WH-questions in American Sign Language: Contributions of non-manual marking to structure and meaning

Katharine L Watson, Purdue University

Abstract

Non-Manual Marking (NMM; also, non-manuals) in American Sign Language (ASL) are comprised of non-affective facial expressions, head positions, and body positions that provide crucial grammatical context to the manual signs. Without NMM, the signs themselves can only rarely create a comprehensible construction in ASL. In ASL, Brow Lowering is crucial for creating WH- questions. Other WH- non-manuals in ASL include Head Shake, head position (such as Head Down), and body position (such as Lean Forward). While the different types of individual NMM that comprise the ‘wh’ bundle have not been studied extensively, the semantic, syntactic, and prosodic roles of these non-manuals are crucial for determining the structure and interpretation of different ASL constructions, as well as for resolving theoretical disputes. The motivation behind this thesis is to contribute to the theoretical debate between rightward (Neidle et al., 2000) and leftward (Petronio & Lillo-Martin, 1997) movement of WH- questions in ASL. I analyzed different WH- questions, including in-situ, doubled, and moved WH- constructions, in order to unpack, in detail, the types of non-manuals, spread, and intensity of the NMM. The results of the corpus analysis for this thesis showed that Brow Lowering is the primary NMM for marking WH- questions, which is in keeping with the ASL literature. The other non-manuals that occurred with WH- signs for in-situ and postposed constructions showed scope expected from the literature, however the in-situ and post-posed constructions’ intensity patterns and the doubled constructions’ scope and intensity patterns were unexpected. The analysis showed that the intensity of NMM not only marks the syntactic node of the WH- sign, but also corresponds to the semantic prominence of the sign as well as its location in the intonational phrase. The results also show that specific head positions – Head Up and Head Down – may have semantic as well as syntactic roles. From the data, Head Down seems to indicate a definite semantic reading, while Head Up may indicate an indefinite semantic reading. In the cases where the WH- syntax, which frequently uses Head Down, competes with an indefinite semantic reading, which may require Head Up, the syntax seems to be preserved through Brow Lowering while Head Down is exchanged for Head Up in keeping with the appropriate semantic interpretation.

Degree

M.A.

Advisors

Wilbur, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Linguistics

COinS