2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
A Syntactic Study of WH-Questions in Japanese Sign Language
| Project/Area Number |
26370460
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Linguistics
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| Research Institution | Nihon University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
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| Keywords | 手話言語学 / 日本手話 / WH疑問文 / Wh-final / Wh-double / JSL |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
This study aims to show that Japanese Sign Language (or JSL) has universal syntactic properties common to spoken languages, since both sign and spoken languages are instances of natural language. We focused on JSL wh-questions, in particular, wh-final questions and wh-double questions, since these two patterns are not observed in spoken languages. In the former case, a wh-element is located at the end of the clause. In the latter, a wh-element appears in the clause-final position and another position, for example, its original position.
As a result of this study, it is indicated that the clause structures of JSL wh-questions are actually same as spoken languages, even though its word orders are seemingly idiosyncratic. At the same time, it is suggested that sign languages allow an option to realize an element as a sign at a certain position where spoken languages do not permit something to be pronounced, and that whether the option is possible depends on language modality.
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| Free Research Field |
言語学
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