This study investigates clause constructions in Auslan. It looks at the alignment of constituent semantic role
with constituent position and order in clauses, changes in the morphology of signs according to position and/or role, and the
interpretation of omitted arguments. The aim is to determine if there are grammatical relations in Auslan. The most frequent
constituent order parallels English, thus Auslan might be said to also instantiate a basic SVO word order. However, every possible
constituent order pattern is also attested without there being other coding and behavioural properties associated with grammatical
relations that could explain this flexibility. I conclude that constituent order in Auslan is the result of the interaction of
pragmatic and semantic factors, visual representation, and language contact with English, rather than autochthonous grammatical
relations. Auslan grammar draws on both so-called gestural and so-called linguistic resources at the clause level, not just at the
word (sign) level.
(eds.)2000Usage Based Models of Language. Stanford, California: CSLI.
Benedicto, Elena & Diane Brentari
2004Where Did All the Arguments Go? Argument-Changing Properties of Classifiers in ASL. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory 22(4). 743–810.
Bhat, D. N. S.
1991Grammatical Relations: The evidence against their necessity and universality. London: Routledge.
Bolinger, Dwight L.
1983Intonation and gesture. American Speech 581. 156–74.
Bos, Heleen
1995Pronoun copy in Sign Language of the Netherlands. In H. Bos & T. Schermer (eds.), Sign Language Research 1994: Proceedings of the Fourth European Congress on Sign Language Research, Munich, September 1–3, 1994, 121–47. Hamburg: Signum Press.
Bouchard, Denis
1997Sign languages & language universals: the status of order and position in grammar. Sign Language Studies 911. 101–70.
Bouchard, Denis & Collette Dubuisson
1995Grammar, order and position of Wh- signs in Quebec Sign Language. Sign Language Studies 871. 99–139.
Boyes Braem, Penny
1999Rhythmic temporal patterns in the singing of deaf early and late learners of Swiss German Sign Language. Language and Speech 42(2–3). 177–208.
Bybee, Joan
2007Frequency of use and the organization of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bybee, Joan
2010Language, Usage and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(1990) A Comparison of Techniques for Expressing Semantic Roles and Locative Relations in Two Different Sign Languages. In W. H. Edmondson & F. Karlsson (Eds.),
SLR ’87 Papers from the Fourth International Symposium on Sign Language Research
,
Lappeenranta, Finland
July 15-19, 1987 (pp. 114–120). Hamburg: Signum Verlag.
2012Sentence types. In R. Pfau, M. Steinbach & B. Woll (eds.), Sign Language: An International Handbook, 292–315. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
Chen Pichler, Deborah
2011Using early ASL word order to shed light on word order variability in sign language. In M. Andersen, K. Bentzen & M. Westergaard (eds.), Variation in the Input: Studies in The Acquisition of Word Order (Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics), 157–77. The Netherlands: Springer.
Christiansen, M. H., & Chater, N.
(2016) Creating Language: Integrating Evolution, Acquisition, and Processing. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
Coerts, Jane
1994Constituent Order in Sign Language of The Netherlands. In M. Brennan & G. H. Turner (eds.), Word Order Issues in Sign Language. Working papers, 47–72. Durham, UK: International Sign Linguistics Association.
2012On the weight of phrase-final prosodic words in a single language. Sign Language & Linguistics 2(1). 1–21.
Croft, William
1990Typology and Universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Croft, William
2001Radical Construction Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Croft, William and D. Alan Cruse
2004Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cuxac, Christian
2000La Langue des Signes Française (LSF): Les voies de l’iconicité. Paris: Ophrys.
Danes, Frantisek
(ed.)1974Papers on Functional Sentence Perspective. Prague: Academia.
Deuchar, Margaret
1978Sign Language Diglossia in a British Deaf Community. Sign Language Studies 171. 347–56.
Deuchar, Margaret
1983Is British Sign Language an SVO Language? In J. G. Kyle & B. Woll (eds.), Language in Sign: an international perspective on sign language, 69–76. London: Croom Helm.
Dixon, R. M. W.
1979Ergativity. Language 551(59–138).
Dixon, R. M. W.
2010Basic Linguistic Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dryer, Matthew S.
1997aAre grammatical relations universal? In J. L. Bybee, J. Haiman & S. A. Thompson (eds.), Essays on language Function and Language Type, 115–44. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
2013Order of Subject, Object and Verb. In M. S. Dryer & M. Haspelmath (eds.), World atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, [URL]
Enfield, Nick J.
2009The Anatomy of Meaning: Sign, gesture, and composite utterances. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Engberg-Pedersen, Elizabeth
2002Grammatical relations in Danish Sign Language: topic and subject. In A. Pajunen (ed.), Mimesis, Sign, and the Evolution of Language (Publications in General Linguistics 3), 5–40. Turku, Finland: University of Turku.
Fenlon, Jordan, Adam Schembri & Kearsy Cormier
2018Modification of indicating verbs in British Sign Language: A corpus-based study. Language 94(1). 84–118.
Ferrara, Lindsay
2012The grammar of depiction: Exploring gesture and language in Australian Sign Language (Auslan). Sydney: Macquarie University Department of Linguistics thesis.
Ferrara, Lindsay and Gabrielle Hodge
2018Language as Description, Indication, and Depiction. Frontiers in Psychology 91 (Article 716).
Ferrara, Lindsay & Trevor Johnston
2014Elaborating who’s what: A study of depiction and grammar in Auslan (Australian Sign Language). Australian Journal of Linguistics 34(2). 193–215.
Fischer, Susan D.
1975Influences on word order change in American Sign Language. In C. Li (ed.), Word order and word order change, 1–25. Austin, TX: University of Texas.
Fischer, Susan D. & Wynne Janis
1990Verb Sandwiches in ASL. In S. Prillwitz & T. Vollhaber (eds.), Current Trends in European Sign Language Research: Proceedings of the 3rd European Congress on Sign Language Research Hamburg July 26–29, 1989, 279–94. Hamburg: Signum Verlag.
Friedman, L. A.
1976The Manifestation of Subject, Object, and Topic in American Sign Language. In C. Li (ed.), Subject and Topic, 125–48. New York: Academic Press.
1995Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure. Chicago and London: University of Chicago.
Goldberg, Adele E.
2006Constructions at Work: The Nature of Generalization in Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Halliday, Michael A. K.
1974The place of ‘Functional Sentence Perspective’ in the system of linguistic description. In F. Danes (ed.), Papers on Functional Sentence Perspective, 43–53. Prague: Academia.
Haspelmath, Martin
2007Pre-established categories don’t exist: Consequences for language description and typology. Linguistic Typology 11(1). 119–32.
Hodge, Gabrielle
2013Patterns from a signed language corpus: Clause-like units in Auslan (Australian sign language). Sydney: Macquarie University, Department of Linguistics doctoral dissertation.
Hodge, Gabrielle & Trevor Johnston
2014Points, depictions, gestures and enactment: Partly lexical and non-lexical signs as core elements of single clause-like units in Auslan (Australian sign language). Australian Journal of Linguistics 34(2). 262–91.
Hopper, P. J.
(1998) Emergent grammar. In M. Tomasello (Ed.), The new psychology of language: Cognitive and functional approaches to language structure (pp. 155–175). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Jantunen, Tommi
2008Fixed and Free: Order of the Verbal Predicate and Its Core Arguments in Declarative Transitive Clauses in Finish Sign Language. SKY Journal of Linguistics 211. 83–123.
Jantunen, Tommi
2013Ellipsis in Finnish Sign Language. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 36(03). 303–32.
Jantunen, Tommi
2017Constructed Action, the Clause and the Nature of Syntax in Finnish Sign Language. Open Linguistics 31. 65–85.
Janzen, Terry
2017Composite utterances in a signed language: Topic constructions and perspective-taking in ASL. Cognitive Linguistics 28(3). 511–38.
Janzen, Terry, Barbara O’Dea & Barbara Shaffer
2001The construal of events: passives in American Sign Language. Sign Language Studies 1(3). 281–310.
Johnston, Trevor
1989Auslan: The sign language of the Australian deaf community. Sydney: University of Sydney doctoral dissertation.
Johnston, Trevor
1991Spatial syntax and spatial semantics in the inflection of signs for the marking of person and location in Auslan. International Journal of Sign Linguistics 2(1). 29–62.
Johnston, Trevor
1996Function and medium in the forms of linguistic expression found in a sign language. In W. H. Edmondson & R. B. Wilbur (eds.), International Review of Sign Linguistics, 57–94. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Johnston, Trevor
2008The Auslan Archive and Corpus. In D. Nathan (ed.), The Endangered Languages Archive – [URL], London: Hans Rausing Endangered Languages Documentation Project, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.
2013bFormational and functional characteristics of pointing signs in a corpus of Auslan (Australian sign language): are the data sufficient to posit a grammatical class of ‘pronouns’ in Auslan?Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 9(1). 109–59.
Johnston, Trevor
2017The Auslan Corpus Annotation Guidelines, downloadable from [URL] [Last updated, November 2017].
Johnston, Trevor
2018The role of headshake in negation in Auslan (Australian Sign Language): implications for signed language typology. Linguistic Typology 22(2). 185–231.
Johnston, Trevor & Adam Schembri
2010Variation, lexicalization and grammaticalization in signed languages. In B. Garcia & M. Derycke (eds.), Sourds et langue des signs: Normes et variation. Langage et société, 5–15. Paris: Editions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme.
Johnston, Trevor, Myriam Vermeerbergen, Adam Schembri & Lorraine Leeson
2007“Real data are messy”: Considering cross-linguistic analysis of constituent ordering in Auslan, VGT, and ISL. In P. Perniss, R. Pfau & M. Steinbach (eds.), Visible Variation: Comparative Studies on Sign Language Structure, 163–205. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Keenan, Edward L.
1976Towards a universal definition of “subject”. In C. N. Li (ed.), Subject and topic, New York, NY: Academic Press.
Keenan, Edward L.
1985Relative clauses. In T. Shopen (ed.), Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Volume II: Complex Constructions, 141–70. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kendon, Adam
2014Semiotic diversity in utterance production and the concept of ‘language’. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal SocietySeries B, 369 (1651): 20139203.
Kimmelman, Vadim
2011Doubling in RSL and NGT: towards a unified explanation. Workshop “Information Structure: Empirical Perspectives on Theory”, Potsdam, December 2011.
Klima, Edward S. & Ursula Bellugi
1979The Signs of Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
1994Information structure and sentence form: Topic, focus and the mental representations of discourse referents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Langacker, Ronald W.
1998Conceptualization, symbolization, and grammar. In M. Tomasello (ed.), The new psychology of language: Cognitive and functional approaches to language structure, 1–39. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Langacker, Ronald W.
2005Construction Grammars: cognitive, radical, and less so. In F. J. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez & S. Peña Cervel (eds.), Cognitive Linguistics: Internal dynamics & interdisciplinary interaction, 101–59. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Langacker, Ronald W.
2008aCognitive grammar: a basic introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2006On Describing Word Order. In F. Ameka, A. Dench & N. Evans (eds.), Catching Language: The Standing Challenge of Grammar Writing, 269–95. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Leeson, Lorraine & J. I. Saeed
2012Word Order. In R. Pfau, M. Steinbach & B. Woll (eds.), Sign Language: An International Handbook, 245–64. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Liddell, Scott K.
1980American Sign Language Syntax. The Hague: Mouton.
Liddell, Scott K.
2000Indicating verbs and pronouns: Pointing away from agreement. In K. Emmorey & H. Lane (eds.), The signs of language revisited: An anthology to honor Ursula Bellugi and Edward Klima, 303–20. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Massone, Maria Ignacia & Monica Curiel
2004Sign order in Argentine Sign Language. Sign Language Studies 5(1). 63–93.
Mathur, Gaurav & Christian Rathmann
2010Verb agreement in sign language morphology. In D. Brentari (ed.), Sign languages, 173–96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mathur, Gaurav & Christian Rathmann
2012Verb Agreement. In R. Pfau, M. Steinbach & B. Woll (eds.), Sign language: An international handbook, 136–57. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
McKee, Rachel, Adam Schembri, David McKee & Trevor Johnston
2011Variable “subject” expression in Australian Sign Language and New Zealand Sign Language. Language Variation and Change 23(1). 1375–398.
Meir, Irit, Mark Aronoff, Carl Börstell, So-One Hwang, Deniz Ilkabasaran, Itamar Kastner, Ryan Lepic, Adi Lifshitz Ben-Basat, Carol A. Padden & Wendy Sandler
2017The effect of being human and the basis of grammatical word order: Insights from novel communication systems and young sign languages. Cognition 1581. 189–207.
Nadeau, Marie & Louis Desouvrey
1994Word Order in Sentences with Directional Verbs in Quebec Sign Language. In I. Ahlgren, B. Bergman & M. Brennan (eds.), Perspectives on Sign Language Structure: Papers from the Fifth International Symposium on Sign Language Research, vol. 11, 149–58. Durham: International Sign Linguistics Association.
Napoli, D. J. & Rachel Sutton-Spence
2014Order of the major constituents in sign languages: implications for all language. Frontiers in Psychology 51.
Neidle, Carol, Judy Anne Kegl, Dawn MacLaughlin, Ben Bahan & Robert Lee
2000The Syntax of American Sign Language: Functional Categories and Hierarchical Structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Oomen, Marloes & Roland Pfau
2017Signing NOT (or not): A typological perspective on standard negation in Sign Language of the Netherlands. Linguistic Typology 21(1). 1–51.
Padden, Carol
1988The Interaction of Morphology and Syntax in American Sign Language. New York: Garland.
Parmentier, Richard
1994Sign in Society: Studies in Semiotic Anthropology. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Payne, Thomas E.
1997Describing Morphosyntax: A Guide for Field Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Peirce, Charles Sanders
1955Philosophical Writings of Peirce. New York: Dover.
Petronio, Karen & Diane Lillo-Martin
1997WH-Movement and the Position of Spec-CP: Evidence from American Sign Language. Language 731. 18–57.
Pinsonneault, Dominique
1994Verb echoes in LSQ. In M. Brennan & G. Turner (eds.), Word order issues in sign language: Working papers (presented at a workshop held in Durham 18–22 September 1991), 113–31. Durham: ISLA.
Puupponen, Anna
2019Towards understanding nonmanuality: a semiotic treatment of signers’ head movements. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics, 4(1), 391. 31–39.
Quinto-Pozos, David & Sarika Mehta
2010Register variation in mimetic gestural complements to signed language. Journal of Pragmatics 42(3). 557–84.
de Quandros, Ronice Muller & Diane Lillo-Martin
2010Clause Structure. In D. Brentari (ed.), Sign Languages, 225–51. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rankin, Miako
2013Form, Meaning, and Focus in American Sign Language. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.
Schembri, A., K. Cormier & J. Fenlon
2018Indicating verbs as typologically unique constructions: Reconsidering verb ‘agreement’ in sign languages. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 3(1), 891. 81–40.
Schembri, Adam, Kearsy Cormier, Jordan Fenlon & Trevor Johnston
2018Sociolinguistic Typology and Sign Languages. Frontiers in Psychology 91. 200.
Taub, Sarah
2001Language from the Body: Iconicity and Metaphor in American Sign Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Volterra, Virginia, A. Laudanna, Serena Corazza, E. Radutsky & F. Natale
1984Italian Sign Language: the order of elements in the declarative sentence. In F. Loncke, P. Boyes-Braem & Y. Lebrun (eds.), Recent Research on European Sign Languages, 19–48. Lisse: Swets and Zeitlinger.
Wilbur, Ronnie B.
1994Foregrounding structures in American Sign Language. Journal of Pragmatics 221. 647–72.
Wilcox, Sherman & Corrine Occhino
2016Constructing signs: Place as a symbolic structure in signed languages. Cognitive Linguistics 27(3). 371–404.
Wittenburg, Peter, Hennie Brugman, Albert Russel, A. Klassmann & Han Sloetjes
2006ELAN: a Professional Framework for Multimodality Research. Proceedings of LREC 2006, Fifth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, 1556–59. Paris: ELAR.
Zeshan, Ulrike
2004Hand, head, and face: Negative constructions in sign languages. Linguistic Typology 81. 1–58.
Zeshan, Ulrike
(ed.)2006Sign Language Typology 1: Interrogative and Negative Constructions in Sign Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zima, Elisabeth & Alexander Bergs
2017Multimodality and construction grammar. Linguistics Vanguard 31(s1 (Jun 2017)
Cited by
Cited by 7 other publications
Beukeleers, Inez & Myriam Vermeerbergen
2022. Show Me What You’ve B/Seen: A Brief History of Depiction. Frontiers in Psychology 13
Hou, Lynn
2022. A Usage-Based Proposal for Argument Structure of Directional Verbs in American Sign Language. Frontiers in Psychology 13
Hou, Lynn
2022. LOOKing for multi-word expressions in American Sign Language. Cognitive Linguistics 33:2 ► pp. 291 ff.
2023. Why we need a gradient approach to word order. Linguistics 61:4 ► pp. 825 ff.
Motamedi, Yasamin, Kenny Smith, Marieke Schouwstra, Jennifer Culbertson & Simon Kirby
2021. The emergence of systematic argument distinctions in artificial sign languages. Journal of Language Evolution 6:2 ► pp. 77 ff.
Raičević Bajić, Dragana, Myriam Vermeerbergen, Adam Schembri & Mieke Van Herreweghe
2021. Constituent order in Serbian Sign Language declarative clauses. Glossa: a journal of general linguistics 6:1
[no author supplied]
2022. Bibliography. Journal of Sociolinguistics 26:1 ► pp. 137 ff.
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.