ABSTRACT This project is concerned with the study of visual gestural languages, primary linguistic systems that are not derivative from spoken language. The existence of such fully expressive systems arising outside the mainstream of spoken languages affords a new vantage point for investigating biological constraints on linguistic form. The research centers around the structured use of space and movement in the grammatical processes of signed languages. The investigators couple new linguistic analyses with powerful techniques for three dimensional computergraphic analysis in two major series of experiments. 1) Sign space, mental space, and language universals: The area where American Sign Language (ASL) is most clearly conditioned by the visual modality is in the spatialized mechanisms for conveying syntax and discourse. The research will explore the underpinnings of the spatialized syntax of American and Chinese Sign Language, and investigate the relations of sign space to mental spatial representations. 2) Biological and linguistic constraints on structure: the investigators will study prosodic rhythmic and timing processes in sign language, which will help distinguish language particular characteristics from more general ones. Three-dimensional computergraphic techniques make possible direct analysis of sign language articulation. The study of signed (as contrasted with spoken) language will provide important clues to the biological basis for the prosodic determination of phonological structures. The importance of prosody goes beyond illuminating the functional role of this linguistic level in ASL; it also serves as probes to the brain's control of rhythm and timing more generally. The studies proposed should provide insight into the principles governing the structural organization of language, into the ways languages are shaped by their modality of expression, and into the functional organization of the brain for language.
