Verbal and Signed Languages: Comparing Structures, Constructs and Methodologies / Edition 1

by Elena Pizzuto, Paola Pietrandrea, Raffaele Simone

Overview

This book is the first to explore how much of knowledge based on research on spoken languages needs to be refined in the light of the growing field of sign linguistics. Drawing upon a broad cross-linguistic perspective, the contributors focus on topics of general theoretical interest: linearity and arbitrariness principles, definition of units and levels of analysis, expression of grammatical categories, semantic relations, and cohesion mechanisms. The book is of interest to language typologists, theoretical and descriptive linguists, scholars in the fields of semiotics, anthropology, gesture studies, and cognitive sciences at large.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783110195859
Publisher:	De Gruyter
Publication date:	11/20/2007
Series:	Empirical Approaches to Language Typology [EALT] , #36
Pages:	360
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.06(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Elena Pizzuto, Paola Pietrandrea andRaffaele Simone, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Rome, Italy.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements     ix
Introduction$dThe Editors     1
Iconicity, arbitrariness, linearity and simultaneity of the signifiers
Iconicity and arbitrariness in French Sign Language: Highly iconic structures, degenerated iconicity and diagrammatic iconicity   Christian Cuxac   Marie-Anne Sallandre     13
Diagrammatic and imagic hypoicons in signed and verbal languages   Paola Pietrandrea   Tommaso Russo     35
Units and levels of analysis
Sign language phonology: Issues of iconicity and universality   Diane Brentari     59
Linguistic units in signed and verbal languages   Claire Blanche-Benveniste     81
Routes from gestures to language   Sherman Wilcox     107
Interfaces: the relation between structure and output   Annarita Puglielli   Mara Frascarelli     133
Grammatical categories and lexical semantics
The expression of grammatical categories in signed languages   Terry Janzen     171
Constructions and categories in verbal and signed languages   Raffaele Simone     199
Constructs of the mind: Cross-linguistic contrast of metaphor in spoken and signed languages   Phyllis Perrin Wilcox     251
Text cohesion devices
Deixis, anaphora and person reference in signed languages   ElenaPizzuto     275
The deep relation between deixis and anaphora   Edoardo Lombardi Vallauri     309
List of contributors     339
Index of subjects     341
Index of languages     344
Index of persons     346