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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. 208–232

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Measuring lexical and structural conventionalization in young sign languages

 | University of British Columbia
 | University of British Columbia
Published online: 30 October 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sll.00049.tka
Abstract
Compounding, as a nearly universal word-formation process that is very useful in emerging languages, might be expected to conventionalize early in a language’s history. However, a recent study focusing on novel compounding in ISL and ABSL found that this may not be the case, and moreover, that the two languages appear to differ in how compounding is conventionalizing (Tkachman, Oksana & Irit Meir. 2018. Novel compounding and the emergence of structure in two young sign languages. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 3(1). 136. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). In this paper, we follow up on their findings, using six new measures to further evaluate lexical and structural conventionalization in the same set of novel compounds elicited by Tkachman, Oksana & Irit Meir. 2018. Novel compounding and the emergence of structure in two young sign languages. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 3(1). 136. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar. We found that ISL shows more lexical convergence, whereas ABSL shows more structural convergence. We propose that the differences in conventionalization we observe can be linked to the different social circumstances of these languages (Meir, Irit, Wendy Sandler, Carol Padden & Mark Aronoff. 2010. Emerging sign languages. In Marc Marschark & Patricia Elizabeth Spencer (Eds.), Oxford handbook of deaf studies, language, and education, Vol. 21. 267–280. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Procedure
    • 3.3Elicitation materials
    • 3.4Coding and analysis
      • 3.4.1Identifying forms for analysis
      • 3.4.2Coding
        • 3.4.2.1Assessing lexical convergence
        • 3.4.2.2Assessing constructional convergence
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Lexical convergence
    • 4.2Constructional convergence
      • 4.2.1Headedness and constituent order
      • 4.2.2Individual level analyses
  • 5.Discussion
  • Notes
  • References
References (40)
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