Cover not available

Article published In: Special Issue in Memory of Irit Meir
Edited by Diane Lillo-Martin, Wendy Sandler, Marie Coppola and Rose Stamp
[Sign Language & Linguistics 23:1/2] 2020
► pp. 142–170

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

From a demonstrative to a relative clause marker

Grammaticalization of pointing signs in Israeli Sign Language

 | University of Haifa
Published online: 30 October 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sll.00047.dac
Abstract
Demonstratives provide an important link between gesture, discourse and grammar due to their communicative function to coordinate the interlocutor’s focus of attention. This underlies their frequent cross-linguistic development into a wide range of function words and morphemes (Diessel, Holger. 1999. Demonstratives: Form, function and grammaticalization. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). The present study provides evidence for a link between gesture and grammar by tracking diachronic development of a relative clause marker in Israeli Sign Language (ISL) restrictive relative clauses, which starts as a gestural locative pointing sign, and grammaticalizes into a relative pronoun connecting relative and main clauses and agreeing with referent loci, and then into an invariant relativizer. Diachronic changes are inferred from the data collected from three generations of signers. The results reveal that the behavior of demonstratives in the data varied with the signers’ ages according to four diagnostic criteria of grammaticalization (e.g., Hopper, Paul J. & Elizabeth Closs Traugott. 2003. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar): increased systematicity, distributional and morphological changes, and phonetic reduction.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Demonstratives in language and communication
    • 2.1Defining properties of demonstratives
    • 2.2Demonstratives and non-verbal communication
    • 2.3Demonstratives, the emergence of grammar and grammaticalization
  • 3.Grammaticalization of demonstratives in sign languages
    • 3.1Grammatical functions of pointing in sign languages
    • 3.2The role of non-manual signals and pointing in sign language relative clauses
    • 3.3Diachronic development of pointing in sign languages
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1The community and participants
    • 4.2Elicitation task
    • 4.3Coding and analysis
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Frequency
    • 5.2Distribution
    • 5.3Changes in spatial modification
    • 5.4Cues of phonetic reduction
  • 6.Discussion: Grammaticalization stages of the manual marker of ISL subject-subject restrictive relative clauses
    • 6.1Stage 1 – locative demonstratives
    • 6.2Stage 2 – adnominal demonstratives
    • 6.3Stage 3 – demonstratives as relative pronouns
    • 6.4Stage 4 – demonstratives as relativizers
  • 7.Conclusions: contribution and limitations of the study
  • Notes
  • References
References (72)
References
Aarons, Debra. 1996. Topics and topicalization in American sign language. Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics 301. 65–106.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bahan, Benjamin, Judy Kegl, Dawn MacLaughlin & Carol Neidle. 1995. Convergent evidence for the structure of determiner phrases in American Sign Language. In Leslie Gabriele, Debra Hardison & Robert Hoffmeister (Eds.), FLSM VI: Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Formal Linguistics Society of Mid-America: Vol. 2: Syntax II & Semantics/Pragmatics, 1–12. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bellugi, Ursula & Edward Klima. 1982. From gesture to sign: Deixis in a visuo-gestural language. In Robert Jarvella & Wolfgang Klein (Eds.), Speech, place, and action: studies in deixis and related topics, 279–313. Chichester, NY: Wiley.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Branchini, Chiara. 2007. Relatives and related constructions in LIS. Urbino: Università di Urbino PhD dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. On relativization and clefting: an analysis of Italian Sign Language. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Branchini, Chiara & Caterina Donati. 2009. Italian Sign Language relatives: a contribution to the typology of relativization strategies. In Anikó Liptak (Ed.), Correlatives: theory and typology, 157–191. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brunelli, Michele. 2011. Antisymmetry and sign languages: a comparison between NGT and LIS. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam PhD dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brugmann, Karl. 1904. Demonstrativpronomina der Indogermanischen Sprachen. Leipzig: Teubner.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bühler, Karl. 1934. Sprachtheorie (Vol. 21). Jena: Fischer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Butterworth, George Esmond. 1998. What is special about pointing in babies? In Francesca Simion & George Esmond Butterworth (Eds.), The development of sensory, motor and cognitive capacities in early infancy. From perception to cognition, 171–190. Hove: Psychology Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cecchetto, Carlo, Carlo Geraci & Alessandro Zucchi. 2006. Strategies of relativization in Italian Sign Language. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 24(4). 945–975. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cecchetto, Carlo & Caterina Donati. 2016. Relativization in Italian Sign Language: the missing link of relativization. In Roland Pfau, Markus Steinbach & Annika Herrmann (Eds.), A matter of complexity: Subordination in sign languages, 182–203. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, Eve. 1978. From gesture to word: On the natural history of deixis in language acquisition. In Jerome Bruner & Alison Garton (Eds.), Human growth and development, 85–120. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coppola, Marie. 2002. The emergence of the grammatical category of Subject in home sign: Evidence from family-based gesture systems in Nicaragua. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester PhD dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coppola, Marie & Ann Senghas. 2010. Deixis in an emerging sign language. In Diane Brentari (Ed.), Sign languages: A Cambridge language survey, 543–569. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coppola, Marie & Wing Chee So. 2006. The seeds of spatial grammar: Spatial modulation and coreference in homesigning and hearing adults. Proceedings of the 30th Annual Boston Conference on Language Development 301, 119–130.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crasborn, Onno & Han Sloetjes. 2008. Enhanced ELAN functionality for sign language corpora. Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Construction and Exploitation of Sign Language Corpora, 39–43. Paris: ELRA.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dachkovsky, Svetlana. 2016. The development of a RC marker from a deictic gesture in Israeli Sign Language. Talk presented at the Workshop Sign Language Agreement Revisited: New Theoretical and Experimental Perspectives, University of Konstanz, February, 24–26Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. Grammaticalization of intonation in Israeli Sign Language: From information structure to relative clause relations. Haifa: University of Haifa PhD dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dachkovsky, Svetlana, Christina Healy & Wendy Sandler. 2013. Visual intonation in two sign languages. Phonology 30(2). 211–252. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dachkovsky, Svetlana & Wendy Sandler. 2009. Visual intonation in the prosody of a sign language. Language and Speech 52(2–3). 287–314. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. Distance contrasts in demonstratives.‏ In Martin Haspelmath, Matthew S. Dryer, David Gil & Bernard Comrie (Eds.), The world atlas of language structures, 170–173. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. Demonstratives, joint attention, and the emergence of grammar. Cognitive Linguistics 17(4), 463–489. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. Deixis and demonstratives. An international handbook of natural language meaning. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. Where does language come from? Some reflections on the role of deictic gesture and demonstratives in the evolution of language. Language and Cognition 5(2–3). 239–249. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eckardt, Regine. 2006. Meaning change in grammaticalization: an enquiry into semantic reanalysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Emmorey, Karen. 2002. Language, cognition, and the brain: Insights from sign language research. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Engberg-Pedersen, Elizabeth. 1993. Space in Danish Sign Language: The semantics and morphosyntax of the use of space in a visual language. Hamburg: Signum Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fischer, Olga, Ans van Kemenade, Willem Koopman & Wim van der Wurff. 2000. The syntax of Early English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fusellier-Souza, Ivani. 2006. Emergence and development of signed languages: From a semiogenetic point of view. Sign Language Studies 7(1). 30–56. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. & Elizabeth Closs Traugott. 2003. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Iverson, Jana M. & Susan Goldin-Meadow. 2005. Gesture paves the way for language development. Psychological Science 16(5). 367–371. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kendon, Adam. 2004. Gesture: Visible action as utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kita, Sotaro. 2003. Pointing. A foundational building block of human communication. In Sotaro Kita (Ed.), Pointing: Where language, culture, and cognition meeet, 1–8. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kita, Sotaro & Aslı Özyürek. 2003. What does cross-linguistic variation in semantic coordination of speech and gesture reveal?: Evidence for an interface representation of spatial thinking and speaking. Journal of Memory and Language 48(1). 16–32. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kubus, Okan. 2014. Relative clause constructions in Turkish Sign Language. Hamburg: University of Hamburg PhD dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1963. The social motivation of a sound change. Word 19(3). 273–309. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lehmann, Christian. 1985. Grammaticalization: Synchronic variation and diachronic change. Lingua e stile 20(3). 303–318.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. Information structure and grammaticalization. In Elena Seoane & María José López-Couso (Eds.), Theoretical and empirical issues in grammaticalization, 207–229. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen. 2004. Deixis. In Laurence Horn & Gregory Ward (Eds.), The handbook of pragmatics, 97–121. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liddell, Scott K. 1978. Non-manual signals and relative clauses in American Sign Language. In Patricia Siple (Ed.), Understanding language through sign language research, 59–90. New York: Academic.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1980. American Sign Language syntax. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1996. Spatial representations in discourse: Comparing spoken and signed language. Lingua 98(1). 145–167. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2003. Grammar, gesture and meaning in American Sign Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lillo-Martin, Diane & Edward Klima. 1990. Pointing out differences: ASL pronouns in syntactic theory. In Susan D. Fischer & Patricia Siple (Eds.), Theoretical issues in sign language research, 191–210. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liszkowski, Ulf, Malinda Carpenter, Ann Henning, Tricia Striano & Michael Tomasello. 2004. Twelve-month-olds point to share attention and interest. Developmental Science 7(3). 297–307. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McBurney, Susan Lloyd. 2002. Pronominal reference in signed and spoken language. In Richard P. Meier, Kearsy Cormier & David Quinto-Pozos (Eds.), Modality and structure in signed and spoken languages, 329–369. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McNeill, David. 1992. Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meier, Richard P. 1990. Person deixis in American Sign Language. In Susan D. Fischer & Patricia Siple (Eds.), Theoretical issues in sign language research, 175–190. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2002. The acquisition of verb agreement: pointing out arguments for the linguistic status of agreement in sign languages. In Gary Morgan & Bencie Woll (Eds.), Current developments in the study of signed language acquisition, 115–141. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. Grammaticalization is not the full story: a non-grammaticalization account of the emergence of sign language agreement morphemes. In Mediterranean Morphology Meeting 101. 112–124.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meir, Irit, Carol A. Padden, Mark Aronoff & Wendy Sandler. 2007. Body as subject. Journal of Linguistics 43(3). 531–563. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meir, Irit & Wendy Sandler. 2008. A language in space: The story of Israeli Sign Language. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nespor, Marina & Wendy Sandler. 1999. Prosody in Israeli Sign Language. Language and Speech 42(2–3). 143–176. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Padden, Carol. 1988. Interaction of morphology and syntax in American Sign Language. New York: Garland Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pfau, Roland & Markus Steinbach. 2005. Relative clauses in German Sign Language: Extraposition and reconstruction. In Leah Bateman & Cherlon Ussery (Eds.), Proceedings of the North East Linguistic Society (NELS 35), Vol. 21, 507–521. Amherst, MA: GLSA.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. Modality-independent and modality-specific aspects of grammaticalization in sign languages (Linguistics in Potsdam 24). Potsdam: Universitäts-Verlag. Available at [URL]
Sandler, Wendy. 1999. Cliticization and prosodic words in a sign language. In Traci Hall & Ursula Kleinhenz (Eds.), Studies on the phonological word, 223–255. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sandler, Wendy & Diane Lillo-Martin. 2006. Sign language and linguistic universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sankoff, Gillian & Penelope Brown. 1976. The origins of syntax in discourse: A case study of Tok Pisin relatives. Language 52(3). 631–666. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sheldon, Amy. 1974. The role of parallel function in the acquisition of relative clauses in English. Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior 13(3). 272–281. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shepard-Kegl, Judy. 1985. Locative relations in ASL word formation, syntax, and discourse. Cambridge, MA: MIT PhD dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Supalla, Ted. 1982. Structure and acquisition of verbs of motion and location in American Sign Language. San Diego, CA: University of California PhD dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tang, Gladys, Prudence Lau & Jafi Lee. 2010. Strategies for relativization in HKSL. Paper presented at Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research (TISLR 10), Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN.
Tomasello, Michael. 1999. The cultural origins of human cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C. 1992. Syntax. In Richard Hogg (Ed.), The Cambridge history of the English language, vol I1, 168–229. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilbur, Ronnie. 2017. Internally-headed relative clauses in sign languages. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 2(1): 251. 1–34. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zimmer, June & Cynthia G. Patschke. 1990. A class of determiners in ASL. In Ceil Lucas (Ed.), Sign language research: Theoretical issues, 201–210. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zukowski, Andrea. 2009. Elicited production of relative clauses in children with Williams syndrome. Language and Cognitive Processes 24(1). 1–43. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Tankersley, Devin, Bettie T. Petersen & Jill P. Morford
2025. Intersubjective modulation of exophoric demonstratives in ASL. Sign Language & Linguistics DOI logo
Dachkovsky, Svetlana
2022. Emergence of a subordinate construction in a sign language: Intonation ploughs the field for morphosyntax. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 7:1 DOI logo
Lutzenberger, Hannah, Roland Pfau & Connie de Vos
2022. Emergence or Grammaticalization? The Case of Negation in Kata Kolok. Languages 7:1 ► pp. 23 ff. DOI logo
McWhorter, John
2022. Spoken and Sign Language Emergence: A Comparison. Languages 7:3 ► pp. 184 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue