Gradation and Intensification in Croatian Sign Language Adjectives
(presented in English)
To date, adjectives in Croatian Sign Language (HZJ) have not received detailed
investigation comparable to that of verbs. The signing of a HZJ adjective is similar to
that of any other lexical sign, in that the sign components (handshape, place of
articulation, movement, etc.) are lexically specified (as outlined in Brentari 1998). The
signs are accompanied by mouthing of the Croatian word or by a mouth position that
does not change during the movement of the sign (Šarac et al. 2007). This poster will
present the phonological marking of gradation and intensification of adjectives in HZJ.
Adjectives can be modified in terms of comparison and intensification.
Comparison or gradation implies a change through three degrees of adjectives: positive
('big'), comparative ('bigger') and superlative ('the biggest'). Intensification includes
intensive ('very hot') and excessive ('too hot to eat') (Marković 2012).
An intensified or graded HZJ adjective must meet a sign language specific
criterion: it must be visually distinct from the baseline adjective form (Wilbur et al.,
2011). This is phonological marking that represents degree morphology. We relate this
specific marking to that used for end-state boundaries denoting telic events, as discussed
under the Event Visibility Hypothesis (EVH; Wilbur 2008), and extend it to a more
general Visibility Hypothesis (VH).
Elicited productions were collected from 4 Deaf native signers of HZJ in 4
different tasks. The first contains a list of 59 adjectives in isolation, each shown in the
three degrees of comparison. The second task consists of 10 short contexts, into each
were incorporated the three degrees from the same list of adjectives. The third task
contains 20 adjectives presented in three degrees of intensification: positive (Adj),
intensive ('very' Adj), and excessive ('too' A to Verb) in isolated instances, and the
fourth consists of 20 short contexts, each containing the three degrees of intensification.
We observed the following modification to adjective signs under gradation and
intensification: a) movement modifications (add or enlarge movement trajectory, add
another lexical sign), and b) nonmanual modifications (frown on face, mouth gestures,
head and body tilt away from neutral).
Results indicate that signed adjectives are modifiable along the same lines as
previously observed for HZJ verbs (Milković 2011). In gradation, most of the adjectives
are marked by adding a lexical sign: comparative adds JOŠ or VIŠE (‘more’), and
superlative adds NAJ (‘the most’). Even though this could be considered as “Croatian
register” rather than daily HZJ, it is very common, and often comes accompanied with
movement and nonmanual modifications. As for intensification, there is again adding:
JAKO (‘very’) to intensives, and PREVIŠE (‘too much’) to excessive, again with
movement and nonmanual modifications. These new findings provide another
morphological process that has been overlooked in earlier studies. The regularity of the
modifications through gradation is in keeping with the typology identified in Bobaljik
(2012), indicating that his universals extend to at least one sign language.
References:
Bobaljik, J. (2012). Universals in Comparative Morphology MIT Press.
Brentari, D. (1998). Prosodic Model of Sign Language Phonology. MIT Press.
Marković, I. (2012). Uvod u jezičnu morfologiju [Introduction to Language
Morphology]. Zagreb: Disput.
Milković, M. (2011). Verb Classes in Croatian Sign Language (HZJ) - Syntactic And
Semantic Properties. PhD dissertation, University of Zagreb.
Šarac Kuhn, N., Alibašić Ciciliani, T., Wilbur, R.B (2006). Phonological parameters
in Croatian Sign Language. Sign Language & Linguistics, Vol. 9, 1-2: 33-70.
Wilbur, R.B. (2008).l Complex predicates involving events, time and aspect: is this
why sign languages look so similar? In: Quer J. (Ed.), Signs of the Time.
Selected Papers from TISLR 2004. Signum Press, Hamburg, pp. 217–250.
Wilbur, R. B., Malaia, E., Shay, R. (2011). Degree Modification and Intensification in
American Sign Language Adjectives. Amsterdam Colloquium on Logic,
Language and Meaning, 92-101.