Lesson 4 - Sign Language Syntax

Syntax refers to the rules for sentence construction and the relationships between different words. If one doesn't follow these rules, sentences either become ungrammatical or the meaning of the sentences can change.

Different words or signs have different functions in a particular sentence or utterance (an utterance can be seen as a verbal form of a sentence as we do not necessarily speak in sentences, but that's a whole separate discussion). They typically act as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. These are called lexical categories or parts of speech. In addition, certain morphemes only attach to certain lexical categories. For example, in English, -ly only attaches to nouns and adjectives.

It is important to note that sign languages typically don't make use of the copula (forms of the verb "to be") and as a result adjectives can follow nouns and still form a grammatical sentence. This is because the adjective can form a predicate. A predicate usually tells us information about the subject of a particular sentence. In English, a verb is almost always part of the predicate.

In addition, when using adverbs in sign language, one usually modifies the verb itself rather than including a separate sign. This is linked to aspect marking, which was mentioned in the previous lesson. However, if the adverb relates to when an action took place, such as YESTERDAY, the sign is generally separate to the verb.

The general sentence structure varies from sign language to sign language. For example, American Sign Language and Brazilian sign language make use of Subject-Verb-Object, whereas German Sign Language and Japanese Sign Language make use of Subject-Object-Verb. So, for example, in American Sign Language we would have MOTHER HUG CHILD. In Japanese Sign Language, however, we would have MOTHERCHILD HUG. You might notice some differences between that and the English counterpart "the mother hugs the child". Sign languages generally do not make use of articles ('a', 'the', or 'an') and there is no inflection for tense. Even if you were to sign "the mother is hugging the child" (which has a subtle difference in meaning), you would sign the same thing.

Sign languages are generally less restrictive when it comes to word order so even though a particular sign language might typically make use of a certain word order, this is by no means the only word order used. Verb-Object-Subject is another possibility in American Sign Language, such as HUG CHILD MOTHER. However, the sign for MOTHER would be accompanied by nodding in order to show that it is the subject. Nodding is one of several non-manual features used in sentence construction. The others are raising the eyebrows and tilting the head backwards. This particular combination is used in topic-marking or topicalization. This involves putting important or new information first. The above example would be CHILD, MOTHER HUG. This is the equivalent of "it is the child that the mother hugs".

Raising of the eyebrows is also used in questions, among other non-manual features. Yes-no questions (such as "are you learning sign language?") in English involve placing the verb before the noun and the question is usually accompanied by a rise in pitch towards the end of the sentence. In sign language, however, the same word order is generally kept (eg. YOU SIGN-LANGUAGE LEARN) although in order to indicate that it is a question, there would be raising of the eyebrows, widening of the eyes and tilting of the head and body involved.

Wh-questions (which involves question words such as "who", "where", "when" and so on) operate differently in sign languages as well. In English, the wh-question word typically precedes the rest of the sentence and the verb appears directly afterwards. In sign language, the wh-question word is only signed at the end (for example, NAME YOU WHAT for "what is your name?"). The eyebrows are furrowed and a person would also lean forward slightly. The shoulders are also sometimes raised.

We'll now be moving onto one of my favourite aspects of syntax: tree diagrams. They can be challenging at first, but once you get the hang of them, they can actually be quite fun - although that might just be my inner linguist speaking *g*.

A tree diagram shows the relationships between different lexical categories using a series of branches coming off different nodes. See below for an example. The result looks like an inverted tree, hence the name "tree diagram".

Most of the lexical categories mentioned in the lesson form their own phrase, so for example, a noun would be part of a noun phrase, and similarly, a verb would be part of a verb phrase. In these cases, the noun and the verb are the head of the phrase. They are the head because the phrase wouldn't exist without them. A phrase is not just limited to the head however, as there are additional lexical categories that can form part of them. So, for example, "Amy" is a noun phrase, and so is "the girl from South Africa". In the second noun phrase, "girl" is the noun (and also the head), "the" is the determiner, "from South Africa" is a prepositional phrase. As you might have guessed, it is a prepositional phrase because of the word "from". Even though the prepositional phrase forms part of the noun phrase, it can be divided into several constituents. We've already dealt with the preposition, so all that is remaining is "South Africa", which would be the noun.

We depict this using what is termed phrase structure rules. The above examples can be illustrated through the following rules:

NP --> Det N PP

PP --> P NP

You might notice that there's a PP (prepositional phrase) that forms part of an NP (noun phrase) and then an NP can form part of a PP. This feature of language is known as recursion and it can give rise to long sentences.

The general phrase structure rules for English are as follows. The optional parts are in brackets.

S --> NP (M) VP

NP --> (Det) (Adj) N (PP)

PP --> P (NP)

VP --> V (NP) (PP)

"S" stands for sentence, "Adj" stands for adjective, and "M" stands for modal. Modals are a type of auxiliary or helping verb that includes can, may, must, will and so on. "M" can be replaced by "INFL" or infinitival, which is a cover term for modals and infinitives.

Tree diagrams are a useful tool for comparing the syntax of different languages as well as for better understanding the syntax of a specific language.

Below are tree diagrams of a particular sentence in both English and South African Sign Language:

You'll notice that both tree diagrams consist of an NP and a VP, however the VP in the diagram for South African Sign Language differs in that there is no PP. Rather the NP [South Africa] comes directly off the VP node. This is because prepositions in sign languages tend to be used differently compared to English.