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Article published In: Sign Language & Linguistics
Vol. 24:2 (2021) ► pp.182–225

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Marking various aspects in Turkish Sign Language

bı̇t (‘finish’) and ‘bn’

 | Purdue University
 | Purdue University
Published online: 16 July 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sll.20006.kar
Abstract
Sign languages have been reported to have manual signs that function as perfective morphemes (Fischer, Susan & Bonnie Gough. 1999. Some unfinished thoughts on finish. Sign Language & Linguistics 2(1). 672–677. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Meir, Irit. 1999. A perfect marker in Israeli Sign Language. Sign Language & Linguistics 2(1). 43–62. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Rathmann, Christian. 2005. Event structure in American Sign Language (ASL). Austin, TX: The University of Texas PhD dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Duffy, Quinn. 2007. The ASL perfect formed by preverbal finish. Project Report, Boston University, Boston, MA.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Zucchi, Sandro, Carol Neidle, Carlo Geraci, Quinn Duffy & Carlo Cecchetto. 2010. Functional markers in sign languages. In Diane Brentari (ed.), Sign languages, 197–224. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Turkish Sign Language (TİD) has also been claimed to have such morphemes (Zeshan, Ulrike. 2003. Aspects of Türk İşaret Dili (Turkish Sign Language). Sign Language & Linguistics 6(1). 43–75. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Kubuş, Okan & Christian Rathmann. 2009. Past and telic meaning contributed by non-manual marker (pt) in Turkish Sign Language (TİD). Paper presented at Workshop on Non-manuals in Sign Languages, Johann-Wolfgang Universitat, Frankfurt.; Dikyuva, Hasan. 2011. Grammatical nonmanual expressions in Turkish Sign Language (TİD). Lancashire: The University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) MA thesis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Gökgöz, Kadir. 2011. Negation in Turkish Sign Language: The syntax of nonmanual markers. Sign Language & Linguistics 14(1). 49–75. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Karabüklü, Serpil. 2016. Time and aspect in Turkish Sign Language (TİD): Manual and nonmanual marker of ‘finish’. İstanbul: Boğaziçi University: MA Thesis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) as well as a nonmanual completive marker (‘bn’) (Dikyuva, Hasan. 2011. Grammatical nonmanual expressions in Turkish Sign Language (TİD). Lancashire: The University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) MA thesis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). This study shows that the nonmanual ‘bn’ is in fact a perfective morpheme. We examine its compatibility with different event types and furthermore show that TİD has a manual sign bı̇t (‘finish’) that is indeed the completive marker but with possibly unusual restrictions on its use. Based on their distribution, the current study distinguishes bı̇t and ‘bn’ as different morphemes even though they can co-occur. TİD is argued to be typologically different from other sign languages since it has both a nonmanual marker (‘bn’) for a perfective morpheme and a manual sign (bı̇t) with different selectional properties than the manual signs reported for other sign languages.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous studies on bı̇t and ‘bn’
  • 3.Data sources
    • 3.1Existing data / corpus data
    • 3.2Elicited data: Production and judgment tasks
      • 3.2.1Participants
      • 3.2.2Materials
      • 3.3.3Procedure
    • 3.4Summary
  • 4.General overview of bı̇t and ‘bn’
    • 4.1Different functions of bı̇t
    • 4.2Various structures in which ‘bn’ occurs
  • 5.Temporal features of bı̇t and ‘bn’
    • 5.1Reichenbach’s definition of tense
    • 5.2Testing bı̇t and ‘bn’
  • 6.Negating bı̇t and ‘bn’
    • 6.1Negative hı̇ç
    • 6.2‘ap’
    • 6.3Summary of analyses of hı̇ç and ‘ap’
  • 7.Aspectual features of bı̇t and ‘bn’
    • 7.1Perfectivity and telicity
    • 7.2Aspectual properties of bı̇t
      • 7.2.1bı̇t introducing [res] to the event
    • 7.3Aspectual properties of ‘bn’
    • 7.4Does ‘subject’ play a role in the acceptability of bı̇t and ‘bn’?
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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