Dr. Kathryn Davidson (Harvard University) will give a colloquium in person on March 15th 3:30-5:00pm, 2024.
Title: Information structure insights from sign language anaphora
Abstract: Notions of topic and focus have been well-studied in sign languages, which – like many spoken languages – tend to have word orders highly influenced by information structural considerations, along with perhaps some modality-specific considerations provided by suprasegmental “non-manuals” and other simultaneous layering, the tight integration of iconic gestures into the grammatical structure, etc. The use of signing space/”loci” for anaphora is often considered to be another modality-specific feature, bearing on questions about semantic analyses of anaphora generally and how anaphoricity relates to other notions like definiteness, givenness, and contrast. This talk will provide both experimental and theoretical arguments for how the use of sign language anaphora relates to information structure in sign languages and by extension some existing questions in spoken languages regarding the relationship between anaphoricity and information structure.