Cover not available

Article published In: Sign Language & Linguistics
Vol. 28:1 (2025) ► pp.104–139

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

Structure of simple declarative clauses in South African Sign Language

ORCiD logo with link | North-West University
Published online: 18 March 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sll.24001.weh
Abstract
This paper presents the first corpus-driven linguistic description of South African Sign Language (SASL) and the first exploration of the structure of simple declarative clauses in SASL. Using a corpus of 40 narratives of 25 signers from three South African provinces, the study finds that SASL exhibits a basic SVO clause structure, but that the most common clause structure is SV. The study also presents evidence of the existence of the null copula in SASL, and finds that SASL exhibits a high tolerance for argument ellipsis. With the exception of their generalisations in terms of locative clauses, the study finds that Napoli, Donna Jo & Rachel Sutton-Spence. 2014. Order of the main constituents of sign languages: Implications for all language. Frontiers in Psychology 2014(5). 376.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar generalisations regarding sign language syntax hold true for naturalistic narrative discourse in SASL. Finally, the study supports the claim that SASL is a single sign language in terms of its syntactic patterns, despite regional lexical variation.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Clause structure studies in sign languages
    • 2.1Clauses with less than two arguments
    • 2.2Clauses with at least two arguments
    • 2.3Clauses containing multiple verbs
    • 2.4Other considerations in clause analysis of sign languages
  • 3.Clause structure of South African Sign Language
  • 4.Method
    • 4.1Data collection
    • 4.2Data analysis
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Statements containing explicit subject(s) and verb(s)
    • 5.2Statements with implicit (null) subjects
    • 5.3Copula clauses
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (69)
References
Aarons, Debra. 1994. Aspects of the syntax of American Sign Language. Boston, MA: Boston University +++PhD thesis.
Aze, Trish & Richard Aze. 1973. Parengi texts. In Ronald Trail (ed.), Patterns in clause, sentence, and discourse in selected languages of India and Nepal (part 3) [SIL Publications in Linguistics 41(3)], 213–362.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baker, Mona. 1993. Corpus linguistics and translation studies: Implications and applications. In Mona Baker, G. Francis & E. Tognini-Bonelli (eds.), Text and technology: In honour of John Sinclair, 233–250. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bergman, Brita & Lars Wallin. 1985. Sentence structure in Swedish Sign Language. In William Stokoe & Virginia Volterra (eds.), SLR ’83: Proceedings of the III. International Symposium on Sign Language Research, Rome, June 1983, 217–225. Silver Spring, MD: Linstok Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Börstell, Carl, Mats Wirén, Johanna Mesch & Moa Gärdenfors. 2016. Towards an annotation of syntactic structure in the Swedish Sign Language Corpus. In LREC Proceedings 2016.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cecchetto, Carlo, Carlo Geraci & Sandro Zucchi. 2006. Strategies of relativization in Italian Sign Language. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 241. 945–975. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coerts, Jane. 1994. Constituent order in Sign Language of the Netherlands. In Mary Brennan & Graham Turner (eds.), Word-order issues in sign language, 47–72. Durham: International Sign Linguistics Association.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crasborn, Onno. 2007. How to recognise a sentence when you see one. Sign Language & Linguistics 10(2). 103–111. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crasborn, Onno & Han Sloetjes. 2008. Enhanced ELAN functionality for sign language corpora. In Onno Crasborn, Thomas Hanke, Eleni Efthimiou, Inge Zwitserlood & Ernst Thoutenhoofd (eds.), Proceedings of the 3rd workshop on the representation and processing of sign languages: construction and exploitation of sign language corpora (LREC2008), 39–43. Paris: ELRA. 〈[URL]〉.
De Langhe, Olivier, Pierre Guitteny, Henri Portine & Christian Retoré. 2004. A propos des structures OSV en langue des signes française. Silexicales 41. 115–130. [URL]
Emmorey, Karen (ed.). 2003. Perspectives on classifier constructions in sign languages. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fischer, Susan. 1975. Influences on word order change in American Sign Language. In Charles Li (ed.), Word order and word order change. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Constituent order in sign languages. 言語研究 (Gengo Kenkyu) 1461. 1–12.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fischer, Susan & Wynne Janis. 1990. Verb sandwiches in ASL. In Siegmund Prillwitz & Tomas Vollhaber (eds.), Current trends in European sign language research: proceedings of the 3rd European congress on sign language research, Hamburg, 1989, 279–294. Hamburg: Signum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, Susan. 2003. The resilience of language: what gesture creation in deaf children can tell us about how all children learn language. New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hall, Matthew, Rachel Mayberry & Victor Ferreira. 2013. Cognitive constraints on constituent order: Evidence from elicited pantomime. Cognition 1291. 1–17. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hickmann, Maya. 2003. Children’s discourse: person, space, and time across languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jantunen, Tommi. 2008. Fixed and free: order of the verbal predicate and its core arguments in declarative transitive clauses in Finnish Sign Language. SKY Journal of Linguistics 211. 83–123. [URL]
Janzen, Terry, Barbara O’Dea & Barbara Schaffer. 2001. The construal of events: passives in American Sign Language. Sign Language Studies 1(3). 281–310. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnston, Trevor, Myriam Vermeerbergen, Adam Schembri & Lorraine Leeson. 2007. “Real data are messy”: Considering cross-linguistic analysis of constituent ordering in Auslan, VGT, and ISL. In Pamela Perniss, Roland Pfau & Markus Steinbach (eds.), Visible variation: comparative studies on sign language structure, 163–205. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kimmelman, Vadim. 2012. Word order in Russian Sign Language. Sign Language Studies 121. 414–445. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. Basic argument structure in Russian Sign Language. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 3(1). 1161.1–39. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2019. Information structure in sign languages: evidence from Russian Sign Language and Sign Language of the Netherlands. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Langus, Alan & Marina Nespor. 2010. Cognitive systems struggling for word order. Cognitive Psychology 601. 291–318. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liddell, Scott. 1980. American Sign Language syntax. The Hague: Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1990. Four functions of a locus: reexamining the structure of space in ASL. In Ceil Lucas (ed.), Sign language research: theoretical issues, 176–198. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.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. 1986. Two kinds of null arguments in American Sign Language. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 41. 415–444. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lourenço, Guilherme & Ronice Müller de Quadros. 2020. The syntactic structure of the clause in Brazilian Sign Language. In Ronice Müller de Quadros (ed.), Brazilian Sign Language studies, 131–154. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lucas, Ceil & Clayton Valli. 1992. Language contact in the American Deaf community. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mayer, Mercer. 1969. Frog, where are you? New York: Dial Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McKee, Rachel & Graeme Kennedy. 2005. New Zealand Sign Language. In Alan Bell, Ray Harlow & Donna Starks (eds.), Languages of New Zealand, 271–297. Wellington: Victoria University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meir, Irit, Carol Padden, Mark Aronoff & Wendy Sandler. 2007. Body as subject. Journal of Linguistics 431. 531–563. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meir, Irit, Wendy Sandler, Carol Padden, & Mark Aronoff. 2010. Emerging sign languages. In Marc Marschark & Patricia 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
Meir, Irit, Mark Aronoff, Carl Börstell, So-One Hwang, Deniz Ilkbasaran, Itamar Kastner, Ryan Lepic, Adi Lifshitz Ben-Basat, Carol Padden & Wendy Sandler. 2017. The effect of being human and the basis of grammatical word order: Insights from novel communication systems and young sign languages. Cognition 1581. 189–207. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Milković, Marina, Sandra Bradarić-Jončić & Ronnie Wilbur. 2006. Word order in Croatian Sign Language. Sign Language & Linguistics 9(1/2). 169–206. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mithun, Marianne. 1988. The grammaticalisation of coordination. In John Haiman & Sandra Thompson (eds.), Clause combining in grammar and discourse, 331–359. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Napoli, Donna Jo & Rachel Sutton-Spence. 2014. Order of the main constituents of sign languages: Implications for all language. Frontiers in Psychology 2014(5). 376.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Napoli, Donna Jo & Rachel Sutton Spence. 2021. Clause-initial Vs in sign languages: Scene-setters. In Vera Lee-Schoenfeld & Dennis Ott (eds.), Parameters of predicate fronting, 198–206. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Napoli, Donna Jo, Rachel Sutton Spence & Ronice Müller de Quadros. 2017. Influence of predicate sense on word order in sign languages: intensional and extensional verbs. Language (2017). 641–670. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Neidle, Carol, Judy Kegl, Dawn MacLaughlin, Benjamin Bahan & Robert G. Lee. 2000. The syntax of American Sign Language: Functional categories and hierarchical structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Newmeyer, Frederick. 2000. On the reconstruction of ‘proto-world’ word order. In Chris Knight, Michael Studdert-Kennedy & James Hurford (eds.), The evolutionary emergence of language: social function and the origins of linguistic form, 372–388. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Novogrodsky, Rama, Rose Stamp & Sabrin Shaban-Rabah. 2023. Word order in simple sentences of tri-lingual tri-modal deaf students. Sign Language & Linguistics 26(1). 37–63. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oomen, Marloes & Vadim Kimmelman. 2019. Body anchored verbs and argument omission in sign languages. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 4(1). 42.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Padden, Carol. 1988. Interaction of morphology and syntax in American Sign Language. New York: Garland Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1990. The relation between space and grammar in ASL verb morphology. In Ceil Lucas (ed.), Sign language research: theoretical issues, 118–132. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ponelis, Friedrich A. 1979. Afrikaanse sintaksis [Afrikaans syntax]. Pretoria: Van Schaik.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Proske, Sina. 2022. The impact of verb type on word order in German Sign Language. Göttingen: University of Göttingen PhD thesis. [URL]
Quadros, Ronice Müller de. 2003. Phrase structure of Brazilian Sign Language. In Anne Baker, Beppie van den Bogaerde & Onno Crasborn (eds.), Cross-linguistic perspectives in sign language research. Selected papers from TISLR 2000, 141–162. Hamburg: Signum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Quadros, Ronice Müller de & Diane Lillo-Martin. 2010. Clause structure. In Diane Brentari (ed.), Sign languages, 225–251. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Quadros, Ronice Müller de, Jair Barbosa da Silva & Roderigo Nogueira Machado. 2023. A corpus-based analysis of coordinate structures in Libras. In Ella Wehrmeyer (ed.), Advances in sign language corpus linguistics, 123–154. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sandler, Wendy, Irit Meir, Carol Padden & Mark Aronoff. 2005. The emergence of grammar: systematic structure in a new language. Proclamations of the National Academy of Science USA 1021. 2661–2665. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
So, Wing-Chee, Marie Coppola, Vincent Licciardello & Susan Goldin-Meadow. 2005. The seeds of spatial grammar in the manual modality. Cognitive Science 291. 1029–1043. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sze, Felix. 2003. Word order of Hong Kong Sign Language. In Anne Baker, Beppie van den Bogaerde & Onno Crasborn (eds.), Cross-linguistic perspectives in sign language research. Selected papers from TISLR 2000, 163–192. Hamburg: Signum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Gelderen, Elly. 2011. The linguistic cycle: language change and the language faculty. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Herreweghe, Mieke & Myriam Vermeerbergen. 2012. Verbal predicates in Flemish Sign Language (VGT) and South African Sign Language (SASL). In Maarleen van Peteghem, Peter Lauwers & Els Tobback (eds.), Le verbe en verve: réflexions sur la syntaxe et la sémantique verbales, 401–420. Ghent: Academia Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vermeerbergen, Myriam. 1996. rood kool tien persoon in. Morfosyntactische aspecten van gebarentaal. Brussels: Vrije Universiteit Brussel PhD dissertation.
Vermeerbergen, Myriam, Mieke Van Herreweghe, Philemon Akach & Emily Matabane. 2007. Constituent order in Flemish Sign Language and South African Sign Language. A cross-linguistic study. Sign Language & Linguistics 10(1). 25–54. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Volterra, Virginia, Alessandro Laudanna, Serena Corazza, Elena Radutsky & Francesco Natale. 1984. Italian Sign Language: The order of elements in the declarative sentence. In Filip Loncke, Penny Boyes-Braem & Yvan Lebrun (eds.), Recent research on European sign languages, 19–48. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Voynova, E. I., V. M. Matveeva & G. N. Aver’janova. 1978. Ychebnik russkogo jazyka dlja inostrannykh studentov-filologov [Textbook of Russian language for foreign philological students]. Moscow: Russkiy Jazyk.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wehrmeyer, Ella. 2015a. An annotation system for signed language interpreting corpora. Hermeneus 171. 279–317.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2019b. Linguistic interference in interpreting from English to South African Sign Language. In Ray Hickey (ed.), English in multilingual South Africa, 371–393. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2023. Verb classes in South African Sign Language. In Ella Wehrmeyer (ed.), Advances in sign language corpus linguistics, 155–191. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue