Sign Language Typology

Contrary to popular opinion, sign languages do not form a homogenous group. Rather, different types of sign languages can be distinguished (e.g., deaf community sign languages, rural sign languages, homesign), and within as well as across groups, sign languages differ structurally from each other at all levels of linguistic description. In this course, we will discuss selected aspects of typological variation among sign languages, and we will also compare the attested patterns to those described for some typologically diverse spoken languages. We will address aspects of the lexicon (numerals), morphosyntax (pluralization), and syntax (negation and complex sentences), and we will take a descriptive and theoretical perspective.

Our guiding questions are:

How far do sign languages differ from each other (intra-modal comparison)?
To what extent can typological classifications proposed based on spoken language data be applied to sign languages (cross-modal comparison)?
Can theoretical models proposed for spoken languages be applied to sign languages?