Cover not available
Article published In:
Sign Language & Linguistics
Vol. 20:1 (2017) ► pp.27–54

Two agreement markers in Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS)

| Research group Neurobiology of Language, Department of Linguistics, University of Salzburg | Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience (CCNS), University of Salzburg
| Linguistics Program, and Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Purdue University
| Research group Neurobiology of Language, Department of Linguistics, University of Salzburg | Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience (CCNS), University of Salzburg

For many of the sign languages studied to date, different types of agreement markers have been described which express agreement in transitive constructions involving non-inflecting (plain) verbs and sometimes even inflected agreement verbs. Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS) belongs to the group of sign languages employing two different agreement markers (agrm-bc/agrm-mf), which will be described in this paper. In an online questionnaire, we focused on two questions: (i) whether both forms of agreement markers are rated as equally acceptable by Deaf ÖGS-signers and hearing native signers, and (ii) whether there is a preferred syntactic position (pre- vs. postverbal) for these markers. Data analysis confirmed that both agreement markers are accepted by ÖGS-signers and that both agreement markers are slightly preferred in preverbal position. Further, possible origins of both agreement markers are discussed.

Keywords: agreement, agreement markers, word order, Austrian Sign Language, questionnaire
Article outline
  • 1.Agreement in sign languages
    • 1.1Spatial establishment of arguments
    • 1.2Spatial agreement by movement and facing
    • 1.3Verb typology in sign languages
    • 1.4Person Agreement Marker (pam) in German Sign Language
  • 2.Two agreement markers in ÖGS
    • 2.1 agrm-bc
    • 2.2 agrm-mf
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Procedure
    • 3.2Materials and design
    • 3.3Participants
    • 3.4Data analysis
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Distribution of the ÖGS agreement markers
    • 4.2Cross-linguistic comparison
    • 4.3Speculations on the grammaticalization of ÖGS agreement markers
  • 5.Conclusions and questions for further research
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References


This article is currently available as a sample article.

Published online: 6 November 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sll.20.1.02kre
References

References

Bahan, Benjamin
1996 Non-manual realization of agreement in ASL. Boston, MA: Boston University PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
Bos, Heleen
1994 An auxiliary verb in Sign Language of the Netherlands. In Inger Ahlgren, Brita Bergman & Mary Brennan (eds.), Perspectives on sign language structure, 37–53. Durham: ISLA.Google Scholar
Brentari, Diane
1989 Backwards verbs in ASL: Agreement re-opened. In Lynn MacLeod (ed.), Parasession on agreement in grammatical theory (CLS 24, Vol. 2), 16–27. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Chen Pichler, Deborah, Katharina Schalber, Julie Hochgesang, Marina Milković, Ronnie B. Wilbur, Martina Vulje & Ljubica Pribanić
2008 Possession and existence in three sign languages. In Ronice M. de Quadros (ed.), Sign languages: Spinning and unraveling the past, present and future. Forty-five papers and three posters from the 9th Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research Conference, Florianopolis, Brazil, December 2006, 440–458. Petrópolis/RJ: Editora Arara Azul. [Available at: [URL]].
Costello, Brendan
2015 Language and modality: Effects of the use of space in the agreement system of lengua de signos española (Spanish Sign Language). Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam PhD dissertation. Utrecht: LOT.Google Scholar
Fischer, Susan D.
1975 Influences on word order change in American Sign Language. In Charles Li (ed.), Word order and word order change, 1–25. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Friedman, Lynn A.
1976 The manifestation of subject, object, and topic in the American Sign Language. In Charles N. Li (ed.), Subject and topic, 125–148. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Gökgöz, Kadir
2013 The nature of object marking in American Sign Language. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
Greenhouse, Samuel W. & Seymour Geisser
1959 On methods in the analysis of profile data. Psychometrika 24(2). 95–112. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hofstätter, Karin & Christian Stalzer
2011 Grammatik der Österreichischen Gebärdensprache. Zusammengestellt für den ÖGSDV. Unpublished manuscript, University of Graz.Google Scholar
Janis, Wynne D.
1992 Morphosyntax of the ASL verb phrase. Buffalo, NY: State University of New York at Buffalo PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
Krammer, Klaudia, Elisabeth Bergmeister, Franz Dotter, Marlene Hilzensauer, Ingeborg Okorn, Reinhold Orter & Andrea Skant
2001 The Klagenfurt database for sign language lexicons. Sign Language & Linguistics 4(1/2). 191–201. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krebs, Julia, Ronnie B. Wilbur & Dietmar Roehm
2016 Kongruenzmarker in der Österreichischen Gebärdensprache (ÖGS) – Präferierte Satzposition und Distribution. Das Zeichen. Zeitschrift für Sprache und Kultur Gehörloser 30(102). 128–138.Google Scholar
Liddell, Scott
2003 Grammar, gesture and meaning in American Sign Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lillo-Martin, Diane
1986 Two kinds of null arguments in American Sign Language. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 4(4). 415–444. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lillo-Martin, Diane & Richard P. Meier
2011 On the linguistic status of ‘agreement’ in sign languages. Theoretical Linguistics 371. 95–141. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mathur, Gaurav & Christian Rathmann
2012 Verb agreement. In Roland Pfau, Markus Steinbach & Bencie Woll (eds.), Sign language. An international handbook, 136–157. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Meir, Irit
1998 Thematic structure and verb agreement in Israeli Sign Language. Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
2002 A cross-modality perspective on verb agreement. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 201. 413–450. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Murmann, Christina
2012 The agreement auxiliary pam in German Sign Language – An empirical investigation. Düsseldorf: University of Düsseldorf Master’s thesis.Google Scholar
Neidle, Carol, Judy Kegl, Dawn MacLaughlin, Benjamin Bahan & Robert G. Lee
2000 The syntax of American Sign Language: Functional categories and hierarchical structure. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Onea, Edgar
2011 OnExp. Software for online questionnaires. CRC Text Structures, University of Göttingen.Google Scholar
Padden, Carol
1983 Interaction of morphology and syntax in American Sign Language. San Diego, CA: University of California PhD dissertation [published 1988, New York: Garland Press].Google Scholar
Padden, Carol, Irit Meir, Mark Aronoff & Wendy Sandler
2010 The grammar of space in two new sign languages. In Diane Brentari (ed.), Sign languages: A Cambridge survey, 573–595. New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pfau, Roland
2011 A point well taken: On the typology and diachrony of pointing. In Donna J. Napoli & Gaurav Mathur (eds.), Deaf around the world. The impact of language, 144–163. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Pfau, Roland & Markus Steinbach
2006 Modality-independent and modality-specific aspects of grammaticalization in sign languages (Linguistics in Potsdam 24). Potsdam: Universitäts-Verlag. Available at [URL].
2013  person climbing up a tree (and other adventures in sign language grammaticalization). Sign Language & Linguistics 16(2). 189–220. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Quadros, Ronice M. de
1999 Phrase structure of Brazilian Sign Language. Porto Alegre: Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
Quadros, Ronice M. de & Josep Quer
2008 Back to back(wards) and moving on: on agreement, auxiliaries and verb classes in sign languages. In Ronice M. de Quadros (ed.), Sign languages: Spinning and unraveling the past, present and future. Forty-five papers and three posters from the 9th Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research Conference , Florianopolis, Brazil , December 2006, 530–551. Petrópolis/RJ: Editora Arara Azul. [Available at: [URL]].
Quer, Josep & Santiago Frigola
2006 Cross-linguistic research and particular grammars: A case study on auxiliary predicates in Catalan Sign Language (LSC). Paper presented at Workshop on Cross-linguistic Sign Language Research , Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands, January 2006.
Quer, Josep
2011 When agreeing to disagree is not enough: Further arguments for the linguistic status of sign language agreement. Theoretical Linguistics 37(3/4). 189–196.Google Scholar
Rathmann, Christian & Mathur Gaurav
2002 Is verb agreement the same cross-modally? In Richard P. Meier, Kearsy Cormier & David Quinto-Pozos (eds.), Modality and structure in signed and spoken languages, 370–404. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rathmann, Christian
2003 The optionality of agreement phrase: Evidence from German Sign Language (DGS). Texas Linguistics Forum 531. 181–192.Google Scholar
Sandler, Wendy & Diane Lillo-Martin
2006 Sign language and linguistic universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sapountzaki, Galini
2012 Agreement auxiliaries. In Roland Pfau, Markus Steinbach & Bencie Woll (eds.), Sign language. An international handbook, 204–227. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Senghas, Ann & Marie Coppola
2001 Children creating language: How Nicaraguan Sign Language acquired a spatial grammar. Psychological Science 12(4). 323–328. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 Getting to the point: How a simple gesture became a linguistic element in Nicaraguan signing. In Donna J. Napoli & Gaurav Mathur (eds.), Deaf around the world: The impact of language, 127–143. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Skant, Andrea, Franz Dotter, Elisabeth Bergmeister, Marlene Hilzensauer, Manuela Hobel, Klaudia Krammer, Ingeborg Okorn, Christian Orasche, Reinhold Orter & Natalie Unterberger
2002 Grammatik der Österreichischen Gebärdensprache, Vol. 41. Klagenfurt: Veröffentlichungen des Forschungszentrums für Gebärdensprache und Hörgeschädigtenkommunikation.Google Scholar
Smith, Wayne H.
1990 Evidence for auxiliaries in Taiwan Sign Language. In Susan Fischer & Patricia Siple (eds.), Theoretical issues in sign language research, Vol. 1: Linguistics, 211–228. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Steinbach, Markus & Roland Pfau
2007 Grammaticalization of auxiliaries in sign languages. In Pamela Perniss, Roland Pfau & Markus Steinbach (eds.), Visible variation: Comparative studies on sign language structure, 303–339. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Steinbach, Markus
2011 What do agreement auxiliaries reveal about the grammar of sign language agreement? Theoretical Linguistics 37(3/4). 209–221.Google Scholar
Thompson, Robin, Karen Emmorey & Robert Kluender
2006 The relationship between eye gaze and verb agreement in American Sign Language: an eye-tracking study. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 24(2). 571–604. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vos, Connie de
2012 Sign-spatiality in Kata Kolok: How a village sign language of Bali inscribes its signing space. Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
Wilbur, Ronnie B.
1999 Metrical structure, morphological gaps, and possible grammaticalization in ASL. Sign Language & Linguistics 2(2). 217–244. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2002 Phrase structure in ASL and ÖGS. In Rolf Schulmeister & Heimo Reinitzer (eds.), Progress in sign language research. In honor of Siegmund Prillwitz, 235–247. Hamburg: Signum.Google Scholar
2005 Evidence from American Sign Language and Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS) for asymmetries in Universal Grammar. In Anna Maria Di Sciullo & Rodolfo Delmonte (eds.), Universal Grammar and external systems, 191–210. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
2013 The point of agreement: Changing how we think about sign language, gesture, and agreement. Sign Language & Linguistics 16(2). 221–258. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zeshan, Ulrike
2000 Sign Language in Indo-Pakistan: A description of a signed language. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 9 other publications

Bos, Heleen F.
2017. Author’s preface. Sign Language & Linguistics 20:2 ► pp. 221 ff. DOI logo
Bross, Fabian
2020. Object marking in German Sign Language (<i>Deutsche Gebärdensprache</i>): Differential object marking and object shift in the visual modality. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 5:1 DOI logo
Börstell, Carl
2019. Differential object marking in sign languages. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 4:1 DOI logo
Gökgöz, Kadir
2017. Commentary on Bos (1998). Sign Language & Linguistics 20:2 ► pp. 270 ff. DOI logo
Kimmelman, Vadim
2021. Acceptability Judgments in Sign Linguistics. In The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Syntax, ► pp. 561 ff. DOI logo
Krebs, Julia, Evie Malaia, Ronnie B. Wilbur & Dietmar Roehm
2020. Interaction between topic marking and subject preference strategy in sign language processing. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience 35:4 ► pp. 466 ff. DOI logo
Krebs, Julia, Ronnie B. Wilbur, Phillip M. Alday & Dietmar Roehm
2019. The Impact of Transitional Movements and Non-Manual Markings on the Disambiguation of Locally Ambiguous Argument Structures in Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS). Language and Speech 62:4 ► pp. 652 ff. DOI logo
Krebs, Julia, Ronnie B. Wilbur & Dietmar Roehm
2020. Distributional properties of an agreement marker in Austrian Sign Language (ÖGS). Linguistics 58:4 ► pp. 1151 ff. DOI logo
Pfau, Roland, Martin Salzmann & Markus Steinbach
2018. The syntax of sign language agreement: Common ingredients, but unusual recipe. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 3:1 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 14 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.