Article published In:
Diachronica: Online-First Articles

Abrupt grammatical reorganization of an emergent sign language

The expression of motion in Zinacantec Family Homesign

ORCID logo | The University of Texas at Austin

This study traces the development of discrete, combinatorial structure in Zinacantec Family Homesign (‘Z Sign’), a sign language developed since the 1970s by several deaf siblings in Mexico (Haviland 2020b), focusing on the expression of motion. The results reveal that the first signer, who generated a homesign system without access to language models, represents motion events holistically. Later-born signers, who acquired this homesign system from infancy, distribute the components of motion events over sequences of discrete signs. Furthermore, later-born signers exhibit greater regularity of form-meaning mappings and increased articulatory efficiency. Importantly, these changes occur abruptly between the first- and second-born signers, rather than incrementally across signers. This study extends previous findings for Nicaraguan Sign Language (Senghas et al. 2004) to a social group of a much smaller scale, suggesting that the parallel processes of cultural transmission and language acquisition drive language emergence, regardless of community size.

Keywords: homesign, sign language, language emergence, combinatorial structure, segmentation, cultural transmission, acquisition, expression of motion
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The expression of manner and path in established and emergent sign languages
    • 2.1The expression of manner and path in homesign and emergent sign languages
  • 3.Zinacantec Family Homesign
  • 4.Methodology
  • 5.Motion expressions in Z Sign
  • 6.Quantitative results
    • 6.1Segmentation of manner and path
    • 6.2Form-meaning mappings
      • 6.2.1Classifier predicates
      • 6.2.2Constructed action
    • 6.3Use of the hands versus the body in the representation of path
  • 7.Discussion
    • 7.1Trade-offs between iconicity, combinatoriality and ease of articulation
    • 7.2The role of cultural transmission and the rate of emergence
    • 7.3Deaf signers versus hearing signers
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 7 December 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/dia.22039.ger
References
Aronoff, Mark, Irit Meir, Carol Padden & Wendy Sandler
2005 Morphological universals and the sign language type. In Geert Booij & Jaap van Marle (eds.) Yearbook of morphology 2004, 19–39. Dordrecht, Netherlands & Norwell, MA: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Austin, Alison C., Kathryn D. Schuler, Sarah Furlong & Elissa L. Newport
2022 Learning a language from inconsistent input: Regularization in child and adult learners. Language Learning and Development 18(3). 249–277. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Benedicto, Elena, Sandra Cvejanov & Josep Quer
2008 The morphosyntax of verbs of motion in serial constructions: A crosslinguistic study in three signed languages. In Josep Quer (ed.) Signs of the times: Selected papers from TISLR [Theorectical Issues in Sign Language Research] 2004 (International Studies on Sign Language and the Communication of the Deaf 51), 111–132. Seedorf, Germany: Signum.Google Scholar
Brentari, Diane, Rabia Ergin, Ann Senghas, Pyeong Whan Cho, Eli Owens & Marie Coppola
2021 Community interactions and phonemic inventories in emerging sign languages. Phonology 38(4). 571–609. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brentari, Diane & Susan Goldin-Meadow
2017 Language emergence. Annual Review of Linguistics 31. 363–388. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Christiansen, Morten H. & Nick Chater
2008 Language as shaped by the brain. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 31(5). 489–509. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Christiansen, Morten H. & Joseph T. Devlin
1997 Recursive inconsistencies are hard to learn: A connectionist perspective on universal word order correlations. In Proceedings of the 19th Annual Cognitive Science Society Conference, 113–118.Google Scholar
Cormier, Kearsy, Sandra Smith & Zed Sevcikova-Sehyr
2015 Rethinking constructed action. Sign Language & Linguistics 18(2). 167–204. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Couvee, Sascha & Roland Pfau
2018 Structure and grammaticalization of serial verb constructions in sign language of the Netherlands – A corpus-based study. Frontiers in Psychology 91. 993. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Emmorey, Karen
2003 Perspectives on classifier constructions in sign languages. New York & London: Psychology Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Flaherty, Molly, Dea Hunsicker & Susan Goldin-Meadow
2021 Structural biases that children bring to language learning: A cross-cultural look at gestural input to homesign. Cognition 2111. 104608. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Franklin, Amy, Anastasia Giannakidou & Susan Goldin-Meadow
2011 Negation and structure building in a home sign system. In Etsuyo Yuasa, Tista Bagchi & Katharine Beals (eds.) Pragmatics and autolexical grammar: In honor of Jerry Sadock (Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 176), 261–276. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Frishberg, Nancy
1975 Arbitratiness and iconicity: Historical change in American Sign Language. Language 51(3). 696–719. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gagne, Deanna L.
2017 With a little help from my friends: The contributions of a peer language network on the conventionalization of space in an emerging language. Storrs, CT: University of Connecticut dissertation.
Goldin-Meadow, Susan
1982 The resilience of recursion: A study of a communication system developed without a conventional language model. In Eric Wanner & Lila R. Gleitman (eds.) Language acquistion: The state of the art, 51–77. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
1987 Underlying redundancy and its reduction in a language developed without a language model: Constraints imposed by conventional linguistic input. In Barbara Lust (ed.) Studies in the acquisition of anaphora, vol. 2: Applying the constraints (Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics 6), 105–133. Dordrecht, Netherlands: D. Reidel. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, Susan, Cynthia Butcher, Carolyn Mylander & Mark Dodge
1994 Nouns and verbs in a self-styled gesture system: What′s in a name? Cognitive Psychology 27(3). 259–319. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, Susan & Heidi Feldman
1977 The development of language-like communication without a language model. Science 197(4301). 401–403. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, Susan & Carolyn Mylander
1990 The role of parental input in the development of a morphological system. Journal of Child Language 17(3). 527–563. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, Susan, Carolyn Mylander & Cynthia Butcher
1995 The resilience of combinatorial structure at the word level: Morphology in self-styled gesture systems. Cognition 56(3). 195–262. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haviland, John B.
2011 Nouns, verbs, and constituents in an emerging ‘Tzotzil’ sign language. In Rodrigo Gutiérrez-Bravo, Line Mikkelsen & Eric Potsdam (eds.) Representing language: Essays in honor of Judith Aissen, 157–171. Santa Cruz, CA: University of California Linguistic Research Center.Google Scholar
2013a Xi to vi: “Over that way, look!”: (Meta)spacial representation of an emerging (Mayan?) sign language. In Peter Auer, Martin Hilpert, Anja Stukenbrock & Benedikt Szmrecsanyi (eds.) Space in language and linguistics: Geographical, interactional, and cognitive perspectives (Linguae & Litterae 24), 334–400. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013b (Mis)understanding and obtuseness: “Ethnolinguistic borders” in a miniscule speech community. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 23(3). 160–191. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016 “But you said ‘four sheep’…!”: (Sign) language, ideology, and self (esteem) across generations in a Mayan family. Language & Communication 461. 62–94. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2019 Grammaticalizing the face (as well as the hands) in a first generation sign language: The case of Zinacantec Family Homesign. In Michela Cennamo & Claudia Fabrizio (eds.) Historical linguistics 2015: Selected papers from the 22nd International Conference on Historical Linguistics [ICHL], Naples, 27–31 July 2015 (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 348), 519–560. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2020a Signs, interaction, coordination, and gaze: Interactive foundations of “Z”—an emerging (sign) language from Chiapas, Mexico. In Olivier Le Guen, Josefina Safar & Marie Coppola (eds.) Emerging sign languages of the Americas, 35–96. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2020b Zinacantec family homesign (or “Z”). In Olivier Le Guen, Josefina Safar & Marie Coppola (eds.) Emerging sign languages of the Americas, 393–400. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2022 How and when to sign “Hey!”: Socialization into grammar in Z, a 1st generation family sign language from Mexico. Languages 7(2). 80. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hockett, Charles F.
1960 The origin of speech. Scientific American 203(3). 88–97. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Horton, Laura, Lynn Hou, Austin German & Jenny Singleton
Forthcoming. Sign language socialization and participant frameworks in three indigenous Mesoamerican communities: A qualitative comparative study. Research on Language and Social Interaction.
Horton, Laura A.
2018 Conventionalization of shared homesign systems in Guatemala: Social, lexical, and morphophonological dimensions. Chicago: University of Chicago dissertation.
Hou, Lynn Yong-Shi
2016 “Making hands”: Family sign languages in the San Juan Quiahije community. Austin, TX: University of Texas at Austin dissertation.
Kirby, Simon, Hannah Cornish & Kenny Smith
2008 Cumulative cultural evolution in the laboratory: An experimental approach to the origins of structure in human language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105(31). 10681–10686. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kirby, Simon & James R. Hurford
2002 The emergence of linguistic structure: An overview of the iterated learning model. In Angelo Cangelosi & Domenico Parisi (eds.) Simulating the evolution of language, 121–147. London: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Klima, Edward S. & Ursula Bellugi
1979 The signs of language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William
2007 Transmission and diffusion. Language 83(2). 344–387. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Loos, Cornelia, Austin German & Richard P. Meier
2022 Simultaneous structures in sign languages: Acquisition and emergence. Frontiers in Psychology 992589. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mayer, Mercer
1967 A boy, a frog, and a dog. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
1969 Frog, where are you? New York: Dial Press.Google Scholar
McNeill, David
1992 Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thought. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Meier, Richard P.
2002 Why different, why the same? Explaining effects and non-effects of modality upon linguistic structure in sign and speech. In Richard P. Meier, Kearsy Cormier & David Quinto-Pozos (eds.) Modality and structure in signed and spoken languages, 1–25. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Meir, Irit, Wendy Sandler, Carol Padden & Mark Aronoff
2010 Emerging sign languages. In Marc Marschark & Elizabeth Spencer (eds.) The Oxford handbook of deaf studies, language, and education 21, 268–280. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Metzger, Melanie
1995 Constructed dialogue and constructed action in American Sign Language. In Ceil Lucas (ed.) Sociolinguistics in deaf communities, 255–271. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Ross E. & Michaela Karchmer
2004 Chasing the mythical ten percent: Parental hearing status of deaf and hard of hearing students in the United States. Sign Language Studies 4(2). 138–163. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Newport, Elissa L.
1988 Constraints on learning and their role in language acquisition: Studies of the acquisition of American Sign Language. Language Sciences 10(1). 147–172. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nyst, Victoria A. S.
2007 A descriptive analysis of Adamorobe Sign Language (Ghana). Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam dissertation.Google Scholar
Özyürek, Asli, Reyhan Furman & Susan Goldin-Meadow
2015 On the way to language: Event segmentation in homesign and gesture. Journal of Child Language 42(1). 64–94. DOI logoGoogle 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 (Cambridge Language Surveys), 570–592. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Quinto-Pozos, David
2007a Can constructed action be considered obligatory? Lingua 117(7). 1285–1314. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007b Why does constructed action seem obligatory? An analysis of “classifiers” and the lack of articulator-referent correspondence. Sign Language Studies 7(4). 458–506. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Quinto-Pozos, David & Sarika Mehta
2010 Register variation in mimetic gestural complements to signed language. Journal of Pragmatics 42(3). 557–584. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Gareth, Jirka Lewandowski & Bruno Galantucci
2015 How communication changes when we cannot mime the world: Experimental evidence for the effect of iconicity on combinatoriality. Cognition 1411. 52–66. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sanders, Nathan & Donna Jo Napoli
2016 Reactive effort as a factor that shapes sign language lexicons. Language 92(2). 275–297. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sandler, Wendy, Mark Aronoff, Irit Meir & Carol Padden
2011a The gradual emergence of phonological form in a new language. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 291. 503–543. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sandler, Wendy, Irit Meir, Svetlana Dachkovsky, Carol Padden & Mark Aronoff
2011b The emergence of complexity in prosody and syntax. Lingua 121(13). 2014–2033. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sandler, Wendy, Irit Meir, Carol Padden & Mark Aronoff
2005 The emergence of grammar: Systematic structure in a new language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102(7). 2661–2665. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schick, Brenda S.
1987 The acquisition of classifier predicates in American Sign Language. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University dissertation.Google Scholar
Schuler, Kathryn, Charles Yang & Elissa Newport
2021 Testing the tolerance principle: Children form productive rules when it is more computationally efficient. CogSci2016. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Senghas, Ann
2021 Connecting language acquisition and language evolution: Clues from the emergence of Nicaraguan Sign Language. In Maria D. Sera & Melissa Koenig (eds.) Minnesota symposia on child psychology (Human Communication: Origins, Mechanisms, and Functions 40), 57–85. Wiley. 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
Senghas, Ann, Sotaro Kita & Asli Özyürek
2004 Children creating core properties of language: Evidence from an emerging sign language in Nicaragua. Science 305(5691). 1779–1782. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Senghas, Ann, Alsi Özyürek & Susan Goldin-Meadow
2013 Homesign as a way-station between co-speech and sign language: The evolution of segmentation and sequencing. In Rudolf Botha & Martin Everaert (eds.) The evolutionary emergence of human language: Evidence and inference (Oxford Studies in the Evolution of Language), 62–76. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Singleton, Jenny L. & Elissa L. Newport
2004 When learners surpass their models: The acquisition of American Sign Language from inconsistent input. Cognitive Psychology 49(4). 370–407. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Slobin, Dan I.
2004 The many ways to search for a frog: Linguistic typology and the expression of motion events. In Sven Strömqvist & Ludo Verhoven (eds.) Relating events in narrative, vol. 2: Typological and contextual perspectives, 219–257. New York & London: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Slobin, Dan I. & Nini Hoiting
1994 Reference to movement in spoken and signed languages: Typological considerations. Berkeley Linguistics Society [BLS] 201, 487–505. Berkeley: Univeristy of California, Berkeley Linguistics Society. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Supalla, Ted
1990 Serial verbs of motion in ASL. In Susan D. Fischer (ed.) Theoretical issues in sign language research [TISLR] 11, 127–152. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
1982 Structure and acquisition of verbs of motion and location in American Sign Langauge. San Diego: University of California, San Diego dissertation.Google Scholar
Talmy, Leonard
1991 Path to realization: A typology of event conflation. In Laurel A. Sutton, Christopher Johnson & Ruth Shields (eds.) Proceedings of the seventeenth annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society [BLS] February 15–18, 1991: General session and parasession on the grammar of event structure, 480–519. Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley Linguistics Society. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tamariz, Monica & Simon Kirby
2016 The cultural evolution of language. Current Opinion in Psychology 81. 37–43. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tang, Gladys & Gu Yang
2007 Events of motion and causation in Hong Kong Sign Language. Lingua 117(7). 1216–1257. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Verhoef, Tessa, Simon Kirby & Bart de Boer
2016 Iconicity and the emergence of combinatorial structure in language. Cognitive Science 40(8). 1969–1994. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vermeerbergen, Myriam, Lorraine Lesson & Onno Crasborn
(eds.) 2007 Simultaneity in signed languages: A string of sequentially organised issues (Current Trends in Linguistic Theory 281). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Winston, Elizabeth A.
1991 Spatial referencing and cohesion in an American Sign Language text. Sign Language Studies 731. 397–410. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wittenburg, Peter, Hennie Brugman, Albert Russel, Alex Klassmann & Han Sloetjes
2006 ELAN: A professional framework for multimodality research. In Calzolari et al. (eds.) Proceedings of the fifth International Confererence on Language Resources and Evalution (LREC'06), 1556–1559. Genoa: European Language Resources Association.Google Scholar
Zheng, Mingyu & Susan Goldin-Meadow
2002 Thought before language: How deaf and hearing children express motion events across cultures. Cognition 85(2). 145–175. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zuidema, Willem
2002 How the poverty of the stimulus solves the poverty of the stimulus. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 151.Google Scholar
Zwitserlood, Inge
2012 Classifiers. In Roland Pfau, Markus Steinbach & Bencie Woll (eds.) Sign language: An international hanbook, 158–186. Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar