From questions to relatives in Czech Sign Language

STRACHOŇOVÁ, Hana. From questions to relatives in Czech Sign Language. In Relatives interrogatives alternatives, 13-15 November 2019, Prague. 2019.

Basic information

• Original name: From questions to relatives in Czech Sign Language
• Authors: STRACHOŇOVÁ, Hana (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution).
• Edition: Relatives interrogatives alternatives, 13-15 November 2019, Prague, 2019.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Requested lectures
• Field of Study: 60203 Linguistics
• Country of publisher: Czech Republic
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14210/19:00111370
• Organization unit: Faculty of Arts
• Keywords in English: Czech Sign Language; questions; relative clauses
• Tags: rivok

Abstract

There are analysis of relativization strategies in some sign languages (e.g. Liddel 1978 for American Sign Language, Pfau & Steinbach 2005 for German Sign Language, Branchini & Donati 2009, Cecchetto et al 2006 or Cecchetto & Donati 2016 for Italian Sign Language), or at least descriptions of relative structures (Sze 2003 for Sign Language of Hong Kong). As for Czech Sign Language (CSL), I am not aware of any work describing the situation. In this talk, I am interested in relative sentences in the context of the implicational hierarchy for the use of wh-words (1. content questions; 2. embedded questions; 3. correlatives; 4. light-headed relatives; 5. free relatives; headed relatives). Thus I will explore the use of wh-words in CSL, first in content questions with the intention to go as far as possible in the hierarchy. This first approach is more of a data description than analysis. Before constructing a theoretical model of relativization in CSL, it is essential to understand well the system of wh-words in this vastly understudied language (at least the definition/detection of wh-words and their syntactic position ). I built on the work that has been done on wh-words in CSL content questions (especially Pospíšilová 2012, Hronová 2002) and I systematize some data elicited from CSL online dictionary. At the end of the talk, I outline the way towards relativization in CSL using preliminary data obtained at my sessions with a native Deaf informant.

Links

• MUNI/A/0932/2018, interní kód MU: Name: Podpora výzkumu studentů na MU - obecná jazykovědy a baltistika 2019

Investor: Masaryk University, Category A