Article published in:
Impersonal human reference in Sign Languages
Edited by Gemma Barberà and Patricia Cabredo Hofherr
[Sign Language & Linguistics 21:2] 2018
► pp. 204–231

Impersonal reference in Russian Sign Language (RSL)

| University of Amsterdam
This paper contains the first description of impersonal reference in Russian Sign Language (RSL). Impersonal reference has been investigated using a variety of elicitation techniques. It has been found that RSL uses a variety of strategies, namely pro-drop, an indefinite pronoun someone, a plural pronoun ix pl, and probably a second-person pronoun ix 2 in impersonal contexts. The impersonal strategies in RSL follow the general typological tendencies previously identified for spoken languages (Gast & Van der Auwera 2013), and do not show obvious modality effects (such as described by Barberà & Quer 2013). Some impersonal strategies show evidence of influence of spoken/written Russian in the form of borrowing and/or code-switching.
Keywords: impersonal reference, Russian Sign Language, pro-drop
Published online: 22 March 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/sll.00018.kim
References

References

Bank, Richard
2014 The ubiquity of mouthings in NGT. Nijmegen: Radboud University PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
Barberà, Gemma
2012a A unified account of specificity in Catalan Sign Language (LSC). In Rick Nouwen, Anna Chernilovskaya & Ana Aguilar-Guevara (eds.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 16. Volume 1. 43–55. MIT Working Papers in Linguistics.Google Scholar
2012b The meaning of space in Catalan Sign Language (LSC). Reference, specificity and structure in signed discourse. Barcelona: Universitat Pompeu Fabra PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
Barberà, Gemma & Patricia Cabredo Hofherr
2017 Backgrounded agents in Catalan Sign Language (LSC): passives, middles, or impersonals? Language 93(4). 767–798. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Barberà, Gemma & Josep Quer
2013 Impersonal reference in Catalan Sign Language (LSC). In Laurence Meurant, Aurélie Sinte, Mieke van Herreweghe & Miriam Vermeerbergen (eds.), Sign language research, uses and practices: Crossing views on theoretical and applied sign language linguistics, 237–258. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bates, Douglas, Martin Maechler, Ben Bolker & Steve Walker
2015 Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software 67(1). 1–48. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Burkova, Svetlana I.
2012 Uslovnyje kosntruktsii russkogo zhestovogo jazyka [Conditional constructions in Russian Sign Language]. In Olga V. Fedorova (ed.), Russkij zhestovyj jazyk: pervaja lingvisticheskaja konferentsija: sbornik statej, 50–81. Moscow: Buki Vedi.Google Scholar
2015 Russian Sign Language: general information. Russian Sign Language Corpus. Novosibirsk, 2012–2015. Project leader: Svetlana Burkova. http://​rsl​.nstu​.ru​/site​/signlang
Burkova, Svetalana I. & Elizaveta V. Filimonova
2014 Reduplikatsija v russkom zhestovom jazyke [Reduplication in Russian Sign Language]. Russkij yazyk v nauchnom osveshchenii 28. 202–258.Google Scholar
Cabredo Hofherr, Patricia
2006 ‘Arbitrary’ pro and the theory of pro-drop. In Peter Ackema, Patrick Brandt, Maaike Schoorlemmer & Fred Weerman (eds.), Agreement and arguments, 230–258. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Caponigro, Ivano & Kathryn Davidson
2011 Ask, and tell as well: clausal question-answer pairs in ASL. Natural Language Semantics 19(4). 323–371. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Davidson, Kathryn & Deanne Gagne
2014 Vertical representation of quantifier domains. In Urtzi Etxeberria, Anamaria Fălăuș, Artiz Irurtzun & Bryan Leferman (eds.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 18, 110–127. Bayonne and Vitoria-Gasteiz.Google Scholar
Gast, Volker & Johan van der Auwera
2013 Towards a distributional typology of human impersonal pronouns, based on data from European languages. In Dik Bakker & Martin Haspelmath (eds.), Languages across boundaries. Studies in memory of Anna Siewierska, 31–56. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gries, Stefan Th
2013 Statistics for linguistics with R: a practical introduction (2nd revised edition). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin
2013 Indefinite pronouns. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds.), The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (Available online at http://​wals​.info​/chapter​/46, accessed on 2017-08-17).
Kimmelman, Vadim
2014 Information structure in Russian Sign Language and Sign Language of the Netherlands. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
2015 R-impersonals in Sign Language of the Netherlands. Presentation at Workshop on sign languages and R-impersonal pronouns , Paris, February 2015.
2017 Quantifiers in Russian Sign Language. In Edward L. Keenan & Denis Paperno (eds.), Handbook of quantifiers in natural languages, vol. 2, 803–855. Berlin: Springer. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Liddell, Scott
1990 Four functions of a locus: Re-examining the structure of space in ASL. In Ceil Lucas (ed.), Sign language research: theoretical issues II, 176–198. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press.Google Scholar
Nyst, Victoria
2007 A descriptive analysis of Adamorobe Sign Language (Ghana). Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
Schütze, Carson T. & Jon Sprouse
2014 Judgment data. In Robert J. Podesva & Devyani Sharma (eds.), Research methods in linguistics, 27–50. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Siewierska, Anna
2008 Impersonalization from a subject-centred vs. agent-centred perspective. Transactions of the Philological Society 106. 1–23. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2011 Overlap and complementarity in reference impersonals: Man constructions vs. third person plural-impersonals in the languages of Europe. In Andrej Malchukov & Anna Siewierska (eds.), Impersonal constructions. A cross-linguistic perspective, 57–90. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Siewierska, Anna & Maria Papastathi
2011 Third person plurals in the languages of Europe: Typological and methodological issues. Linguistics 49. 575–610.Google Scholar
R Core Team
2016 R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. URL:https://​www​.R​-project​.org/
Wilbur, Ronnie B.
1996 Evidence for the function and structure of wh-clefts in American Sign Language. In William Edmondson & Ronnie B. Wilbur (eds.), International review of sign linguistics, 209–256. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar

video