Asymmetries in relative clause comprehension in three European sign languages
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- dc.contributor.author Hauser, Charlotte
- dc.contributor.author Zorzi, Giorgia
- dc.contributor.author Aristodemo, Valentina
- dc.contributor.author Giustolisi, Beatrice
- dc.contributor.author Gras, Doriane
- dc.contributor.author Sala, Rita
- dc.contributor.author Sánchez Amat, Jordina
- dc.contributor.author Cecchetto, Carlo
- dc.contributor.author Donati, Caterina
- dc.date.accessioned 2023-06-15T06:07:25Z
- dc.date.available 2023-06-15T06:07:25Z
- dc.date.issued 2021
- dc.description.abstract 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 comprehend than subject RCs. Remarkably, this is independent from the type of relative clause (internally or externally headed). As for the impact of age of exposure, we found that native signers outperform non-native signers and that a delay in language exposure emphasizes the subject/object asymmetry. Our results introduce a new potential diagnostic for LF movement: the existence of a Subject Advantage in comprehension can be used as a reliable and measurable cue for the existence of long-distance dependencies, including covert ones.
- dc.description.sponsorship The research summarized in this paper is part of the SIGN-HUB project, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 693349.
- dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
- dc.identifier.citation Hauser C, Zorzi G, Aristodemo V, Giustolisi B, Gras D, Sala R, Sánchez Amat J, Cecchetto C, Donati C. Asymmetries in relative clause comprehension in three European sign languages. Glossa. 2021;6(1):72. DOI: 10.5334/GJGL.1454
- dc.identifier.doi http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/GJGL.1454
- dc.identifier.issn 2397-1835
- dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10230/57180
- dc.language.iso eng
- dc.publisher Ubiquity Press
- dc.relation.ispartof Glossa: a journal of general linguistics. 2021;6(1):72.
- dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/693349
- dc.rights © 2021 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/
- dc.rights.accessRights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
- dc.rights.uri http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
- dc.subject.keyword Sign language
- dc.subject.keyword relative clauses
- dc.subject.keyword comprehension
- dc.subject.keyword Subject/ Object asymmetries
- dc.subject.keyword age of exposure
- dc.subject.keyword cross-linguistic and cross-modal typology
- dc.title Asymmetries in relative clause comprehension in three European sign languages
- dc.type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
- dc.type.version info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion