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On the way to language: event segmentation in homesign and gesture*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 March 2014

ASLI ÖZYÜREK ,
REYHAN FURMAN  and
SUSAN GOLDIN-MEADOW
ASLI ÖZYÜREK*
Affiliation:
Radboud University Nijmegen and Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, the Netherlands
REYHAN FURMAN
Affiliation:
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
SUSAN GOLDIN-MEADOW
Affiliation:
University of Chicago, USA
*
Address for correspondence: Asli Özyürek, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Wundtlaan 1, 6525JT, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. e-mail: asliozu@mpi.nl
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Abstract

Languages typically express semantic components of motion events such as manner (roll) and path (down) in separate lexical items. We explore how these combinatorial possibilities of language arise by focusing on (i) gestures produced by deaf children who lack access to input from a conventional language (homesign); (ii) gestures produced by hearing adults and children while speaking; and (iii) gestures used by hearing adults without speech when asked to do so in elicited descriptions of motion events with simultaneous manner and path. Homesigners tended to conflate manner and path in one gesture, but also used a mixed form, adding a manner and/or path gesture to the conflated form sequentially. Hearing speakers, with or without speech, used the conflated form, gestured manner, or path, but rarely used the mixed form. Mixed form may serve as an intermediate structure on the way to the discrete and sequenced forms found in natural languages.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 42 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 64 - 94
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

[*]

This research was supported by an ERC Starting Grant given to the first author and R01DC00491 from NICHD to the last author. We would like to thank Koc University in Istanbul, Turkey, for logistic support during the project and all the deaf and hearing participants in their cooperation and for welcoming us into their homes. We would also like to thank Professor Shanley Allen and Professor Sotaro Kita for sharing the stimulus materials, the creation of which was supported by an NSF Grant awarded to them and to the first author. Finally, we are grateful to Carolyn Mylander, Tilbe Goksun, Engin Arik, Beyza Sumer, and Burcu Sancar for helping in data collection and coding.

References

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