‘FIFTH’ but not ‘FIVE-DAYS-AGO’: Numeral Incorporation in Kenyan Sign Language
In the emerging field of sign language typology, a central issue is discovering how unrelated
sign languages are similar in structure, how they differ, and what might account for these
differences. Modality-specific constraints on word length appear to account for the prevalence of
simultaneous rather than sequential morphology1 though this still remains to be investigated in
many sign languages. Numeral incorporation is one type of simultaneous morphology found in
several unrelated languages. It involves the fusion of two morphemes: a handshape quantifier plus
a base lexical sign representing the category to be quantified; e.g., THREE-WEEKS or FOUR2
YEARS-OLD in ASL.
Cross-linguistically, these constructions occur in the same types of lexemes (e.g., currency,
time, etc.) and are phonologically restricted in similar ways.3,4 However, numeral incorporation
is not utilized equally in all sign languages. It is very rare in Adamorobe Sign Language5, while
ASL and languages in the Japanese Sign Language family have expansive repertoires.3,4
The current study asks what form this strategy takes in a relatively young national sign
language. Kenyan Sign Language (KSL) emerged in schools for the deaf around 50 years ago and
is used by a large, widely dispersed population. KSL has indigenous origins,7 but also contains
lexical borrowings from ASL, presumably via educational materials introduced in the 1990s.8
This study poses two questions. First, which lexical categories in KSL use numeral
incorporation, and how do these compare to other sign languages? Second, what are the
phonological and morphological constraints on numeral incorporation? Data is based on
videotaped elicitation with five fluent adult deaf signers collected in western Kenya in 2012.
Findings show that KSL uses numeral incorporation productively in multiple quantification
categories: ordinals, hours, days (present, past, future), weeks, years, cents, shillings, tens,
hundreds, thousands, and school classes. This is similar to the number of categories reported in
Mathur & Rathmann3 for DGS and Nihon Shuwa (JSL), but less than ASL. However, numeral
incorporation is relatively limited in KSL within these categories. First, it is phonologically
restricted (but not always blocked) by two-handed numbers (those over 6). Second, there are
usage-based constraints in some paradigms; i.e., while THREE-DAYS-AGO is licit in all respects,
FOUR-DAYS-AGO is phonologically permissible, but rare; and FIVE-DAYS-AGO is both
phonologically illicit and rare.
A comparison between KSL and ASL shows much less incorporation overall in KSL, but
also little lexical relatedness due to phonological differences in both the numeric handshapes and
most base lexical signs (year, month, hour, etc.). Evidence also suggests that numeral
incorporation probably emerged prior to contact with ASL in the 1960s, via paradigms related to
currency. Thus, KSL numeral incorporation is unlikely to be a borrowed morphological process.
This study presents new evidence from a young understudied language that sign language
lexicons can readily develop simultaneous morphology, but that these processes remain
constrained by phonological well-formedness.
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Liddell, Scott. 1997. Numeral incorporating roots and non-incorporating prefixes in American Sign Language.
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Mathur, Gaurav & Christian Rathmann. 2010. Two types of nonconcatenative morphology in signed languages. In
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University Press.
Fischer, Susan, Yu Hung, & Shih-Kai Liu. 2011. Numeral Incorporation in Taiwan Sign Language. In Jung-hsing
Chang & Jenny Yichun Kuo (eds.) Language and Cognition: Festschrift in Honor of James H-Y. Tai on His 70th
Birthday, 147-169. Taipei: The Crane Publishing.
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presented at Theoretical Issues in Sign Language Research 9 Meeting. Florianoipolis, Brazil.