Blend Formation in Turkish Sign Language: Are We Missing the Big Picture?

Bahtiyar MakaroÄŸlu

Abstract


From the point of word formation, the phenomenon of lexical blending is a common productive process, entailing the notion of combination of lexemes in so many languages. In the vast majority of literature on blends, they preserve a linear formation of segments with a shortening of both lexemes. However, in sign languages where morphological categories are mainly encoded by non-concatenative morphology, signed blends can be created by the general mechanism of templatic structures, the combination of lexical bases into a non-linear sequence. Specifically, the main purposes in this study are (i) to provide a comprehensive definition of blending formation in signed modality, (ii) to determine whether there are any structural regularities in the formation of lexical blends in Turkish Sign Language (TÄ°D), and (iii) to classify TÄ°D blends according to well-defined criteria. The corpus data to be studied currently include 109 blending formations. Overall, the results demonstrate that TÄ°D data has familiar properties of blends (named complete blends here) in established spoken languages, as well as modality-specific types of root, simultaneous and initialized blends. We propose a modality-specific categorization, in which blend formation is not limited to linear organization and actual source words.


Keywords


blending; sign languages; word formation; word creation; simultaneity

Full Text:

PDF

References


Aronoff, M., Meir, I., & Sandler, W. (2005). The paradox of sign language morphology. Language 81. 301–344.

Arndt-Lappe, S., & Plag, I. (2013). The role of prosodic structure in the formation of English blends. English Language and Linguistics 17(3). 537–56.

Beliaeva, N. (2019). Blending creativity and productivity: on the issue of delimiting the boundaries of blends as a type of word formation. Lexis Journal in English Lexicology 14. 1–22.

Bat-El, O. (1996). Selecting the best of the worst: The grammar of Hebrew blends. Phonology 13. 283–328.

Battison, R. (1978). Lexical Borrowing in American Sign Language. Linstok Press, Silver Spring, MD (Reprinted 2003, Linstok Press).

Bauer, L., Lieber, R., & Plag, I. (2013). The Oxford reference guide to English morphology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Belsitzman, G. & Sandler, W. (2016). Motivated phonological templates in Sign Language. Proceedings of the Mediterranean Morphology Meetings (MMM) 10. 31–44.

Boyes Braem, P. (1986). Two aspects of psycholinguistic Research: iconicity and temporal structure. In: B. T. Tervoort, (ed.), Signs of life: Proceedings of the Second European Congress on Sign Language Research (pp. 65-74). Amsterdam: Publication of the Institute for General Linguistics, University of Amsterdam 50.

Brentari, D. (2002). Modality differences in sign language phonology and morphophonemics. In, R. Meier, D. Quinto-Pozos & K. Cormier (eds.), Modality in language and linguistic theory (pp. 35-64). Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, UK.

Dikyuva, H., B. Makaroğlu & E. Arık (2017). Turkish Sign Language Grammar. Ministry of Family and Social Policies Press: Ankara.

Dressler W. U. (2000). Extragrammatical vs. marginal morphology. In U. Doleschal & A. M. Thornton (eds), Extragrammatical and

marginal morphology (pp. 1-10). München, Lincom Europa.

Engberg-Pedersen, E. (1994). Some simultaneous constructions in Danish Sign Language. In M. Brennan & G. Turner (eds.), Word-order issues in sign language (pp. 73-87). Durham, England: International Sign Linguistics Association.

Fernald, T. & Napoli, D. J. (2000). Exploitation of morphological possibilities in signed languages: comparison of American Sign Language with English. Sign language and linguistics 3, 3−58.

Göksel, A. & Pfau, R. (2017). Compounding. In: J. Quer, C. Cecchetto, C. Donati, C. Geraci, M. Kelepir, R. Pfau & M. Steinbach (eds.), SignGram Blueprint: A guide to sign language grammar writing (pp. 169-188). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Hendriks, B. (2007). Simultaneous use of the two hands in Jordanian Sign Language. In Vermeerbergen et al. (eds.), Simultaneity in signed language: Form and function (pp. 237-255). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Jeremić, J. D., & Josijević, J. (2019). To blend so as to brand: a study of trademarks and brand names. Lexis Journal in English Lexicology 14.

Kemmer, S. (2003). Schemas and lexical blends. In H. Cuyckens, T. Berg, R. Dirven and K. Panther (eds.), Motivation on language: studies in honor of Günter Radden (pp. 69-97). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Kimmelman, V. (2015). Multiple tiers, multiple trees. In Proceedings of CLS 49 (pp. 225-238). Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Press.

Klima, E. S. & Bellugi, U. (1979). Iconicity in signs and signing. In E. S. Klima & U. Bellugi (eds.), The signs of language (pp. 9-34). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Kubuş, O. (2008). An analysis of Turkish Sign Language (TİD) phonology and morphology (Master’s thesis). Middle East Technical University, Ankara.

Lehrer, A. (2007). Blendalicious. In J. Munat (ed.), Lexical creativity, texts and contexts (pp. 115-133). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.

Lepic, R. (2016). Lexical blends and lexical patterns in English and in American Sign Language. In J. Audring, F. Masini & W. Sandler (eds.), Online proceedings of the tenth Mediterranean Morphology Meeting MMM10 (pp. 98-111).

Liddell, S. (2003). Grammar, gesture, and meaning in American Sign Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Makaroğlu, B. (2018). Türk İşaret Dilinde uyum: Şablon biçimbilim açısından bir inceleme (Doctoral dissertation). Ankara University, Ankara.

Makaroğlu, B. (2020). TİD’de Türetim Olgusuna Bürünsel Biçimbilim Açısından Bakış. DEÜ Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, 7 (2), 305–339.

MakaroÄŸlu, B. & Dikyuva, H. (2017). The contemporary Turkish Sign Language dictionary. Ankara: The Turkish Ministry of Family and Social Policy. Retrieved from http://tidsozluk.net.

Mattiello, E. (2013). Extra-grammatical morphology in English. Abbreviations, blends, reduplicatives, and related phenomena. Berlin/Boston: Mouton de Gruyter.

Mattiello, E. (2017). Analogy in word-formation. A study of English neologisms and occasionalisms. Berlin/Boston: Mouton de Gruyter.

Mattiello, E. (2018). Paradigmatic Morphology splinters, combining forms, and secreted affixes. SKASE journal of theoretical linguistics, 15(1).

McCarthy, J. (1979). Formal problems in semitic phonology and morphology (Doctoral dissertation). MIT, Cambridge.

McCarthy, J. (1981). A prosodic theory of nonconcatenative morphology. Linguistic inquiry 12. 373–418.

Meir, I. (20129. Word classes and word formation. In R. Pfau, M. Steinbach & B. Woll (eds.), Sign language: An international handbook (pp. 77-111). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Meir, I., Aronoff, M., Sandler, W., & Padden, C. (2010). Sign languages and compounding. In S. Scalise & I. Vogel (eds.), Compounding (pp. 301-322). Amsterdam: John Benjamin.

Meir, I., & Tkachman, O. (2018). Iconicity. In M. Aranoff (eds.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mirus, G., Fisher, J., & Napoli, D. J. (2012). Taboo expressions in American Sign Language. Lingua 122(9), 1004–1020.

Occhino, C. (2017). An introduction to embodied cognitive phonology: Claw-5 handshape distribution in ASL and Libras. Complutense Journal of English Studies 25, 69–103.

Östling, R., Börstell, C., & Courtaux, S. (2018). Visual iconicity across sign languages: Large-scale automated video analysis of iconic articulators and locations. Frontiers in psychology 9, 725.

Perniss, P. (2012). Use of sign space. In R. Pfau et al. (eds.), Sign language: An international handbook (pp. 412-431). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Perniss, P., Thompson, R. & Vigliocco, G. (2010). Iconicity as a general property of language: evidence from spoken and signed languages. Frontiers in psychology 1, 227.

Pfau, R., & Göksel. A. (2017). Derivation. In J. Quer, C. Cecchetto, C. Donati, C. Geraci, M. Kelepir, R. Pfau & M. Steinbach (eds.), SignGram Blueprint: A guide to sign language grammar writing (pp.188-200). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Sandler, W., & Lillo-Martin, D. (2006). Sign language and linguistic universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Schlenker, P. (2014). Iconic features. Natural language semantics 22 (4), 299−356.

Schlenker, P. (2018). What is super semantics?. Philosophical Perspectives 32(1), 365−453.

Taşçı, S. S. (2012). Phonological and morphological aspects of lexicalized fingerspelling in Turkish Sign Language (TİD) (Master's Thesis). Boğaziçi University, Istanbul.

Taşçı, S. S., & Göksel, A. (2014). The morphological categorization of polymorphemic lexemes: A study based on lexicalized fingerspelled forms in TİD. Dilbilim Araştırmaları, Special Issue in Honor of Prof. A. Sumru Özsoy. 165−180.

Taşçı, S. & Göksel, A. (2018). Native compounds in TİD: A classification based on headedness. Dilbilim Araştırmaları Dergisi 29(1). 1−28.

Taub, S. F. (2001). Language from the body: Iconicity and metaphor in American Sign Language. Cambridge University Press.

Wilcox, S. (2004). Conceptual spaces and embodied actions: cognitive iconicity and signed languages. Cognitive Linguistics 15(2). 119–147.


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies
ISSN 1305-578X (Online)
Copyright © 2005-2022 by Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies