Relativization is a robust subordinating type across languages, displaying important typological ... more Relativization is a robust subordinating type across languages, displaying important typological variability concerning the position of the nominal head that the relative clause modifies, and sign languages are no exception. It has been widely assumed since Keenan & Comrie (1977) that the subject position is more accessible to relativization than object and oblique positions. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the extension of this famous generalization both across modalities (sign as opposed to spoken languages) and across relativization typologies (internally as opposed to externally headed relatives), and to verify how it interacts with age of first language exposure. We here report the results of a sentence-to-picture matching task assessing the comprehension of subject and object relative clauses (RCs) in three sign languages: French Sign Language (LSF), Catalan Sign Language (LSC), and Italian Sign Language (LIS). The results are that object RCs are never easier to c...
Coordination is a syntactic structure that is attested and productive in both spoken and signed l... more Coordination is a syntactic structure that is attested and productive in both spoken and signed languages. In sign languages, this structure is primarily expressed asyndetically, that is not using manual markers, but rather non-manual ones (NMMs), such as body and head turns, to mark the conjuncts. This paper aims to describe the expression of coordination in Catalan Sign Language (LSC), focusing on TP conjunction, and present the main tests used to identify this type of structure. Building on the analyses proposed until now for spoken languages, the objective is to provide a syntactic analysis for conjunction in LSC. Considerations on the directionality of the structure will contribute to explaining some of the properties of coordination in LSC such as the ungrammaticality of both Across-the-Board (ATB) extraction and wide scope of negation. Moreover, the adoption of Coordination Phrase (CoP) as the syntactic category for coordination provides a structure that can also be extended to other types of coordination, such as disjunctive and adversative.
Johnson (2014) defines gapping as being such only if the gap appears in the second conjunct of a ... more Johnson (2014) defines gapping as being such only if the gap appears in the second conjunct of a coordination. Moreover, in English and in other spoken languages, gapping is considered a particular type of elliptical structure compared to other types of ellipsis. This is due to the restriction on gapping in appearing only in coordination and to its compliance with the no embedding constraint (Johnson 2014). Gapping in Catalan Sign Language (LSC), instead, presents different properties than English, showing similarity to VP-ellipsis (VPE). In this paper, I compare LSC to English, as representative of many other languages, and I consider the necessity of grouping gapping with other elliptical structures, contrary to analyses suggested based on English. I adopt a large coordination (Gengel 2006) and PF deletion (Coppock 2001 following Merchant 2001) analysis and I provide a unified deletion account for gapping and VPE.
Relativization is a robust subordinating type across languages, displaying important typological ... more Relativization is a robust subordinating type across languages, displaying important typological variability concerning the position of the nominal head that the relative clause modifies, and sign languages are no exception. It has been widely assumed since Keenan & Comrie (1977) that the subject position is more accessible to relativization than object and oblique positions. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the extension of this famous generalization both across modalities (sign as opposed to spoken languages) and across relativization typologies (internally as opposed to externally headed relatives), and to verify how it interacts with age of first language exposure. We here report the results of a sentence-to-picture matching task assessing the comprehension of subject and object relative clauses (RCs) in three sign languages: French Sign Language (LSF), Catalan Sign Language (LSC), and Italian Sign Language (LIS). The results are that object RCs are never easier to c...
Coordination is a syntactic structure that is attested and productive in both spoken and signed l... more Coordination is a syntactic structure that is attested and productive in both spoken and signed languages. In sign languages, this structure is primarily expressed asyndetically, that is not using manual markers, but rather non-manual ones (NMMs), such as body and head turns, to mark the conjuncts. This paper aims to describe the expression of coordination in Catalan Sign Language (LSC), focusing on TP conjunction, and present the main tests used to identify this type of structure. Building on the analyses proposed until now for spoken languages, the objective is to provide a syntactic analysis for conjunction in LSC. Considerations on the directionality of the structure will contribute to explaining some of the properties of coordination in LSC such as the ungrammaticality of both Across-the-Board (ATB) extraction and wide scope of negation. Moreover, the adoption of Coordination Phrase (CoP) as the syntactic category for coordination provides a structure that can also be extended to other types of coordination, such as disjunctive and adversative.
Johnson (2014) defines gapping as being such only if the gap appears in the second conjunct of a ... more Johnson (2014) defines gapping as being such only if the gap appears in the second conjunct of a coordination. Moreover, in English and in other spoken languages, gapping is considered a particular type of elliptical structure compared to other types of ellipsis. This is due to the restriction on gapping in appearing only in coordination and to its compliance with the no embedding constraint (Johnson 2014). Gapping in Catalan Sign Language (LSC), instead, presents different properties than English, showing similarity to VP-ellipsis (VPE). In this paper, I compare LSC to English, as representative of many other languages, and I consider the necessity of grouping gapping with other elliptical structures, contrary to analyses suggested based on English. I adopt a large coordination (Gengel 2006) and PF deletion (Coppock 2001 following Merchant 2001) analysis and I provide a unified deletion account for gapping and VPE.
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Papers by Giorgia Zorzi
until now for spoken languages, the objective is to provide a syntactic analysis for conjunction in LSC. Considerations on the directionality of the structure will contribute to explaining some of the properties of coordination in LSC such as the ungrammaticality of both Across-the-Board (ATB) extraction and wide scope of negation. Moreover,
the adoption of Coordination Phrase (CoP) as the syntactic category for coordination provides a structure that can also be extended to other types of coordination, such as disjunctive and adversative.
until now for spoken languages, the objective is to provide a syntactic analysis for conjunction in LSC. Considerations on the directionality of the structure will contribute to explaining some of the properties of coordination in LSC such as the ungrammaticality of both Across-the-Board (ATB) extraction and wide scope of negation. Moreover,
the adoption of Coordination Phrase (CoP) as the syntactic category for coordination provides a structure that can also be extended to other types of coordination, such as disjunctive and adversative.