Hunsicker Dea, Goldin-Meadow Susan
University of Chicago.
Gesture (Amst). 2013;175:354-376. doi: 10.1075/gest.13.3.05hun.
All established languages, spoken or signed, make a distinction between nouns and verbs. Even a young sign language emerging within a family of deaf individuals has been found to mark the noun-verb distinction, and to use handshape type to do so. Here we ask whether handshape type is used to mark the noun-verb distinction in a gesture system invented by a deaf child who does not have access to a usable model of either spoken or signed language. The child produces homesigns that have linguistic structure, but receives from his hearing parents co-speech gestures that are structured differently from his own gestures. Thus, unlike users of established and emerging languages, the homesigner is a producer of his system but does not receive it from others. Nevertheless, we found that the child used handshape type to mark the distinction between nouns and verbs at the early stages of development. The noun-verb distinction is thus so fundamental to language that it can arise in a homesign system not shared with others. We also found that the child abandoned handshape type as a device for distinguishing nouns from verbs at just the moment when he developed a combinatorial system of handshape and motion components that marked the distinction. The way the noun-verb distinction is marked thus depends on the full array of linguistic devices available within the system.
所有已确立的语言，无论是口语还是手语，都对名词和动词加以区分。即便在一个聋人家庭中出现的一种新兴手语，也被发现能够体现名词与动词的区别，并且通过手型类别来做到这一点。在此，我们要探究的是，在一个没有接触过任何可用口语或手语模式的失聪儿童所发明的手势系统中，手型类别是否被用于体现名词与动词的区别。这个儿童创造出了具有语言结构的家庭手语，但从他有听力的父母那里接收到的伴随言语的手势，其结构与他自己的手势不同。因此，与已确立语言和新兴语言的使用者不同，这个使用家庭手语的人是其系统的创造者，而非从他人那里习得该系统。然而，我们发现这个儿童在发展的早期阶段就使用手型类别来区分名词和动词。名词与动词的区别对于语言来说是如此基础，以至于它能够在一个不与他人共享的家庭手语系统中出现。我们还发现，就在这个儿童发展出一个通过手型和动作成分的组合系统来体现这种区别的时候，他不再使用手型类别作为区分名词和动词的手段。因此，名词与动词的区别的体现方式取决于该系统中可用的全部语言手段。
