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Article published In: Gesture
Vol. 19:1 (2020) ► pp.1–40

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“When you were that little…”

From Yucatec Maya height-specifier gestures to Yucatec Maya Sign Language person-classifier signs

 | Stockholm University
Published online: 18 May 2021
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https://doi.org/10.1075/gest.19007.saf
Abstract
In this article, I analyse how conventional height-specifier gestures used by speakers of Yucatec Maya become incorporated into Yucatec Maya Sign Languages (YMSLs). Combining video-data from elicitation, narratives, conversations and interviews collected from YMSL signers from four communities as well as from hearing nonsigners from another Yucatec Maya village, I compare form, meaning and distribution of height-specifiers in gesture and sign. Co-speech gestures that depict the height of upright entities – performed with a flat hand, palm facing downwards – come to serve various linguistic functions in YMSLs: a noun for human referents, a verb GROW, a spatial referential device, and an element of name signs. Special attention is paid to how height-specifier gestures fulfil a grammatical purpose as noun-classifiers for human referents in YMSLs. My study demonstrates processes of lexicalisation and grammaticalisation from gesture to sign and discusses the impact of gesture on the emergence of shared sign languages.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Yucatec Maya communities, YMSLs and their contribution to gesture and sign language studies
  • Gestural classifiers in Mesoamerican languages and size-and-shape specifiers in sign languages
    • Gestural classifiers and height-specifiers in Mesoamerica
    • Size-and-shape specifiers and person-classifiers in sign languages
  • Data and participants
  • Height-specifier gestures in spoken Yucatec Maya
  • Height-specifier in YMSLs
    • Descriptive/predicative use
    • Nouns for human referents
    • Verb grow
    • Loci in signing space and directional verbs
    • Person-classifiers
    • Name signs
  • Discussion
    • From Yucatec Maya gestures to YMSL signs
    • Height-specifiers as noun-classifiers
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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2024. Spatial Cognition, Modality and Language Emergence: Cognitive Representation of Space in Yucatec Maya Sign Language (Mexico). Languages 9:8 ► pp. 278 ff. DOI logo
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