On the Reflexive KENDİ in Turkish Sign Language

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Sign Language Studies
• Semantics

Background:

• Linguistic analysis benefits from incorporating non-spoken modalities.
• Reflexives are grammatical constructions where co-arguments of a predicate are co-referent.
• Previous research on Turkish Sign Language (TİD) focused on the emphatic functions of KENDİ.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore and advance cross-linguistic typologies of reflexives using sign language data.
• To demonstrate the dual function (reflexive and emphatic) of the lexical item KENDİ in TİD.
• To analyze KENDİ as a DP-type reflexive and explain its previously documented emphatic usages.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of sign language data from fieldwork interviews.
• Linguistic analysis of the lexical item KENDİ in Turkish Sign Language (TİD).
• Cross-linguistic comparison of reflexive constructions.

Main Results:

• The lexical item KENDİ in TİD functions as a traditional reflexive, beyond its emphatic role.
• KENDİ is identified as a DP-type reflexive, explaining its emphatic usages.
• The study provides a foundation for understanding anaphoricity across different language modalities.

Conclusions:

• Sign language data is crucial for a comprehensive understanding of linguistic phenomena like reflexives.
• KENDİ in TİD exhibits a range of functions that can be unified under a DP-type analysis.
• Future research should further investigate KENDİ's functions and cross-modal anaphoricity.