Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children show difficulties in their morphosyntactic abilities. Purpose: The current study aimed to examine morphosyntactic errors in sentences produced by DHH students, who are signers of Israeli Sign Language, and also users of Palestinian Colloquial Arabic (PCA) and written Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Method:…

Acquisition of natural language has been shown to fundamentally impact both one's ability to use the first language and the ability to learn subsequent languages later in life. Sign languages offer a unique perspective on this issue because Deaf signers receive access to signed input at varying ages. The majority acquires sign language in (early)…

One of the fundamental issues for a language is its capacity to express argument structure unambiguously. This study presents evidence for the emergence and the incremental development of these basic mechanisms in a newly developing language, Central Taurus Sign Language. Our analyses identify universal patterns in both the emergence and…

Purpose: Diagnoses, assessments, and treatments, as well as social and language interventions, can be effective in identifying and interpreting specific linguistic features that present special challenges to the language abilities of individuals who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH). This article reports on a study analyzing complex sentences and…

Factors influencing native and nonnative signers' syntactic judgment ability in American Sign Language (ASL) were explored for 421 deaf students aged 7;6-18;5. Predictors for syntactic knowledge were chronological age, age of entering a school for the deaf, gender, and additional learning disabilities. Mixed-effects linear modeling analysis…

Over the past 30-years linguists have been witnessing the birth and evolution of a language, Idioma de Señas de Nicaragua (ISN), in Nicaragua, and have initiated and documented the syntax and grammar of this new language. Research is only beginning to emerge on the implications of ISN on the education of deaf/hard of hearing children in Nicaragua.…

This article contains a literature review of evidence of large prosodic domains that correspond to syntactic units such as a clause or a sentence. In particular, different phonetic nonmanual cues that may relate to clause or sentence boundaries are discussed in detail. On the basis of various ideas and views in the literature, we also describe two…

This study examined different perspectives of deaf education practitioners on deafness and reading comprehension. This involved a full deaf education support team comprising teachers of the deaf, communication support workers, and deaf instructors from a UK citywide service covering early years, primary and secondary settings. Using a focus group…

Examines the variety of sign language used in Southern and central Pakistan and Northwestern India, including its grammatical profile, word classes, the relationship between word class and functional slot, the marking of basic syntactic relations, shifters, number systems, types of possession, negation, questions, subordinate clauses, and…

Discusses the ways in which the lexical items, grammatical code, and the uses of the vernacular sign language, Providence Sign Language (PSL), are interdependent and based on content rather than on an arbitrary, internally defined system. (PMJ)

This article focuses on word order - the order of constituents in the sentence - as one way in which languages establish the relationship between a verb and its arguments. The spoken languages of the world have been classified into three, major word-order types: SVO, VSO, and SOV. Greenberg' work (1963) on language typology has been a stimulus to…

A description of the sign language used in a Mexican village shows its parallels with other sign languages, its similarity to the folk gestural system of Mexico and its distinguishing aspects. Examples illustrate its syntax, grammar and lexicon. (PMJ)

Using data from American and Quebec Sign Languages, this article argues against linguistic theories that postulate either that a language has a basic order determined by universal principles or that there is a single universal order for all languages. Maintains that there are other means a language can use to indicate what elements combine…

This digest uses a question-and-answer format to summarize basic information about the use of English-based sign systems with children who are deaf or hard of hearing. English-based sign systems are explained as using the vocabulary of American Sign Language (ASL) with the grammatical and syntactical features of English. These systems include…

Storytelling by six teachers of the deaf was videotaped under three simulated conditions, as if they were presenting to hearing listeners, to oral deaf listeners, and to users of simultaneous communication. A number of grammatical and lexical characteristics were examined including Type-Token Ratios, a measure of lexical diversity, and Minimal…