"A PLANE" IS NOT "TO FLY": ACQUIRING THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN RELATED NOUNS AND VERBS IN AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE.
Item
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Title
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"A PLANE" IS NOT "TO FLY": ACQUIRING THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN RELATED NOUNS AND VERBS IN AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE.
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Identifier
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AAI8302525
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identifier
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8302525
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Creator
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LAUNER, PATRICIA BURSTEIN.
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Contributor
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Margaret Lahey
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Date
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1982
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Health Sciences, Speech Pathology | Education, Language and Literature
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Abstract
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American Sign Language (ASL) is a visual-manual language distinct from spoken languages. This dissertation represents the first systematic study of the acquisition of a derivational process in deaf children learning ASL as a native language.;In ASL, semantically related nouns and verbs (e.g., AIRPLANE/FLY) share the same handshape, location and movement shape, but are differentiated by features of movement (manner, frequency, size). The noun-verb process is documented in ten deaf adults (native signers), by means of elicitation tasks.;Acquisition of this process is examined in light of the influence of: semantic factors; language-specific formal devices; modality-specific factors (i.e., iconicity); and maternal input.;The early lexicons of four children are compared to the first 50 words reported for English acquisition. Similarity is found in the type and frequency of nominals, but early action words vary across languages, due to language-specific and modality-specific differences.;Spontaneous production of related nouns and verbs is traced in three deaf children and their deaf mothers. Before age two, children acquire lexical items, but without morphological marking. At the same time, mothers consistently obliterate morphological distinctions, producing ungrammatical forms. Both mothers and children elaborate signs mimetically, apparently making use of the iconic potential of these signs.;In early input, mothers often sign on the child's body, or mold the child's hands to facilitate learning. These features of "sign motherese" are also noted in a three-year old child signing to her one-year old sister.;After age two, maternal input changes dramatically, and children begin to mark noun-verb distinctions in idiosyncratic ways. Between age three and four, children systematically mark morphological distinctions, and they extend the process to unpaired forms and lexical innovations. These steps in acquisition are confirmed by elicitation tasks administered to 32 deaf children of deaf parents (age 2;0-11;0).;Early lexical acquisition seems to be influenced by semantics, iconicity and maternal input. But the course of acquiring a derivational process in ASL is strikingly similar to the acquisition of morphology in spoken languages, despite the differences in language modality.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Speech and Hearing Sciences
