Patterns from a signed language corpus: Clause-level units in Auslan
(Australian sign language)
The Auslan Corpus (http://elar.soas.ac.uk/deposit/johnston2012auslan) is being
enriched with annotations to investigate Auslan constructions and hypotactic
complexity using a corpus-driven approach to identify and analyse clause-level
composite utterances. Composite utterances are moves, or turns, in face-to-face
linguistic interaction in which fully conventional semiotic signs combine with symbolic
indexicals such as pointing gestures (Enfield 2009). In this way, linguistic texts
develop as shared and constantly negotiated symbolic artefacts that are co-created
between two or more interactants in the context of a communicative event (Enfield
2009; Givón 2005; 2009).
Approximately 1000 tokens of these possible clause-like units have been
semantically identified in narrative and conversation files using a corpus-driven
approach (Biber 2010; Haspelmath 2007). Data is extracted from these annotated
files to identify and describe recurrent patterns of organisation at the clause level.
The manual and non-manual signs tagged as overt core argument (A) and predicate
(V) elements in the study corpus pattern in recurrent ways. The tendency for [V], [A
V] and [V A] patterns is very similar to observations of preferred argument structure
in spoken language grammars, whereby simple clauses in discourse are usually a
predicate and an argument, and arguments are often inferred rather than explicitly
re-activated using morphology and lexis (Du Bois 1987; Thompson & Hopper 2001;
Givón 2009).
Here we describe the frequency and distribution of these candidate constructions,
with reference to the patterning of overt core elements, macro-role, semantic role,
sign type and enactment. Our goal is to use empirical corpus-based data to
contribute insights into the use of composite utterances in a signed language and
therefore on the way meaning is negotiated between interactants in face-to-face
discourse. Our data shows that clause-level constructions in Auslan (including clause
complexes) cannot be described or accounted for solely in terms of conventionalised
morpho-syntax, i.e. without appeal to gesture, enactment and the face-to-face
context of utterances.
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