Pluralization in German Sign Language
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2012
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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Thesis (B.A.)
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en_US
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Abstract
Like many other signed and spoken languages, German Sign Language (Deutsche
Gebärdensprache; DGS) makes use of multiple strategies for the plural marking of nominal
signs. The plural marker is realized in three ways. The first default realization is lateral
reduplication, in which the sign is reduplicated as the hands move laterally through the signing
space. The second is simple reduplication in the same position in space. The third case is
zeromarking, with no overt realization of the plural marker. The realization of the plural depends
critically on the phonological properties of the base sign, making this a case of phonologically
triggered allomorphy.
However, as is the case for almost all sign languages, DGS can make use of classifier
constructions in conjunction with these nouns. Classifier constructions are available to all noun
classes in DGS for a variety of uses, but in the case of underspecified nouns, or the nouns that
display zero-marking in the plural, a laterally reduplicated version of the classifier handshape is
also available. I argue that this type of classifier is more grammatically regular in its use than it
is in other classifier constructions, which suggests that it is being used as an alternative
pluralization strategy. I offer a detailed description of the criteria that divides nouns into
phonological categories and how these nouns can be alternatively pluralized by means of
classifier constructions and spatial localization, a phenomenon in which the articulation of the
sign both introduces the noun into the discourse and designates it as an entity within the signing
space.