Expression of arguments and age of acquisition effects in Turkish Sign Language

Abstract

This study explores how delayed exposure to Turkish Sign Language (TİD) affects the encoding of arguments on agreeing verbs, within an utterance, and in descriptions of multiple entities. The discussion on agreeing verbs hinges on the marking of referential loci that anchor arguments on person agreeing verbs (e.g. SHOW) and location agreeing verbs (e.g. FLY-TO). Location agreeing verbs are further examined to reveal patterns in the ordering of Figures (i.e. smaller, more mobile entities) and Grounds (i.e. larger, more immobile entities) within an utterance. Lastly, the expression of number information in noun phrases that introduce arguments during scene setting and verb phrases that describe events containing multiple entities are investigated. A series of elicitation tasks suggests the following: (i) late learners perform virtually on par with their native counterparts in terms of referent tracking, (ii) location agreement verbs elicit more faithful responses, in which referential loci are consistently cross-referenced on the verb, than person agreement verbs in both groups, (iii) native signers adhere more strictly to the Figure-Ground principle observed across sign languages, and (iv) late learners show a tendency to leave out number information on the verb when describing a single event with multiple entities. Taken together, these findings shed light on the critical period (Lenneberg, 1967) and offer insight into the components of language that are sensitive to the timing of language input.