Cover not available
Part of
Advances in Sign Language Corpus Linguistics
Edited by Ella Wehrmeyer
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 108] 2023
► pp. 90–122

Chapter 4
Syntactic functions of nonmanuals in Russian Sign Language

| Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences
| University of Amsterdam
| University of Bergen
This chapter presents the Russian Sign Language (RSL) Corpus and demonstrates its capabilities as a research tool by summarizing three corpus-based studies primarily focused on syntactic functions of nonmanual markers. The first study considers question marking in regular wh-questions and in question-answer pairs. It shows that the two constructions have very different nonmanual markers. The second study analyzes marking of topics in RSL, and shows that nonmanual markers of topics are typologically common, but are infrequent in naturalistic corpus data. The third study investigates conditional and concessive constructions in RSL. It demonstrates that these constructions make extensive and frequent use of nonmanual markers, but that no single marker is specialized for the function of expressing conditional or concessive meaning. Instead, complex combinations of multiple markers are employed in these constructions. All three studies also contribute to sign language typology by providing novel descriptions of syntactic and discourse phenomena in RSL.
Keywords: Russian Sign Language, nonmanuals, questions, topics, conditionals, concessives
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The Russian Sign Language Corpus
    • 2.1Participants
    • 2.2Recordings and conditions of filming
    • 2.3Technical capabilities
    • 2.4Annotations and types of markups
    • 2.5Access
    • 2.6Overview of corpus-based publications
  • 3.Method
  • 4.Case study 1: Wh-questions
    • 4.1Regular wh-questions
      • 4.1.1Position of wh-signs
      • 4.1.2Nonmanual markers of wh-questions and their scope
    • 4.2Question-answer pairs
      • 4.2.1Two types of QAPs in RSL
      • 4.2.2Position of wh-signs and nonmanual markers in two types of QAPs
      • 4.2.3Towards formal analysis of QAPs in RSL
  • 5.Case study 2: Topic marking
  • 6.Case study 3: Conditional and concessive constructions
    • 6.1Conditionals
    • 6.2Concessives
  • 7.Summary and conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 3 April 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.108.04bur
References (97)
References
Aboh, Enoch A., Pfau, Roland & Zeshan, Ulrike. 2005. When a wh-word is not a wh-word: The case of Indian Sign Language. In The Yearbook of South Asian Languages and Linguistics 2005, Tanmoy Bhattacharya (ed.), 11–43. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baker-Shenk, Charlotte. 1983. A Microanalysis of the Nonmanual Components of Questions in American Sign Language. PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
Baker-Shenk, Charlotte & Cokely, Dennis. 1981. American Sign Language: A Teacher’s Resource Text on Grammar and Culture. Washington DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Bauer, Anastasia. 2019. When words meet signs: A corpus-based study on variation of mouthing in Russian Sign Language. In Linguistische Beiträge zur Slavistik, Anastasia Bauer & Daniel Bunčić (eds), 9–35. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bauer, Anastasia & Kyuseva, Masha. 2022. New insights into mouthings: Evidence from a corpus-based study of Russian Sign Language. Frontiers in Psychology 22. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Borodulina, Daria. 2012. Sredstva vyrazheniya imperativa v russkom zhestovom yazyke. In Russkii Zhestovyi Yazyk. Pervaya Lingvisticheskaya Konferentsiya, Olga V. Fedorova (ed.), 14–49. Moscow: Buki-Vedi.Google Scholar
Branchini, Chiara. 2014. On Relativization and Clefting: An Analysis of Italian Sign Language, Vol. 5. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bratolyubov, Aleksandr. 1872. Pantomima Molitv, ili: Opisanie Mimicheskikh Molitvennykh Znakov. Opyt Zakonouchitelya Sankt-Peterburgskogo Uchilishcha Glukhonemykh, Protoiereya Aleksandra Bratolyubova. S Prilozheniem Ruchnoi Azbuki. St. Petersburg.Google Scholar
Brentari, Diane (ed.). 2010. Sign Languages. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Burkova, Svetlana. 2012. Uslovnye konstruktsii v russkom zhestovom jazyke. In Russkij Zhestovij Jazyk. Pervaja Lingvisticheskaja Konferentsija, Olga V. Fedorova (ed.), 50–81. Moscow: Buki-Vedi.Google Scholar
. 2015. Sposoby vyrazheniya imennoi mnozhestvennosti v russkom zhestovom yazyke. Sibirskii Filologicheskii Zhurnal 2: 174–184. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Burkova, Svetlana & Filimonova, Elizaveta. 2014a. Reduplikatsiya v russkom zhestovom yazyke. Russkii Yazyk v Nauchnom Osveshchenii 28: 202–258.Google Scholar
. 2014b. Sredstva vyrazheniya ehksperientsial’nogo znacheniya v russkom zhestovom yazyke. Vestnik Novosibirskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta [Seriya: Istoriya, Filologiya] 13(2): 77–83.Google Scholar
Burkova, Svetlana & Kimmelman, Vadim (eds). 2019. Vvedenie v Lingvistiku Zhestovykh Yazykov. Russkii Zhestovyi Yazyk: Uchebnik. Novosibirsk: Novosibirsk State Technical University.Google Scholar
Calderone, Chiara. 2020. Can You Retrieve It? Pragmatic, Morphosyntactic and Prosodic Features in Sentence Topic Types in Italian Sign Language (LIS). PhD dissertation, Università Ca’Foscari, Venezia.
Caponigro, Ivano & Davidson, Kathryn. 2011. Ask, and tell as well: Question–answer clauses in American Sign Language. Natural Language Semantics 19(4): 323–371. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cecchetto, Carlo. 2012. Sentence types. In Sign Language: An International Handbook, Roland Pfau, Markus Steinbach & Bencie Woll (eds), 292–315. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cecchetto, Carlo, Geraci, Carlo & Zucchi, Sandro. 2009. Another way to mark syntactic dependencies. The case for right peripheral specifiers in sign languages. Language 85(2): 278–320. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coppola, Marie & Senghas, Ann. 2010. The emergence of deixis in Nicaraguan signing. In Sign Languages: A Cambridge Language Survey, Diane Brentari (ed.), 543–569. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cormier, Kearsy, Smith, Sandra & Zwets, Martine. 2013. Framing constructed action in British Sign Language narratives. Journal of Pragmatics 55: 119–139. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Crasborn, Onno & Van der Kooij, Els. 2013. The phonology of focus in Sign Language of the Netherlands. Journal of Linguistics 49(3): 515–565. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Crasborn, Onno & Zwitserlood, Inge. 2008. The Corpus NGT: An online corpus for professionals and laymen. In Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Construction and Exploitation of Sign Language Corpora (LREC 2008), Onno Crasborn, Thomas Hanke, Eleni Efthimiou, Inge Zwitserlood & Ernst Thoutenhoofd (eds), 44–49. Paris: ELRA. <[URL]> (27 March 2022).
Crasborn, Onno, Van der Kooij, Els, Ros, Johan & De Hoop, Helen. 2009. Topic agreement in NGT (Sign Language of the Netherlands). The Linguistic Review 26(2–3): 355–370. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dachkovsky, Svetlana. 2008. Facial expression as intonation in Israeli Sign Language: The case of neutral and counterfactual conditionals. In Signs of the Time: Selected Papers from TISLR 8, Josep Quer (ed.), 61–82. Hamburg: Signum. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dachkovsky, Svetlana & Sandler, Wendy. 2009. Visual intonation in the prosody of a sign language. Language and Speech 52(2/3): 287–314. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dachkovsky, Svetlana, Healy, Cristina & Sandler, Wendy. 2013. Visual intonation in two sign languages. Phonology 30(2): 211–252. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Davidenko, Tat’yana P. & Komarova, Anna. A. 2006. Kratkii ocherk po lingvistike RZHYA. In Sovremennye Aspekty Zhestovogo Yazyka, Anna A. Komarova (ed.), 146–161. Moscow: All-Russian Society of the Deaf. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dryer, Matthew S. 2013. Position of interrogative phrases in content questions. In The World Atlas of Language Structures, Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds), 378–379. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.Google Scholar
Ekman, Paul, Friesen, Wallace & Hager, Joseph. 2002. Facial Action Coding System. Salt Lake City UT: A Human Face.Google Scholar
Engberg-Pedersen, Elisabeth. 1995. Reported speech in Danish Sign Language. In Embedding in Functional Grammar [Publ. of the Department of English, University of Copenhagen 20], 35–62. Copenhagen: Department of English, University of Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Filimonova, Elizaveta V. 2015. Funktsionalno-Semanticheskaja Kategorija Aspektualnosti v Russkom Zhestovom Jazyke. PhD dissertation, Moscow State University.
Fleri, Viktor I. 1835. Glukhonemye, Rassmatrivaemye v Otnoshenii k ikh Sostoyaniyu i k Sposobnostyam Obrazovaniya, samym Svoistvennym ikh Prirode. St. Petersburg: Pliushar.Google Scholar
Göksel, Aslı & Kelepir, Meltem. 2013. The phonological and semantic bifurcation of the functions of an articulator: HEAD in questions in Turkish Sign Language. Sign Language & Linguistics 16(1): 1–30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grenoble, Lenore A. 1992. An overview of Russian Sign Language. Sign Language Studies 21(77): 321–338. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gundel, Jeanette K. 1988. Universals of topic-comment structure. In Studies in Syntactic Typology [Typological Studies in Language 17], Michael Hammond, Edith Moravcsik & Jessica Wirth (eds), 209–240. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hauser, Charlotte. 2018. Question-answer pairs: The help of LSF. FEAST. Formal and Experimental Advances in Sign language Theory 2: 44–55. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Herrmann, Annika & Steinbach, Markus. 2012. Quotation in sign languages: A visible context shift. In Quotatives: Cross-Linguistic and Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives [Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research 15], Isabelle Buchstaller & Ingrid van Alphen (eds), 203–228. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hodge, Gabrielle, Fenlon, Jordan, Schembri, Adam, Johnston, Trevor & Cormier, Kearsey. 2019. A corpus-based investigation of how deaf signers signal questions during conversation. Poster presented at TISLR 13, Universität Hamburg, Germany.
Hoza, Jack, Neidle, Carol, MacLaughlin, Dawn, Kegl, Judy & Bahan, Ben. 1997. A unified syntactic account of rhetorical questions in American Sign Language. In Syntactic Structure and Discourse Function: An Examination of Two Constructions in American Sign Language, Carol Neidle, Dawn MacLaughlin & Robert G. Lee (eds), 1–23. Boston MA: ASLLRP Publications.Google Scholar
Jantunen, Tommi. 2007. On topic in Finnish Sign Language. University of Jyväskylä <[URL]> (27 June 2022).
Johnston, Trevor & Schembri, Adam. 2007. Australian Sign Language (Auslan): An Introduction to Sign Language Linguistics. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kelepir, Meltem. 2021. Content interrogatives: Theoretical and experimental perspectives. In The Routledge Handbook of Theoretical and Experimental Sign Language Research, Josep Quer, Roland Pfau & Annika Herrmann (eds), 232–265. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Khristoforova, Evgeniia & Kimmelman, Vadim. 2021. Question-answer pairs in Russian Sign Language: A corpus study. FEAST. Formal and Experimental Advances in Sign Language Theory 4: 101–112. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kimmelman, Vadim. 2012. Word order in Russian Sign Language. Sign Language Studies 12(3): 414–445. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2014. Information Structure in Russian Sign Language and Sign Language of the Netherlands. PhD dissertation, University of Amsterdam.
. 2015. Topics and topic prominence in two sign languages. Journal of Pragmatics 87: 156–170. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2018. Impersonal reference in Russian Sign Language. Sign Language & Linguistics 21(2): 204–231. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2019. Information Structure in Sign Languages: Evidence from Russian Sign Language and Sign Language of the Netherlands [Sign Languages and Deaf Communities, 10]. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kimmelman, Vadim & Khristoforova, Evgeniia. 2018. Quotation in Russian Sign Language: Insights from corpus and elicitation. FEAST. Formal and Experimental Advances in Sign language Theory 2: 93–102. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kimmelman, Vadim & Vink, Lianne. 2017. Question-answer pairs in Sign Language of the Netherlands. Sign Language Studies 17(4): 417–449. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kimmelman, Vadim, De Lint, Vanja, De Vos, Connie, Oomen, Marloes, Pfau, Roland, Vink, Lianne & Aboh, Enoch O. 2019. Argument structure of classifier predicates: Canonical and non-canonical mappings in four sign languages. Open Linguistics 5(1): 332–353. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Konrad, Reiner, Hanke, Thomas, Langer, Gabriele, Blanck, Dolly, Bleicken, Julian, Hofmann, Ilona & Jeziorski, Olga. 2020. MY DGS – annotated. Public Corpus of German Sign Language, 3rd release MEINE DGS – annotiert. Öffentliches Korpus der Deutschen Gebärdensprache, 3. Release. [URL]. Universität Hamburg. DOI logo
König, Ekkehard & Siemund, Peter. 2000. Causal and concessive clauses: Formal and semantic relations. In Condition – Concession – Contrast. Cognitive and Discourse Perspectives, Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen & Bernd Wortmann (eds), 341–360. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
König, Ekkehard. 1986. Conditionals, concessive conditionals, and concessives: Areas of contrast, overlap, and neutralization. In On Conditionals, Elizabeth Traugott, Alice ter Meulen, Judy Reilly & Charles Ferguson (eds), 229–246. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1994. Concessive clauses. In The Encyclopaedia of Language and Linguistics, Vol. 1, Ronald E. Asher (ed.), 679–681. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Krifka, Manfred. 2008. Basic notions of information structure. Acta Linguistica Hungarica 55(3): 243–276. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kubus, Okan. 2021. Challenges in the research of relative clause constructions in signed languages to date. FEAST. Formal and Experimental Advances in Sign language Theory 4: 127–138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kuznetsova, Anna, Imashev, Alfarabi, Mukushev, Medet, Sandygulova, Anara & Kimmelman, Vadim. 2021. Using computer vision to analyze nonmanual marking of questions in KRSL. In Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Automatic Translation for Signed and Spoken Languages (AT4SSL), Dimitar Shterionov (ed.), 49–59. Association for Machine Translation in the Americas. <[URL]> (27 June 2022).
Li, Charles N. & Thompson, Sandra A. 1976. Subject and topic: A new typology of language. In Subject and Topic, Charles N. Li (ed.), 457–490. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Liddell, Scott K. 1980. American Sign Language Syntax. The Hague: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1986. Head thrust in ASL conditional marking. Sign Language Studies 52: 243–262. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lillo-Martin, Diane. 1995. The point of view predicate in American Sign Language. In Language, Gesture, and Space, Karen Emmorey & Judy Reilly (eds), 155–170. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
. 2012. Utterance reports and constructed action. In Sign Language: An International Handbook, Roland Pfau, Markus Steinbach & Bencie Woll (eds), 365–387. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McIntire, Marina. 1982. Constituent order and location in American Sign Language. Sign Language Studies 37(1): 345–386. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McKee, Rachel, Schembri, Adam, McKee, David & Johnston, Trevor. 2011. Variable “subject” presence in Australian Sign Language and New Zealand Sign Language. Language Variation and Change 23(3): 375–398. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Meir, Irit, Sandler, Wendy, Padden, Carol & Aronoff, Mark. 2010. Emerging sign languages. In Oxford Handbook of Deaf Studies, Language and Education, Vol. 2 [Oxford Library of Psychology], Marc Marschark & Patricia Spencer (eds), 267–280. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Metzger, Melanie. 1995. Action in American Sign Language. In Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities, Ceil Lucas (ed.), 255–271. Washington DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Neidle, Carol, Kegl, Judy, Bahan, Benjamin, MacLaughlin, Dawn & Lee, Robert G. 2000. The Syntax of American Sign Language: Functional Categories and Hierarchical Structure. Boston MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Palmer, Frank R. 1986. Mood and Modality. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Petronio, Karen & Lillo-Martin, Diane. 1997. WH-movement and the position of Spec-CP: Evidence from American Sign Language. Language 73(1): 18–57. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pfau, Ronald. 2008. Topics and conditionals in sign languages. Paper presented at the Workshop on Topicality at the 30th Annual Meeting of the German Linguistic Society, Bamberg, February 2008. <[URL]> (30 June 2022).
Pfau, Roland & Quer, Josep. 2010. Nonmanuals: Their prosodic and grammatical roles. In Sign Languages, Diane Brentari (ed.), 381–402. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pfau, Roland & Steinbach, Markus. 2016. Complex sentences in sign languages: Modality – typology – discourse. In A Matter of Complexity: Subordination in Sign Languages, Roland Pfau, Markus Steinbach & Annika Herrmann (eds), 1–35. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Podesva, Robert & Sharma, Devyani (eds). 2013. Research Methods in Linguistics. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Podlesskaya, Vera I. 2001. Conditional constructions. In Language Typology and Language Universals, Vol. 2, Martin Haspelmath, Ekkehard König, Wulf Oesterreicher & Wolfgang Raible (eds), 998–1010. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Prozorova, Evgeniya V. 2009. Markery Lokal’noy Struktury Diskursa v Russkom Žestovom Jazyke. PhD Dissertation, Moscow State University.
Puupponen, Anna, Wainio, Tuija, Burger, Birgitta & Jantunen, Tommi. 2015. Head movements in Finnish Sign Language on the basis of motion capture data: A study of the form and function of nods, nodding, head thrusts, and head pulls. Sign Language & Linguistics 18: 41–89. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Quer, Josep. 2018. On categorizing types of role shift in sign languages. Theoretical Linguistics 44(3–4): 277–282. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Quer, Josep, Cecchetto, Carlo, Donati, Caterina, Geraci, Carlo, Kelepir, Meltem, Pfau, Roland, Steinbach, Markus, Costello, Brendan & Sverrisdóttir, Rannveig (eds). 2017. SignGram Blueprint: A Guide to Sign Language Grammar Writing [De Gruyter Reference Series]. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya. 1982. Pragmatics and linguistics. An analysis of sentence topics. Philosophica 27(1): 53–94.Google Scholar
Rosenstein, Ofra. 2001. Israeli Sign Language – A Topic Prominent Language. MA thesis, Haifa University.
Rukhledev, Valerii. 2014. Problemy glukhikh lyudei: Interv’yu s prezidentom Vserossiiskogo Obshchestva Glukhikh V.N. Rukhledevym ot 30.10.2014 g. <[URL]> (27 June 2022).
Sandler, Wendy. 2010. Prosody and syntax in sign languages. Transactions of the Philological Society 108(3): 298–328. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sandler, Wendy & Lillo-Martin, Diane. 2006. Sign Language and Linguistic Universals. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sandler, Wendy, Lillo-Martin, Diane, Dachkovsky, Svetlana & De Quadros, Ronice M.. 2020. Sign language prosody. In The Oxford Handbook of Language Prosody, Carlos Gussenhoven & Aoju Chen (eds), 104–122. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Šarac, Ninoslava, Schalber, Katharina, Alibašić, Tamara & Wilbur, Ronnie. 2007. Crosslinguistic comparison of interrogatives in Croatian Austrian and American Sign Languages. In Visible Variation: Comparative Studies on Sign Language Structure, Pamela Perniss, Roland Pfau & Markus Steinbach (eds), 207–244. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Sutton-Spence, Rachel & Woll, Bencie. 1999. The Linguistics of British Sign Language: An Introduction. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sze, Felix. 2008. Topic Constructions in Hong Kong Sign Language. PhD dissertation, University of Bristol.
. 2015. Is Hong Kong Sign Language a topic-prominent language? Linguistics 53(4): 809–876. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tang, Gladys & Lau, Prudence. 2012. Coordination and subordination in sign languages. In Sign Language: An International Handbook, Ronald Pfau, Markus Steinbach & Bencie Woll (eds), 340–365. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trask, Robert. 1993. A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wilbur, Ronnie B. 1996. Evidence for the function and structure of wh-clefts in American Sign Language. International Review of Sign Linguistics 1: 209–256.Google Scholar
Wilbur, Ronnie. 2021. Nonmanual markers: Theoretical and experimental perspectives. In The Routledge Handbook of Theoretical and Experimental Sign Language Research, Josep Quer, Roland Pfau & Annika Herrmann (eds), 530–565. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wulf, Alyssa, Dudis, Paul, Bayley, Robert & Lucas, Ceil. 2002. Variable subject presence in ASL narratives. Sign Language Studies 3(1): 54–76. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Young, Lesa, Morris, Carla & Langdon, Clifton. 2012. “He said what?!”: Constructed dialogue in various interface modes. Sign Language Studies 12(3): 398–413. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zeshan, Ulrike. 2000. Sign Language in Indo-Pakistan: A Description of a Signed Language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2004. Interrogative constructions in signed languages: Crosslinguistic perspectives. Language: Linguistic Society of America 80(1): 7–39. DOI logoGoogle Scholar