Abstract This paper examines the relationships between information structure and prosody in LSFB (French Belgian Sign Language), focusing on the marking of contrast. A recurrent assertion in the literature is that contrast is always marked by prosodic prominence. We discuss this interaction at the manual level by investigating the connections between the presence or absence of a manual prosodic marker and the contrastive or non-contrastive character of a sign. To explore this connection, we examine data related to the holds, dominance reversals, repetitions, and variations in duration and displacement produced on 977 signs by four native LSFB signers. We also assign a certain degree of prominence to every sign depending on the number of cues employed by a participant. Data are analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics (Chi-squared test, Mann-Whitney U test, or Kruskal-Wallis test). The results show that contrast has its own prosodic marking at the manual level in LSFB and that contrastive signs are more prominent than non-contrastive ones. The prevailing cues used to encode contrast are variations in displacement or relative duration, and combinations of relative duration and displacement. The interactions between prosody, information structure, and articulatory constraints are discussed to explain the different patterns highlighted in the data sample.

Abstract In this contribution, we offer a first exploration of stance expressions in Flemish Sign Language (VGT). Biber and Finegan (1989) define stance as the expression of feelings, attitudes, judgments, commitments, and assessments. The few studies focusing on stance in signed languages have shown that stance can be expressed by various structures and mechanisms such as lexical signs, manual gestures (e.g., Palm Up gestures) and embodiment/mental space blends. We will examine if these findings apply to Flemish Sign Language, and we will identify other means of expressing stance in VGT. In this exploratory study, we focus on the following questions: (1) which articulators and semiotic resources can be used in Flemish Sign Language to express stance?; and (2) How are visible bodily actions through different articulators integrated temporally in stance expressions? Our study is based on the analysis of about five hours of data from the Corpus Flemish Sign Language. We present examples from our dataset to illustrate that stance can be expressed through a range of structures and mechanisms (such as lexical signs, manual gestures, enactment, and non-manual features), expressed either sequentially or simultaneously by a multitude of articulators. Moreover, we zoom in on the phenomenon of stance-stacking and analyse how multiple stance expressions can be combined in VGT.

Abstract Reformulation involves saying something again in a different way. Because of its metalinguistic nature (Rabatel 2017), combined with its general aim of clarifying the utterance, we propose to consider the act of reformulation as offering a window to the way interlocutors process and adjust themselves and their utterances in their social language practices. More specifically, this study proposes a set of four analytical criteria to characterize interlocutors’ investment in discourse and interaction via the observation of their use of reformulations. These criteria concern the frequency of reformulations within a production, the proportion of self- and other-reformulations (Güllich and Kotschi 1987), the type of adjustment that the act of reformulation seeks to achieve (Authier-Revuz 1995) and the type of semiotic strategies used, namely descriptive, indicative and depictive ways of meaning making (Clark 1996; Ferrara and Hodge 2018). The paper draws on the exploratory analysis of the productions of deaf LSFB signers extracted from the LSFB Corpus. It illustrates how describing the reformulations according to the proposed criteria, reveals distinctions between different patterns of pragmatic attitude and involvement in discourse and interaction. This approach opens new avenues for the pragmatic descriptions of LSFB and signed discourses in general.

Abstract The diminutive construction is formed and used differently in Spanish and English, which leads us to the question how this construction with different morphosyntactic and semantic-pragmatic characteristics in the input languages is governed in Spanish-English bilingual and codeswitching speech. Through the analysis of a dataset of diminutive constructions extracted from the Bangor Miami corpus, this paper contributes to a better understanding of how one and the same construction differently represented in the input languages is administered in bilingual contexts. As this is a first approach to studying diminutives in codeswitching, three well known structural codeswitching models serve as a primary theoretical tool against which the diminutive is tested. These arePoplack’s (1980)Universal Constraints,Myers-Scotton’s (2002)Matrix Language Frame Model, andBlom and Gumperz’ (1972)Metaphorical Codeswitching Framework. The results show that Miami bilinguals prefer the prototypical markers of each language, -itoandlittle(e.g.un partimecito, un little estante). Furthermore, while the data largely confirm Poplack’s Constraints, they refute our hypothesis based on Myers-Scotton’s MLF model. Regarding Gumperz’ theory, the use of diminutive markers in a particular language correlates with a certain meaning the speaker wants to communicate (i.e. quantitative or qualitative), which again provides support to the framework.

Abstract In Construction Grammar theory, constructions are generally described as form-meaning pairings. It will be argued here that the formal specifications of some abstract constructions are so vague that the notion of form needs to be discussed rather critically. We aim to demonstrate how, in the English predicative and intransitive-motion constructions, the slots of more general constructions can be seen as being specified indirectly through sets of mini-constructions.

Abstract Constructions are abstractions of resources we have available as ways of expressing ourselves. The study argues for the feasibility of seeing constructions as flexible prototypes in terms of which we categorize the world: constructions have few if any necessary and sufficient conditions that are always applicable. As support for this view, an analysis of the correlative TatT-construction in English is carried out, indicating that even if we can set up a dozen characteristics of the construction, none of them are necessary for an expression to be characterized as an instance of the construction. Furthermore, for constructional analyses to be truly usage-based, variations within prototypes have to be explicated. A Construction Discourse approach is used to show how pragmatic and discourse factors can distinguish and afford particular meanings and functions to non-prototypical instances of a construction.

Abstract This squib applies and extends insights from (Diasystematic) Construction Grammar to the code-switching and loan-translation of English verbs (and verbal constructions) in US-German dialects. After presenting recent findings about the nature and interaction of language contact phenomena, I introduce the constructional principles guiding the analysis and the data sources. I then present a wide array of data and formulate hypotheses regarding the processes and motivations underlying each type, appealing to a constructional and usage-based view of the bilingual’s mental lexicon.

Abstract Syntactic amalgams are innovative phrasal constructions that combine otherwise incompatible subparts of other constructions (Lambrecht 1988; Brenier and Michaelis 2005). We describe pleonastic formations like flavorize in English and ψηλαφ-ίζ(ω) [psilafízo] ‘palpate’ in Modern Greek as functional amalgams at the word level. We examine these formations through the lens of (function-oriented) Sign-Based Construction Grammar (Sag 2012), arguing that once we see derivational morphemes as signs, and sign combination as construction-driven rather than head-driven, we can describe such words as coercive combinations that serve a variety of semiotic functions.

Abstract While the concept of extravagance, used to describe speakers’ use of imaginative and noticeable language, has seen a surge in popularity in recent constructionist work, researchers have not yet converged on a set of common criteria for identifying extravagant expressions. In this paper, we discuss a variety of existing definitions and combine them into five main characteristics of extravagant language. We then present the results of a small-scale pilot rating study in which speakers judged extravagant sentences and their non-extravagant paraphrases. Our findings suggest that different constructions vary in their degree of perceived extravagance, and that certain features (e.g. stylistic salience) apply to most extravagant examples while the role of other factors (e.g. the speaker’s emotional involvement) may be restricted to a subset of extravagant patterns. We conclude with some open questions concerning the further demarcation and operationalisation of the concept of extravagance.

Abstract This paper presents evidence in support of the claim that Latin played a significant role as a ‘roof language’ in the languages of western Europe. It focuses on the role that Latin played at three stages of the development of the perfects in western Europe: first, as a conduit of the ‘sacral stamp of Greek’ in bible translation and as influential in other ecclesiastical contexts; secondly, through the influence of scribal tradition and the establishment of the ‘Charlemagne Sprachbund’; and, finally, as a model for classicized syntactic style of the Late Middle and Early Modern period, as exemplified by the patterns of perfect use by the translators of Boethius, especially Chaucer and Elizabeth I. Several larger generalizations also emerge from this investigation: evidence is provided for the stratified nature of Latin syntactic influence across time and space, and the effect of this recurrent replication on the temporal-aspectual systems of the western European languages. Above all, this analysis underlines the essential role of calquing in superstrate-induced change, the structural patterns that are most frequently affected, and the social motivations that foster this type of innovation.