期刊
LINGUISTICS AND PHILOSOPHY
卷 42, 期 1, 页码 45-108出版社
SPRINGER
DOI: 10.1007/s10988-018-9236-0
关键词
Sign language semantics; Iconicity; Plurals; Mass terms; Unpunctuated repetitions; Punctuated repetitions; Continuous repetitions
资金
- European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013)/ERC [324115-FRONTSEM]
- [ANR-10-LABX-0087 IEC]
- [ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02 PSL*]
ASL (American Sign Language) can express plurals by repeating a noun, in an unpunctuated fashion, in different parts of signing space. We argue that this construction may come with a rich (and at-issue) iconic component: the geometric arrangement of the repetitions provides information about the arrangement of the denoted plurality; in addition, the number and speed of the repetitions provide information about the size of the denoted plurality. Interestingly, the shape of the repetitions may introduce a new singular discourse referent when a vertex can be inferred to denote a singular object. Thus one may point towards the first or last iteration of a horizontal repetition of BOOK to denote the left- or right-edge of the corresponding row. This yields a remarkable interaction between iconic semantics and standard logical semantics. We show that our analysis extends to punctuated' repetitions, which involve clearly individuated iterations of a singular noun. While these may initially look like coordinated indefinites, they are better handled by the same iconic framework as plural, unpunctuated repetitions. Some repetition-based mass terms also give rise to iconic effects, and to different readings depending on whether the repetition is continuous, unpunctuated, or punctuated. Our analysis highlights the need for a formal semantics with iconicity to study the integration of such iconic and logical conditions. It also raises a question: can similar facts be found in spoken language when gestures are taken into account? We suggest that several effects can be replicated, especially when one considers examples involving pro-speech gestures' (= gestures that fully replace some spoken expressions).
作者
我是这篇论文的作者
点击您的名字以认领此论文并将其添加到您的个人资料中。
推荐
暂无数据