Sign Language Semantics / Pragmatics

Decades of research in sign language linguistics have shown that sign languages and spoken languages have the same formal, cognitive, and psycholinguistic signatures. At the same time, being part of the diverse tapestry of the world’s languages, there are also several places where sign languages provide unique insight into the semantics and pragmatics of natural language. This course will focus each day on one such example, including quantification, connectives, attitude reports, anaphora, and the nature of alternatives. Backgrounds in sign linguistics and/or formal semantics are useful but the main ideas will be accessible without either background.