This study examined the extended discourse used by two Deaf parents with their two Deaf children (ages two and four). The study was conducted using an in-depth examination of parental expressive use of American Sign Language, looking at the use of discourse and the features and contexts that offered the most opportunity for rich language…

This article presents an analysis of the relationship between sign structure and iconicity in American Sign Language. Historically, linguists have been pressured to downplay the role of form-meaning relationships (iconicity) in signed languages. However, recent inquiries into the role of traditional phonological parameters of signs (handshape,…

Observation of severely to profoundly deaf four- to nine-year-olds (N=24) producing three types of multi-morphemic classifier predicates in American Sign Language showed that handshape production was influenced both by morphological and syntactic complexity, while handshape errors were not based on anatomical complexity alone. (26 references)…