Klassifikatorkonstruktion (Gebärdensprache)

Vorlage:Merge Classifier constructions in sign languages are a morphological system that expresses events and states.Vorlage:Sfn These constructions use particular handshape classifiers to represent movement, location, shape or information about how an object is handled. Those who do not know the sign language can often recover the meaning of these constructions because the classifier constructions and handshapes are often iconic (non-arbitrary).Vorlage:Sfn Children reach adult-like fluency around 8 or 9 years old.Vorlage:Sfn

Classifiers differ from lexicalized signs in their morphology. For lexicalized signs, each sign is its own morpheme composed of meaningless phonological parameters such as handshape, location, and movement. Classifier constructions, however, are polymorphemic and the handshape, location, and movement are all morphemic.Vorlage:Sfn The handshape represents an entity, the movement iconically represents the movement of that entity, and the relative location of the classifiers in a two-handed construction may represent the relative location of the entities.

Frishberg coined the word "classifier" in this context in her 1975 paper on American Sign Language. Linguists have since then debated on how best to analyze these constructions, with some of them questioning their linguistic status, as well as the very use of term "classifier".Vorlage:Sfn

History

In the early days of sign language research, classifier constructions were not regarded as full linguistic systems. This was due to their high degree of apparent variability and iconicity, the latter referring to the possibility of guessing the meaning just from the form.Vorlage:Sfn It wasn't until the 1960s that sign languages were being studied seriously. The focus was on proving that these were real languages, thus linguists paid less attention to the iconic properties of classifier constructions and more to the grammatical organization.Vorlage:Sfn

Frishberg was the first to use the term "classifier" in her 1975 paper on arbitrariness and iconicity in American Sign Language (ASL) to refer to the handshape unit used in classifier constructions.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn The first linguist to show that classifier constructions were actually part of a complex morphological system was Supalla in 1982.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn He also split the classifier handshapes into two main categories: Size and Shape Specifiers (SASSes) and semantic classifiers, although linguists would later come to refer to the latter as "entity classifiers".Vorlage:Sfn SASS categories use handshapes to describe the visual properties of an entity; entity classifier are less iconic, referring to a general semantic class of objects such as "thin and straight" or "flat and round".Vorlage:Sfn Handling classifiers, which imitate the hand holding or handling an instrument, would be the third type of classifier to be described.Vorlage:Sfn A fourth type, the body-part classifier, represents a human or animal body parts, usually the limbs.Vorlage:Sfn

In 1977, Allan performed a survey of classifier systems in spoken languages. He drew similarities between the classifiers in sign languages and the seemingly similar "predicate classifiers" used in the Athabaskan languages,Vorlage:Sfn a family of oral indigenous languages spoken throughout North America.Vorlage:Sfn These comparisons were made out of a desire to standardize terminology and to prove that sign languages are not fundamentally dissimilar to spoken languages.Vorlage:Sfn Allan described predicate classifiers as separate verbal morphemes that denote some salient aspect of the associated noun.Vorlage:Sfn However, Schembri pointed out the "terminological confusion" surrounded classifiers,Vorlage:Sfn and Allan's description and comparison to the classifiers in sign languages drew criticism. Later analyses showed that these predicate classifiers did not constitute separate morphemes and were better described as classificatory verbs stems rather than classifiers.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn

In the 1990s, a renewed interested in the relation between sign languages and gesture took place.Vorlage:Sfn Some linguists, such as Liddell in 2000, called the linguistic status of classifier constructions into question. Reasons for doing so include the similar nature of the imitative gestures of non-signersVorlage:Sfn and the very large amount of movement types and locations that can be used in these constructions. Liddell suggested that it would be more accurate to consider them to be a mixture of linguistic and extra-linguistic elements, such as gesture.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn Schembri et al. similarly suggested in 2005 that classifier constructions are "blends of linguistic and gestural elements".Vorlage:Sfn Regardless of the high degree of variability, classifier constructions are still grammatically restrained by various factors; they are also more abstract and categorical than the gestural forms made by non-signers.Vorlage:Sfn

Similar to Allan, Grinevald also compared sign language classifiers to spoken classifiers in 2000.Vorlage:Sfn Specifically, she focused on verbal classifier, which act as verbal affixes.Vorlage:Sfn She lists the following example from Cayuga, an Iroquian language:Vorlage:Sfn

Skitu ake’-treht-ae’

skidoo I-C L(vehicle)-have

‘I have a car.’

The classifier for the word vehicle in Cayuga, -treht-, is similar to whole entity classifiers in sign languages. Similar examples have been found in Digueño, which has morphemes that act like extension and surface classifiers in sign languages. Both examples are attached to the verb and cannot stand alone.Vorlage:Sfn

Despite the many proposed alternative names to the term classifier,Vorlage:Sfn and questionable relationship to spoken language classifiers,Vorlage:Sfn it continues to be a commonly used term in sign language research.Vorlage:Sfn

Categories

In classifier constructions, the handshape represent an entity which can be combined with movement to express the movement of that entity, although there are constraints on what combinations are possible.Vorlage:Sfn In two-handed classifier construction expressing an entity's location, the first sign usually represent the unmoving ground (for example a surface) whereas the second sign represent the figure in focus (for example a person walking).Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn This is in contrast to lexical signs, in which the dominant and non-dominant hand do not contribute to the meaning of the sign on their own.Vorlage:Sfn Another difference is that in classifier constructions the handshape, movement and location are meaningful on their own, unlike in lexical signs.Vorlage:Sfn While the choice for the handshape is usually determined by the visual aspects of the entity in question,Vorlage:Sfn there are also other factors. The way in which the doer (agent) interacts with the entityVorlage:Sfn or the entity's movementVorlage:Sfn can also affect the handshape choice.

There have been many attempts at classifying the types of classifiers with the amount of proposed types ranging from two to seven.Vorlage:Sfn In 1993, Engberg-Pedersen grouped the handshapes used in classifier constructions in four categories:Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn

• Whole entity classifiers: The handshape represents a concept, such as a person; car; pencil or piece of paper in its entirety. It can also represent a non-physical concept, such as culture.Vorlage:Sfn
• Handling/instrument classifiers: The handshape represents the hands handling an entity or instrument, such as a knife. They resemble whole entity classifiers, but they semantically imply an agent handling the entity. Just as with whole entity classifier, the entity in handling classifiers does not have to be a physical object.Vorlage:Sfn
• Limb classifiers: The handshape represents limbs such as legs, feet or paws.
• Extension and surface classifiers: The handshape represents the depth or width of an entity. For example, a thin wire, a narrow board or the wide surface of a car's roof.

The handshape's movement is grouped similarly:Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn

• Location morphemes:Vorlage:Sfn Movement represent the location of an entity through a short, downward movement. The entity's orientation can be represented by shifting the hand's orientation.
• Motion morphemes: Movement represents the entity's movement along a path.
• Manner morphemes: Movement represents the manner of motion, but not the path.
• Extension morphemes: Movement does not represent actual motion, but the outline of the entity's shape or perimeter. It can also represent the configuration of multiple similar entities, such as a line of books.

Due to the availability of two independent articulators (the hands), it is possible to represent the location or movement of two entities at the same time, although there are limitations. For example, it is impossible to describe a woman walking past a zigzagging car by articulating both movements simultaneously. This is because two simultaneous constructions cannot have differing movements; one would have to describe the movements sequentially.Vorlage:Sfn Another example is the grammatical impossibility of combining certain types of classifiers and movements: manner of motion can not be combined with limb classifiers in ASL. To indicate a person limping in a circle, one must first sign the manner of motion (limping), then the limb classifiers (the legs).Vorlage:Sfn

Lexicalization

Certain classifier constructions may also, over time, lose their general meaning and become fully-fledged signs. This process is referred to as lexicalization.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn For example, the ASL sign FALL seems to have come from a classifier construction. This classifier construction consist of a V-shaped hand, which represent the legs, moving down. As it become more like a sign, it could also be used with non-animate referents, like apples or boxes. As a sign, the former classifier construction now conforms to the usual constraints of a word, such as consisting of one syllable.Vorlage:Sfn

Linguistic analysis

Linguists have been divided on how to best characterize classifier constructions.Vorlage:Sfn Some linguists, like Supalla, see the classifier as a series of morphemes,Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn some consider it to be a partially lexicalized verbVorlage:Sfn whereas others underscore the relation between the classifier's form and its meaning.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn DeMatteo, who falls in the latter group, claims that a traditional linguistic analysis is inadequate to fully account for the large amount of potential meaningful units. He views the movement in classifier constructions as "a spatial analogue of the movement in the real/imaginal world" rather than assigning a morpheme to each possible movement.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn Liddell disagrees with both Supalla's morphemic view and DeMatteo's visual analogy on the ground that they predict impossible constructions in ASL. He claims that in ASL Supalla's proposed classifier morphemes cannot combine freely with each other. DeMatteo's visual analogy, Liddell believes, doesn't account for the fact that certain movements cannot be combined with certain classifiers (such as an animal classifier "walking" in a straight path), despite it being an iconic representation of the event.Vorlage:Sfn Similarly, Engberg-Pedersen claims that morphemic view of classifier constructions doesn't explain why signers reject many specific combinations of these morphemes.Vorlage:Sfn

If the handshape is taken to consist of multiple morphemes, which many linguists do, it is uncertain how many morphemes there actually are. For example, the fingertips in Swedish Sign Language can be bent in order to represent the front of a car getting damaged in a crash; this led Supalla to posit that each finger might act as a separate morpheme.Vorlage:Sfn Liddell found that to analyse a classifier construction in ASL where one person walks to another would require anywhere between 14 and 28 morphemes.Vorlage:Sfn Other linguists however consider the handshape to consist of one, solitary morpheme. Asking signers for judgement of grammaticality has not yielded convincing evidence that all handshapes are multi-morphemic.Vorlage:Sfn

Root

There have multiple attempts at determining which morpheme is the base, or "root", in the classifier. Supalla considers the morpheme that expresses motion or location to be the verbal root to which the handshape morpheme is affixed. Several linguists, including Engberg-Pedersen, disagreed with Supalla's interpretation. They point out that the choice of handshape can fundamentally change how the handshape's movement is interpreted and consider the handshape to be the root. For example, putting a book on a shelf and a cat jumping on a shelf both use the same movement in ASL, despite being fundamentally different acts.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn Yet other analyses treat handshape morphemes as a type of pronoun.Vorlage:Sfn

Acquisition

Unlike speaking children whose gestures sometimes resemble classifier constructions,Vorlage:Sfn children learning a sign languages acquire classifier constructions as part of a grammatical system, not as iconic representations of events. Although some components are mastered early on, children don't fully acquire the use of classifier constructions until the age of 8 or 9. The reason for this relatively late mastery is because child is required to learn how to coordinate both hands separately, express different viewpoint and execute complex movements correctly.Vorlage:Sfn Schick found that the most difficult item to master were the handling classifiers followed by the extension and surface classifier; the whole entity classifiers had the least amount of production errors.Vorlage:Sfn

Children younger than five often omit the optional ground object entirely, mentioning only the figure. This could be because mentioning the ground and figure together requires proper coordination of both hands. It could also be because children have more difficulty learning optional structures in general. Simple movements are produced correctly as early as 2.6 years of age, although children might have difficulty correctly expressing more complex movements, such as arcs. Acquisition of location in classifier constructions depends on the complexity between the referents and the related spatial locations. Simple extension and surface classifiers are correctly produced at 4.5 years of age.Vorlage:Sfn Children master the use of the correct classifier by the age of 5 to 6.Vorlage:Sfn

It is widely accepted that iconicity aids language acquisition in spoken languages, although the picture is less clear for sign languages.Vorlage:SfnVorlage:Sfn Some have argued that iconicity plays no role in acquiring classifier construction. This is said to be because constructions are highly complex and aren't mastered until late childhood.Vorlage:Sfn Other linguists claim that children as young as 3 years old can produce adult-like constructions,Vorlage:Sfn although they only use one hand.Vorlage:Sfn Slobin found that children under 3 years of age seem to "bootstrap" natural gesture in order to facilitate acquisition of handshape.Vorlage:Sfn

References

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