The emergence of phonology within six generations

Project Details

Description

It has been one of the great linguistic discoveries of the past century that sign languages parallel spoken languages on all relevant levels of linguistic analysis, including sublexical structure at the phonological level. However, while spoken languages predate several millennia, sign languages generally go back only a few centuries and, in a handful of cases, a few generations. By comparing snapshots of the later type of emergent signing variety across generations, linguists study the emergence of human languages and the evolutionary mechanisms that shape them. Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL; Israel) is an emergent signing variety which has been used as a fully-functional language by three generations of signers. Nevertheless, ABSL exhibits only incipient levels of phonology, i.e. the formation of meaning from combinations of abstract formal parameters such as handshape, place of articulation and movement. This is surprising especially since phonology had been attested in older sign languages such as American Sign Language. What are the social and linguistic pressures for a sign language to develop arbitrary form-meaning mappings? To address this question we will document the phonology of Kata Kolok, an emergent signing variety of Bali for which data exists from the third through sixth generation of signers. These findings will allow us to construct computer models that determine the influence of social and linguistic factors in the emergence of phonology.
AcronymFWOAL852
StatusFinished
Effective start/end date1/01/1731/12/20

Keywords

  • phonology

Flemish discipline codes in use since 2023

  • Systems theory, modelling and identification

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