMID: 25762948 PMCID: PMC4329806 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00078] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/13/2015] [Accepted: 01/14/2015] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Iris Berent
- Phonology and Reading Lab, Department of Psychology, Northeastern UniversityBoston, MA, USA
- *Correspondence:
| | - Susan Goldin-Meadow
- Goldin-Meadow Laboratory, Department of Psychology, University of ChicagoChicago, IL, USA
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Coppola M, Brentari D. From iconic handshapes to grammatical contrasts: longitudinal evidence from a child homesigner. Front Psychol 2014; 5:830. [PMID: 25191283 PMCID: PMC4139701 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00830] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/24/2014] [Accepted: 07/11/2014] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Many sign languages display crosslinguistic consistencies in the use of two iconic aspects of handshape, handshape type and finger group complexity. Handshape type is used systematically in form-meaning pairings (morphology): Handling handshapes (Handling-HSs), representing how objects are handled, tend to be used to express events with an agent ("hand-as-hand" iconicity), and Object handshapes (Object-HSs), representing an object's size/shape, are used more often to express events without an agent ("hand-as-object" iconicity). Second, in the distribution of meaningless properties of form (morphophonology), Object-HSs display higher finger group complexity than Handling-HSs. Some adult homesigners, who have not acquired a signed or spoken language and instead use a self-generated gesture system, exhibit these two properties as well. This study illuminates the development over time of both phenomena for one child homesigner, "Julio," age 7;4 (years; months) to 12;8. We elicited descriptions of events with and without agents to determine whether morphophonology and morphosyntax can develop without linguistic input during childhood, and whether these structures develop together or independently. Within the time period studied: (1) Julio used handshape type differently in his responses to vignettes with and without an agent; however, he did not exhibit the same pattern that was found previously in signers, adult homesigners, or gesturers: while he was highly likely to use a Handling-HS for events with an agent (82%), he was less likely to use an Object-HS for non-agentive events (49%); i.e., his productions were heavily biased toward Handling-HSs; (2) Julio exhibited higher finger group complexity in Object- than in Handling-HSs, as in the sign language and adult homesigner groups previously studied; and (3) these two dimensions of language developed independently, with phonological structure showing a sign language-like pattern at an earlier age than morphosyntactic structure. We conclude that iconicity alone is not sufficient to explain the development of linguistic structure in homesign systems. Linguistic input is not required for some aspects of phonological structure to emerge in childhood, and while linguistic input is not required for morphology either, it takes time to emerge in homesign.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marie Coppola
- Departments of Psychology and Linguistics, Language Creation Laboratory, University of ConnecticutStorrs, CT, USA
| | - Diane Brentari
- Department of Linguistics, Sign Language Laboratory, University of ChicagoChicago, IL, USA
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