It is widely known that sign languages make an extensive use of non-manual markers (NMM) to transmit linguistic information. Some NMMs are specific to particular constructions (in several Sign Languages, furrowed eyebrows is mostly used to mark wh-questions, while headshake is used to mark negation), others may occur in several unrelated constructions (see eyebrow raising in American sign language). This study presents preliminary results of a quantitative investigation of the distribution of raised eyebrows (re-NMM) in Italian Sign Language (LIS). Re-NMM frequently occurs in spontaneous signing and is used to mark a variety of constructions; therefore re-NMM qualifies as a good candidate for a VARBRUL analysis. In particular, re-NMM may mark 8 different constructions in LIS: yes/no-questions, topics, if-clauses, correlative clauses, focus, contrastive focus, subordinate clauses, and the signer’s attitude. Data come from a corpus of LIS and have been analyzed with the ELAN software. Results show an even distribution across the sample for most of the uses of re-NMM. Only two functions turned out to be significantly different: the use of re-NMM as a focus marker and the use of re-NMM as an attitude marker, which are sensitive to age.
Genny Conte, Mirko Santoro, Carlo Geraci, Anna Cardinaletti. 2010. Why are you raising your eyebrows?. In Proceedings of the LREC2010 4th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Corpora and Sign Language Technologies, pages 53–56, Valletta, Malta. European Language Resources Association (ELRA).
BibTeX Export
@inproceedings{conte:10024:sign-lang:lrec,
author = {Conte, Genny and Santoro, Mirko and Geraci, Carlo and Cardinaletti, Anna},
title = {Why are you raising your eyebrows?},
pages = {53--56},
editor = {Dreuw, Philippe and Efthimiou, Eleni and Hanke, Thomas and Johnston, Trevor and Mart{\'i}nez Ruiz, Gregorio and Schembri, Adam},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the {LREC2010} 4th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Corpora and Sign Language Technologies},
maintitle = {7th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation ({LREC} 2010)},
publisher = {{European Language Resources Association (ELRA)}},
address = {Valletta, Malta},
day = {22--23},
month = may,
year = {2010},
language = {english},
url = {https://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/lrec/pub/10024.pdf}
}
| Cardinaletti, Anna