This study investigates differences in language production of native, early-learner, and late-lea... more This study investigates differences in language production of native, early-learner, and late-learner Turkish Sign Language (Türk İşaret Dili – TİD) signers in the domain of classifiers. For this study, we conducted a picture-signing task to elicit clauses with classifier constructions from adult Deaf signers of these three groups. The results indicate that there is no significant difference among these three groups with respect to the morphological encoding of thematic roles on verbal roots in classifier constructions. Nonetheless, a difference surfaces in the argument expression patterns among these groups. The data show that the age of exposure to a first linguistic input impacts the argument expression rates as well as which arguments are expressed or left unexpressed. Native signers drop the agent argument more frequently than early-learner and late-learner signers. Early-learner signers, in turn, drop the agent argument more frequently than late-learners. The data further indi...
In the visual-spatial modality, signers indicate old, new, or contrastive information using certa... more In the visual-spatial modality, signers indicate old, new, or contrastive information using certain syntactic, prosodic, and morphological strategies. Even though information structure has been described extensively for many sign languages, the flow of information in the narrative discourse remains unexplored in Turkish Sign Language (TİD). This study aims to describe aboutness subject topic constructions in TİD narratives. We examined data from six adult native signers of TİD and found that TİD signers mainly used nominals for reintroduced aboutness subject topics. The optional and rare non-manual markers observed on reintroduced topics mainly included squint, brow raise, and backward head tilt. Maintained aboutness subject topics, which have higher referential accessibility, were often omitted and tracked with zero anaphora. Finally, we found that constructed action is more frequently present on the predicates of clauses with a maintained aboutness subject topic than with a reintr...
This paper presents a detailed description of manual and nonmanual markers (NMMs) in negative sen... more This paper presents a detailed description of manual and nonmanual markers (NMMs) in negative sentences in Turkish Sign Language (TID). It has been argued that TID has a manual dominant pattern for negation with a backward head tilt being the major NMM in negative sentences. By contrast, in this paper I argue that, when it comes to negation, TID is not a strictly manual dominant language. I will consider spreading of NMMs such as headshake, brow-lowering, and brow-raising and argue that these spreading NMMs play a syntactic role in TID negative sentences. They mark the syntactic domain of negation, either through c-command, a spec-head-relation or both. In addition, I offer a generative analysis of the syntax of negation in TID based on the syntactic background provided for TID and the distributional patterns of NMMs.
This study investigates differences in language production of native, early-learner, and late-lea... more This study investigates differences in language production of native, early-learner, and late-learner Turkish Sign Language (Türk İşaret Dili – TİD) signers in the domain of classifiers. For this study, we conducted a picture-signing task to elicit clauses with classifier constructions from adult Deaf signers of these three groups. The results indicate that there is no significant difference among these three groups with respect to the morphological encoding of thematic roles on verbal roots in classifier constructions. Nonetheless, a difference surfaces in the argument expression patterns among these groups. The data show that the age of exposure to a first linguistic input impacts the argument expression rates as well as which arguments are expressed or left unexpressed. Native signers drop the agent argument more frequently than early-learner and late-learner signers. Early-learner signers, in turn, drop the agent argument more frequently than late-learners. The data further indicate that perspective taking interacts with argument expression and age of acquisition. Overall, signers drop the agent more frequently under a character perspective than an observer perspective, with native and early-learner signers employing this strategy more than late-learner signers.
In this paper, I investigate the syntax of what looks like Relative Clause Extraposition in Turki... more In this paper, I investigate the syntax of what looks like Relative Clause Extraposition in Turkish. In order to attain the final analysis, I first propose a split-CP for Relative Clauses in Turkish. Then, I apply it to the apparent case of Relative Clause Extraposition. Evidence from several environments (i.e. scope relations, binding, interaction of wh-elements with RCs and multiple copies) points to a leftward movement analysis.
In this paper, we present novel data concerning the marking of contrastive focus in two modalitie... more In this paper, we present novel data concerning the marking of contrastive focus in two modalities. Using data from an elicitation task conducted with children acquiring English and children acquiring American Sign Language (ASL), we demonstrate that focused constituents in both speech and sign modalities are marked by a bundle of prosodic features. We observe that increased duration and intensity are cross-linguistically relevant cues of contrastive focus despite the differences between the two modalities.
We have two aims in this paper. Our first aim is to show that syllables exist in TİD prosody (Tür... more We have two aims in this paper. Our first aim is to show that syllables exist in TİD prosody (Türk İşaret Dili – Turkish Sign Language). A specific domain in prosody is substantiated only if there are phonological phenomena that refer to that domain as part of their definition. Therefore, for our first aim, we present evidence from phonological phenomena which need to refer to the notion syllable in their definition. As for these phenomena, we present Fingerspelling of one-handed suffixes which are restricted to a single syllable size in their lexicalized form. We also present some compounds which are reduced to a single syllable size while the lexemes before compounding form separate syllables. Next, as a case of phonological fusion, Coalescence will be shown to be limited to a single syllable size. These three phonological phenomena are domain processes which, to be defined, need the entire domain of syllable. We also show two phonological phenomena that need to refer to the edges of a syllable. These are Metathesis and Backwards Signing in both of which the order of the initial and final edges of the syllable are reversed. To support the existence of a prosodic domain, it is important to show that the specific prosodic domain is independent-it is not isomorphic to a morphological or a syntactic domain (Nespor and Vogel, 2007). Therefore, our second goal is to show that syllables are independent of two other units in grammar-Morpheme and Sign-by illustrating differences between them. We finish this paper by summary and indicating potential topics of study.
This study investigates differences in language production of native, early-learner, and late-lea... more This study investigates differences in language production of native, early-learner, and late-learner Turkish Sign Language (Türk İşaret Dili – TİD) signers in the domain of classifiers. For this study, we conducted a picture-signing task to elicit clauses with classifier constructions from adult Deaf signers of these three groups. The results indicate that there is no significant difference among these three groups with respect to the morphological encoding of thematic roles on verbal roots in classifier constructions. Nonetheless, a difference surfaces in the argument expression patterns among these groups. The data show that the age of exposure to a first linguistic input impacts the argument expression rates as well as which arguments are expressed or left unexpressed. Native signers drop the agent argument more frequently than early-learner and late-learner signers. Early-learner signers, in turn, drop the agent argument more frequently than late-learners. The data further indi...
In the visual-spatial modality, signers indicate old, new, or contrastive information using certa... more In the visual-spatial modality, signers indicate old, new, or contrastive information using certain syntactic, prosodic, and morphological strategies. Even though information structure has been described extensively for many sign languages, the flow of information in the narrative discourse remains unexplored in Turkish Sign Language (TİD). This study aims to describe aboutness subject topic constructions in TİD narratives. We examined data from six adult native signers of TİD and found that TİD signers mainly used nominals for reintroduced aboutness subject topics. The optional and rare non-manual markers observed on reintroduced topics mainly included squint, brow raise, and backward head tilt. Maintained aboutness subject topics, which have higher referential accessibility, were often omitted and tracked with zero anaphora. Finally, we found that constructed action is more frequently present on the predicates of clauses with a maintained aboutness subject topic than with a reintr...
This paper presents a detailed description of manual and nonmanual markers (NMMs) in negative sen... more This paper presents a detailed description of manual and nonmanual markers (NMMs) in negative sentences in Turkish Sign Language (TID). It has been argued that TID has a manual dominant pattern for negation with a backward head tilt being the major NMM in negative sentences. By contrast, in this paper I argue that, when it comes to negation, TID is not a strictly manual dominant language. I will consider spreading of NMMs such as headshake, brow-lowering, and brow-raising and argue that these spreading NMMs play a syntactic role in TID negative sentences. They mark the syntactic domain of negation, either through c-command, a spec-head-relation or both. In addition, I offer a generative analysis of the syntax of negation in TID based on the syntactic background provided for TID and the distributional patterns of NMMs.
This study investigates differences in language production of native, early-learner, and late-lea... more This study investigates differences in language production of native, early-learner, and late-learner Turkish Sign Language (Türk İşaret Dili – TİD) signers in the domain of classifiers. For this study, we conducted a picture-signing task to elicit clauses with classifier constructions from adult Deaf signers of these three groups. The results indicate that there is no significant difference among these three groups with respect to the morphological encoding of thematic roles on verbal roots in classifier constructions. Nonetheless, a difference surfaces in the argument expression patterns among these groups. The data show that the age of exposure to a first linguistic input impacts the argument expression rates as well as which arguments are expressed or left unexpressed. Native signers drop the agent argument more frequently than early-learner and late-learner signers. Early-learner signers, in turn, drop the agent argument more frequently than late-learners. The data further indicate that perspective taking interacts with argument expression and age of acquisition. Overall, signers drop the agent more frequently under a character perspective than an observer perspective, with native and early-learner signers employing this strategy more than late-learner signers.
In this paper, I investigate the syntax of what looks like Relative Clause Extraposition in Turki... more In this paper, I investigate the syntax of what looks like Relative Clause Extraposition in Turkish. In order to attain the final analysis, I first propose a split-CP for Relative Clauses in Turkish. Then, I apply it to the apparent case of Relative Clause Extraposition. Evidence from several environments (i.e. scope relations, binding, interaction of wh-elements with RCs and multiple copies) points to a leftward movement analysis.
In this paper, we present novel data concerning the marking of contrastive focus in two modalitie... more In this paper, we present novel data concerning the marking of contrastive focus in two modalities. Using data from an elicitation task conducted with children acquiring English and children acquiring American Sign Language (ASL), we demonstrate that focused constituents in both speech and sign modalities are marked by a bundle of prosodic features. We observe that increased duration and intensity are cross-linguistically relevant cues of contrastive focus despite the differences between the two modalities.
We have two aims in this paper. Our first aim is to show that syllables exist in TİD prosody (Tür... more We have two aims in this paper. Our first aim is to show that syllables exist in TİD prosody (Türk İşaret Dili – Turkish Sign Language). A specific domain in prosody is substantiated only if there are phonological phenomena that refer to that domain as part of their definition. Therefore, for our first aim, we present evidence from phonological phenomena which need to refer to the notion syllable in their definition. As for these phenomena, we present Fingerspelling of one-handed suffixes which are restricted to a single syllable size in their lexicalized form. We also present some compounds which are reduced to a single syllable size while the lexemes before compounding form separate syllables. Next, as a case of phonological fusion, Coalescence will be shown to be limited to a single syllable size. These three phonological phenomena are domain processes which, to be defined, need the entire domain of syllable. We also show two phonological phenomena that need to refer to the edges of a syllable. These are Metathesis and Backwards Signing in both of which the order of the initial and final edges of the syllable are reversed. To support the existence of a prosodic domain, it is important to show that the specific prosodic domain is independent-it is not isomorphic to a morphological or a syntactic domain (Nespor and Vogel, 2007). Therefore, our second goal is to show that syllables are independent of two other units in grammar-Morpheme and Sign-by illustrating differences between them. We finish this paper by summary and indicating potential topics of study.
We investigate the eyegaze behavior of Bimodal Bilingual children who use a sign language and a s... more We investigate the eyegaze behavior of Bimodal Bilingual children who use a sign language and a spoken language and their interlocutors from a linguistic and developmental perspective. Parallel to previous research (Lillo-Martin & Meier 2011 and Thompson et al. 2013), we found that eyegaze does not differentiate non-first person pronouns in a categorical/morphological manner, contrary to some predictions. Rather, eyegaze has discourse/pragmatic and developmental roles in that its distribution is shaped by the needs of the interlocutors. Eyegaze in adult-to-child interactions is used to establish joint attention (Lieberman et al. 2011, 2014) and to maintain the attention of the child and the adult on the task with very little affordance for looking away, contrasting with eyegaze in an adult-to-adult context where there is more affordance for the adults to look away to keep the conversational floor (cf. Baker 1977).
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Papers by Kadir Gokgoz