Word Order Issues in Sign Language Acquisition: Then and Now
Deborah Chen Pichler
Gallaudet University
Cross-linguistic differences in word order have long represented an area of lively linguistic
inquiry. Research on word order variation investigates the pragmatic function of variation within
a particular language and the factors that determine the choice of one word order over another.
For languages exhibiting rich word order variation, we wish to know how individuals acquiring
those languages develop their sense of when to use each of the multiple word orders available to
them. Researchers have pursued this line of study for both child L1 learners and adult L2
learners, with interesting results. This presentation will summarize the history of word order
acquisition studies on sign languages and explore the fruitful interaction of these studies with
other subfields of sign language acquisition.
Typological studies such as those carried out by Greenberg (1963) have often pointed to
canonical or underlying word order as an effective tool for predicting other word order features
of a given language, such as the presence of post- or prepositions and the relative order of nouns
and their adjective modifiers. Although the face of theoretical linguistics has changed greatly
over the past forty years, researchers continue to test the accuracy of Greenberg’s generalizations
in a growing number of languages and theoretical frameworks. Within the generative framework,
many of Greenberg’s generalizations are derivable from the settings a language selects for the
word order parameters: the head-complement, specifier-head and verb second parameters. For
example, the setting of the head-complement parameter will determine not only the canonical
order of verbs with respect to their objects, but also the order of pre-/postpositions with respect
to their objects, and adjectives with respect to the nouns they modify. Indeed, word order
phenomena provide an excellent illustration of the original concept of the “octopus” parameter
ideal, wherein the setting of a single parameter has repercussions for multiple aspects of a
language’s structure.
Since mastery of the canonical word order (i.e. choosing the correct settings for the word order
parameters of one’s language) automatically brings with it mastery of other aspects of word
order, children acquiring their first language would stand to benefit from learning the canonical
order as soon as possible. The general consensus in the field of language acquisition is that the
underlying or canonical word order is indeed among the earliest aspect of a language to be
acquired. In English, for example, children observe the English canonical word order SVO with
remarkable consistency from their very earliest multi-word combinations. This has led to a
general belief that the word order parameters are universally set very early (cf. Wexler 1998).
Subsequent studies on languages with greater word order variability than English have also
reported early mastery of canonical word order, suggesting that the generalizations drawn from
English can be extended cross-linguistically.
Investigation of early word order development began with Hoffmeister (1978) for ASL and has
since been carried out on a handful of other sign languages as well. Interestingly, the results
reported by these studies sometimes appear to contradict each other, even within a single
language. For example, Hoffmeister (1978) reports a strong preference for canonical SVO order
in early sign combinations, while a more recent study reported in Schick and Gale (1996) and
Schick (2002) finds no evidence for such a preference. A third study by Chen Pichler (2001)
proposes that the seemingly contradictory results of earlier studies can be reconciled under an
analysis that attributes children with early setting of the ASL word order parameters, as well as
early mastery of various movement operations, some driven by morphology and others by
pragmatics, that yield adult-like noncanonical orders. Chen Pichler’s proposal is consistent with
the findings of word order acquisition studies for other sign languages as well, such as Coerts
(2000) for Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT).
Because parameter setting is accomplished through exposure to the target language, the word
order used in child-directed signing will presumably have an effect on the child’s own word
order. Although reports of word order in child-directed signing has not been extensively studied,
other aspects of child-directed signing have been. Van den Bogaerde (2000), for instance, reports
that parents consistently use less verb inflection when signing NGT to their deaf children than
when signing to other adults. She also reports an increased rate of signs accompanied by spoken
Dutch in child-directed input. Both of these factors have great potential to affect word order, the
former because noncanonical orders are often triggered by inflection, and the latter because
simultaneous production of speech and sign may impose the word order of the spoken language
on the signing.
Finally, as we gain a clearer understanding of word order development in L1 acquisition of sign
languages, there is increasing interest in seeing whether late learners and L2 learners of the same
sign languages display similar developmental patterns. In a recent study, Lillo-Martin and Berk
(2003) report that deaf children who are first exposed to ASL after age 6 rely heavily on
canonical order, in contrast to early learner controls who employ variations of word order
common in native ASL. Thus, while canonical order again emerges as an early feature in
grammatical development, the ability to produce noncanonical orders appears sensitive to delays
in exposure. This is a fascinating area of investigation that has enormous potential impact on the
development of education and language intervention programs for deaf children.
This presentation touches on only a few of the many ways in which the study of word order
acquisition intersects with other lines of inquiry currently under active investigation in the field
of sign language linguistics. There are countless other applications of this research that have yet
to be explored, giving it the potential to yield important contributions in the broader contexts of
both language acquisition research and sign language research in general.
References
Chen Pichler, Deborah. 2001. Word order variation and acquisition in American Sign Language.
Doctoral dissertation. University of Connecticut.
Coerts, Jane. 2000. Early sign combinations in the acquisition of Sign Language of the
Netherlands: Evidence for language-specific features. In Jill Morford, Rachel Mayberry and
Charlene Chamberlain (eds.) Language acquisition by eye, 91-109. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates.
Greenberg, J. H. 1963. Universals of language. Cambridge, MA:MIT Press.
Hoffmeister, Robert. 1978. Word order in the acquisition of ASL. Ms. Boston University.
Lillo-Martin, Diane and Stephanie Berk. 2003. Acquisition of Constituent Order Under Delayed
Language Exposure. Proceedings of the Annual Boston University Conference on Language
Development; 27, 2, 484-495.
Schick, Brenda. 2002. The expression of grammatical relations by deaf toddlers learning ASL. In
Gary Morgan and Bencie Woll (eds.) Directions in sign language acquisition, 143-158.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Wexler, K. 1998. Very early parameter setting and the unique checking constraint: A new
explanation of the optional infinitive stage. Lingua, 106:23-79.