Russian Sign Language

Данная статья посвящена исследованию артикуляции в жестовых языках, в частности в русском жестовом языке (далее РЖЯ). Артикуляция в же-стовых языках представляет собой движения рта, напоминающие произ-ношение слова или его части, при произведении мануальных жестов. Их необходимо отличать от таких движений рта, которые не связаны с про-изношением слов окружающих звуковых языков. В центре внимания ста-тьи – отличия этих двух видов движения рта друг от друга и предложен-ная автором русскоязычная терминология движений рта в жестовых язы-ках. В статье также излагаются первые наблюдения исследования арти-куляции на материале корпуса текстов РЖЯ.

This dissertation explores Information Structure in two sign languages: Sign Language of the Netherlands and Russian Sign Language. Based on corpus data and elicitation tasks we show how topic and focus are expressed in these languages. In particular, we show that topics can be marked syntactically and prosodically (including non-manual markers) in both languages, although some differences between the languages are also found. We also conclude that these languages are not topic prominent. As for focus, certain syntactic and prosodic (manual and non-manual) markers can be used to mark it in both languages, although some quantitative differences between the languages can be found. In addition, we analyze two mechanism previously linked to Information Structure expression in other sign languages, namely doubling and weak hand holds. Doubling in both languages can be used to express focus, emphasis, and foregrounding. Weak hand holds are used in a variety of functions, some of which are related to topicality. We discuss the similarities and differences between the languages in the domain of Information Structure, as well as typological implications of our findings. In addition, we assess the effects of the visual modality on expression of Information Structure.

В статье предлагается анализ трех признаковых полей в русском жестовом языке (РЖЯ): ‘толстый’, ‘тонкий’ и ‘острый (=суживающийся к концу)’. Эти поля в РЖЯ покрываются особой группой лексических единиц – жестами формы и размера. Статья описывает свойства этих жестов в других языках, известные из предыдущих работ, а также предлагает их анализ в РЖЯ, выполненный по результатам подробного исследования их контекстной сочетаемости. В частности, высказываются аргументы за выделение в этих жестах компонентов двух типов (специфицированных и неспецифицированных), обсуждается семантика немануальных элементов и описываются разные способы морфологического выражения этих признаков.

This paper presents an overview of semantic classifiers in Russian Sign Language (RSL). For the purposes of this research, I collected a corpus of narratives using the elicitation material from Zwitserlood (2003). Based on this corpus, I described the inventory of RSL semantic classifiers analysing their morphosyntactic, semantic and phonological properties. In addition, the present paper gives an account of some of the regularities underlying the choice between several classifiers for the same referent.

Anna Sáfár1 & Vadim Kimmelman

In this paper, we provide a quantitative analysis of weak hand holds based on corpus data. We include both a cross-linguistic analysis of these holds in narrative data from Russian Sign Language (RSL) and Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT), and a language-internal, cross-genre analysis comparing NGT narrative and conversational data. We classified the functions of all holds found in two corpora of RSL and NGT, and analyzed their formal characteristics. We found that holds in RSL and NGT have similar functions. However, holds are significantly more frequent in RSL than in NGT. In addition, we found that the distribution of holds across different functions varies between different genres in NGT. The similarities between RSL and NGT in the domain of holds may be attributed to modality effects. The differences in frequency of holds ask for a language-specific explanation, and we discuss several possible scenarios.

This paper provides a fi rst syntactic description of relativization in Russian Sign Language (RSL). We collected production data from nine signers performing a picture-based task. The signers produced 88 instances of relative constructions with the head noun being the subject or direct object in the main clause and in the relative clause. We found that RSL has head-external (postnominal) relative clauses, head-internal relative clauses, and double-headed relative clauses. Relative clauses might also be extraposed to the sentence-fi nal position or fronted. The main clause may be doubled, so that a part of it is repeated after the relative clause. Relative clauses might contain optional relative elements and , in clause-initial or clause-fi nal position, or in both positions, and the two elements can co-occur. Finally, we found that relative clauses are nearly always prosodically separate from the main clause. The most frequent non-manual markers in relative construction are eye blinks; in addition, head leans and turns, eyebrow raise, and squints are sometimes used. However, no marker is specialized for marking the relative clause itself: they either are simply markers of boundaries of prosodic units (eye blinks), or they have some other functions (which we cannot fully identify yet). We conclude that RSL generally fi ts patterns found in other spoken and signed languages. However, we also observe specifi c differences, especially in the domain of non-manual marking.

Although complement clauses have been an object of typological research in spoken languages for many years, this syntactic construction has attracted the attention of sign language linguistics only recently. Nevertheless, the existing studies suggest that sign languages employ complement constructions that are very similar to those identified in spoken languages. At the same time, complement clauses in sign languages exhibit modality-specific properties, such as an infrequent use of morphosyntactic and lexical cues for sentential complementation such as overt complementizers or markers of (non-)finiteness. The present study provides the first description of complement clauses in Russian Sign Language. By combining corpus investigation and grammaticality judgments, I investigate morphosyntactic properties of complement clauses selected by different semantic classes of complement-taking predicates. I found that complement clauses in Russian Sign Language generally come in two types: (i) control constructions with a covert embedded subject and a deranked paradigm of subject agreement on the embedded predicate, and (ii) sentence-like complement clauses. Control complement clauses can be fully embedded in the main clause or they can occupy a sentence-final position, while only the latter option is available for sentence-like complement clauses. In addition, I observed that sentence-like complement clauses in Russian Sign Language are frequently introduced by a complementizer sign, which is typologically rather unusual in sign languages. At the same time, the obtained results are compatible with complementation patterns identified in other signed and spoken languages and thus contribute to the typological studies in the field of complex syntactic structures across modalities.

In this paper, basic verb classes and argument structure alternations in Russian Sign Language (RSL) are described, and the implications of these data for the theory of argument structure are discussed. The analysis is based on data elicited using a list of 80 verbal meanings from the Valency Classes in World's Languages project (Hartmann, Haspelmath & Taylor 2013) and on data collected from the corpus of RSL (Burkova 2015). The study shows that RSL has lexical verbs with different sets of arguments (from zero up to three arguments), and a number of argument structure alternations, such as causative-inchoative, impersonal, reflexive, and reciprocal. It is found that argument structure of lexical verbs and argument structure alternations that apply to them in RSL are typologically common. This implies that the semantic basis of argument structure is independent of modality. In addition, RSL uses classifier predicates whose argument structure is determined by the type of the classifier and by the context. Although such predicates in other sign languages have been used to argue for a syntactic approach to argument structure, RSL clas-sifier predicates do not provide a strong support for this approach.

В настоящей статье представлен лексико-семантический анализ пяти качественных признаков русского жестового языка (РЖЯ: ‘острый’, ‘тупой’, ‘старый’, ‘толстый’, ‘тонкий’) в сравнении со звучащими языками. Анализ основывается на противопоставлении в лексиконе жестовых языков вообще и русского жестового языка в частности ядерных и периферийных жестов. Предлагается выделять в периферийных жестах два типа компонентов – специфицированные и неспецифицированные. Специфицированные компоненты неизменны, а неспецифицированные меняют свою форму в зависимости от контекста. Такое разделение позволяет осуществить анализ признаковых полей РЖЯ при помощи инструментария Московской лексико-типологической группы и провести сравнение с соответсвтующими полями звучащих языков.

This paper describes the basic properties of quotation in Russian Sign Language (RSL) using corpus and elicited data. Quotation constructions in RSL consist of source indication (optional), a predicate of speech (optional), and the quote itself. The quote as well as the other constituents of quotation constructions can be marked by non-manual markers (also known as role shift), namely by eye gaze change, head turns, and body turns; however, these markers are optional. Judging by the behavior of indexicals, quotation in naturalistic RSL narratives mostly involves direct speech. Mixed behavior of indexicals is also possible. Interestingly, non-manual marking does not correlate perfectly with the behavior of indexicals. We also find evidence that at least quotes with shifted indexicals are not syntactically embedded. The properties of RSL quotation constructions seem to present problems for some current accounts of role shift in other sign languages.

Russian Sign Language (RSL) makes use of constructions involving manual simultaneity, in particular, weak hand holds, where one hand is being held in the location and configuration of a sign, while the other simultaneously produces one sign or a sequence of several signs. In this paper, I argue that some weak hand holds can be analyzed using the formalism of External Remerge and Parenthetical Merge (de Vries 2008, 2009). I show that the syntactic structures that produce weak hand holds in RSL are also attested in spoken languages, but that the linearization rules are modality-specific due to the differences in articulators. I also demonstrate that RSL applies distinctive linearizations for External Remerge and Parenthetical Merge, thus overtly expressing the difference between these two operations.

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This is an extended version of the paper I published in the proceedings on CLS, with new data and some refinements to the analysis.

Handshapes are one of the basic parameters of signs, and any phonological or phonetic analysis of a sign language must account for handshapes. Many sign languages have been carefully analysed by sign language linguists to create handshape inventories. This has theoretical implications, but also applied use, as it is important due to the need of generating corpora for sign languages that can be searched, filtered, sorted by different sign components (such as handshapes, orientation, location, movement, etc.). However, it is a very time-consuming process, thus only a handful of sign languages have such inventories. This work proposes a process of automatically generating such inventories for sign languages by applying automatic hand detection, cropping, and clustering techniques. We applied our proposed method to a commonly used resource: the Spreadthesign online dictionary (www.spreadthesign.com), in particular to Russian Sign Language (RSL). We then manually verified the data to be ...

Semantic classifiers in sign languages is one of the types of classifiers. These elements indicate their referents, by referring them to a certain class of entities (class of humans, animals, etc.). Among eleven semantic classifiers observed for Russian Sign Language [Khristoforova 2016] three can refer to animated entities. According to corpus data, it is possible to use several different semantic classifiers to encode the same animated referent. We hypothesized that the choice between these three classifiers might be motivated by a particular sematic role of the referent. The paper presents the analysis of sematic roles of the animated referents in the corpus aimed to examine this hypothesis. We came to the conclusion that all three classifiers can refer to Agent, but only one of them is always restricted to an animate referent.

This paper presents corpus-based research of quotation constructions in Russian Sign Language (RSL). Quotation constructions have been observed from different perspective in different signed and spoken languages (Brendel, Meibauer, Steinbach 2011; Litvinenko et al. 2009). Based on the corpus of spontaneous narratives recorded from RSL signers (Burkova 2015), we conducted a quantitative analysis of these constructions. We analyzed constituents of quotation construction, such as the source (author of utterance) indication, the introducing matrix predicate, and the quote. Our investigation of non-manual markers in the corpus revealed that non-manual marking of quotation is optional for RSL quotations. We distinguished direct and indirect quotations in our data based on the reference of indexical elements, the use of subordinating conjunction, and the imperative mood. We found that in RSL non-manuals do not mark the direct/ indirect type of quotation. Our data show that RSL signers tend to use direct quotation much more frequently than indirect quotation. In addition, we compared our findings with the data on quotation constructions in some other sign languages and with the studies of quotation in natural discourse of spoken languages. This comparison showed that RSL quotations share core properties with quotations in spoken and signed languages [Litvinenko et al. 2009]. Российский государственный гуманитарный университет, Москва, Россия В данной статье представлено корпусное исследование цитационных конструкций в русском жестовом языке (РЖЯ). Цитационные конструк-ции были изучены с разных точек зрения на материале как жестовых, так и звуковых языков [Brendel, Meibauer, Steinbach 2011; Litvenenko et al. 2009]. Для настоящего исследования мы использовали корпус спонтанных нарративов, записанных от носителей РЖЯ [Burkova 2015]. Анализ корпуса позволил количественно описать такие составляющие цитационных конструкций, как указание на автора высказывания, вво-дящую предикацию и собственно саму цитацию. В процессе анализа немануальных маркеров, представленных в корпусе, было обнару-жено, что немануальное маркирование цитаций не является обяза-тельным в РЖЯ. В нашем корпусе мы разделяли прямую и косвенную цитацию, основываясь на следующих критериях: сдвиг референции индексикалов, наличие подчинительного союза и показателей импе-ратива. Мы обнаружили, что различие между прямым и косвенным типом цитации не маркируется немануально. Мы отметили, что носи-тели РЖЯ используют прямую цитацию значительно чаще, чем косвен-ную. Сравнив наши результаты с данными исследований цитационных конструкций в других жестовых языках и в естественном дискурсе звуковых языков, мы пришли к выводу, что цитационные конструкции РЖЯ имеют много общего с цитацией в звучащих и жестовых языках [Litvinenko et al.2009].

This is a paper for a volume in honor of Barbara Partee. I address some ideas that Barbara developed in her 1995 paper where she discussed quantification in American Sign Language (among other things). I applied these ideas to new data from Russian Sign Language.

Full reference: Kimmelman, V. (2015). Quantifiers in RSL: distributivity and compositionality. In P. Arkadiev, I. Kapitonov, Y. Lander, E. Rakhilina, & S. Tatevosov (Eds.) Donum Semanticum (pp. 121-134). Moscow: Jazyki Slavjanskoj Kuljtury