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New sign languages reveal how language complexity emerges. Researchers studied Israeli Sign Language (ISL) across generations, observing how discourse relations evolve from simple to complex, mirroring language development.

Keywords:
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Area of Science:

  • Linguistics
  • Language Acquisition
  • Sociolinguistics

Background:

  • Language complexity is a universal property, but its origin is hard to study in ancient spoken languages.
  • Sign languages offer a unique window into language emergence due to their potential for recent creation and visible linguistic structures.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the emergence and development of linguistic complexity in a young sign language.
  • To test the hypothesis that discourse relations can measure the time course of complexity in emerging languages.

Main Methods:

  • Studied Israeli Sign Language (ISL) across three generations of signers.
  • Analyzed discourse relations (additive, symmetric, asymmetric) at propositional and cross-propositional levels.
  • Mapped bodily articulations to linguistic components and examined changes across age groups.

Main Results:

  • Findings support the hypothesis that discourse relations chart the emergence of complexity in ISL.
  • Younger signers exhibit more systematic marking of relations and reduced articulation forms compared to older signers.
  • Evidence shows a progression from simpler, gesture-like expressions to more constrained linguistic forms as the language matures.

Conclusions:

  • Sign languages provide empirical data for understanding language complexity's genesis.
  • The study demonstrates how discourse relations evolve, reflecting the maturation of a new language.
  • Linguistic complexity develops through a process of increasing systematicity and reduction in bodily expression.