Cagliari, Italy  15-18 September 2003

ALT V Conference

Sonja Erlenkamp

On the notion of subject in Norwegian Sign Language;
sonja.erlenkamp@ilf.uio.no

In linguistic typology, grammatical relations, as for example subject, are often thought of as relations that have universal functions in communication (Payne 1997). One of these functions is to distinguish between the - at least two - arguments in a transitive sentence with regard to their relation to the predicate of the sentence. In others words: How do know “who is doing what to whom?” in transitive sentences? For descriptive linguists it is important to recognize that the grammatical relations are defined in terms of language-specific properties.

With regard to one particular grammatical relation, the subject, there are at least two different major approaches defining the term subject in spoken languages. On the one hand subject is defined as a grammatical relation serving the function to identify the first argument of a sentence by formal markings, like case markings, word order, coordination and passivization. On the other hand subject often is defined as the argument which prototypically expresses a particular semantic and pragmatic role, being the agent of the action and the topic of the sentence. Both approaches have in common that the subject is described as the grammatical relation which groups together the S of an intransitive sentence with the A of a transitive sentence in opposition to the O of the transitive sentence. 

In the presentation that is based on a project on !grammatical relations in Norwegian Sign Language (NSL)” the focus will be on some of the formal properties that seem to identify the grammatical relations in spoken languages most directly, as for example case marking and constituent order. These properties are probably not sufficient criteria in order to identify grammatical relations in NSL.

I will show that some of the problems when describing the argument-structure of NSL with regard to subject properties, origin in a sign-language-specific phenomenon: In NSL as in other sign languages like German Sign Language (GSL) and American Sign Language (ASL) the signer uses his or her own body, facial expression and signs to refer to other entities’ doing or saying. The other entity can be a person (including the speaker in another setting than the actual one), an animal or even an object. This kind of expression has among other things been called “role-shifting”. As Liddell (in press) I use the term “surrogate”. This phenomenon is often used in constructions where one would expect linear coordination or other syntactic constructions.

The existence and use of surrogates indicates that the visuality of NSL (or other sign languages) makes it unnecessary or “uneconomical” to mark the argument-structure in other ways than the most direct one: by using gestures to show visually what is happening. That means that there is no or a very weak association between the S and one of the two arguments of the transitive sentence.

 References:

 Keenan, Edward (1976):  Towards a universal definition of subject. In: Li, Charles (edred.): Subject and Topic. New York: Academic Press, 301-333.

Liddell, S. K. (in press):   Grammar, Gesture, and Meaning in American Sign Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Müller-Gotama, Franz (1991): Grammatical relations: a cross-linguistic perspective on their syntax and semantics. Empirical approaches to language typology 11, Berlin: de Gruyter,

Payne, Thomas (1997):   Describing morphosyntax. Cambridge.