Nominal modification in Italian sign language / Lara Mantovan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mantovan, Lara, author.

Series:

Sign languages and deaf communities ; Volume 8.

Sign Languages and Deaf Communities, 2192-5178 ; Volume 8

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Italian Sign Language.

Italian language.

Italy--Languages.

Italy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (208 pages) : illustrations, tables.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berlin, [Germany] ; Boston, [Massachusetts] ; Preston, [England] : De Gruyter Mouton : Ishara Press, 2017.

Language Note:

In English.

Biography/History:

Lara Mantovan, Ca' Foscari University, Italy.

Summary:

Since the recent creation of a large-scale corpus of Italian Sign Language (LIS), a new research branch has been established to study the sociolinguistic variation characterizing this language in various linguistic domains. However, for nominal modification, the role of language-internal variation remains uncertain. This volume represents the first attempt to investigate sign order variability in this domain, examining what shapes the syntactic structure of LIS nominal expressions. In particular, three empirical studies are presented and discussed: the first two are corpus studies investigating the distribution and duration of nominal modifiers, while the third deals with the syntactic behavior of cardinal numerals, an unexplored area. In this enterprise, three different theoretical dimensions of inquiry are innovatively combined: linguistic typology, generative linguistics, and sociolinguistics. The research setup involves both quantitative and qualitative data. This mixed approach starts from corpus data to present the phenomenon, examine linguistic facts on a large scale, and draw questions from these, and then looks at elicited and judgment-based data to provide valid insights and refine the analysis. Crucially, the combination of different methods contributes to a better understanding of the mechanisms driving nominal modification in LIS and its internal variation.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Acknowledgements

Table of contents

List of figures

List of tables

Notation conventions

List of abbreviations

Introduction

1. Three theoretical dimensions of inquiry

2. State of the art on nominal modification

3. Methodology

4. The distribution of nominal modifiers

5. The duration of nominal modifiers

6. The syntax of cardinal numerals in LIS

7. Closing remarks

References

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

This eBook is made available Open Access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://www.degruyter.com/dg/page/open-access-policy

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed May 26, 2017).

ISBN:

1-5015-0485-1

1-5015-0481-9

OCLC:

987938835