Strategies Marking Simultaneity in Russian Sign Language

Student: Dushkina Valeriia

Supervisor: Michael Daniel

Educational Programme: Linguistic Theory and Language Description (Master)

Final Grade: 9

Year of Graduation: 2020

The paper deals with the means of marking simultaneity in Russian Sign Language. Three strategies are considered: a hold, doubling, and non-manual markers. Research has shown that a hold is motivated by backgrounding of the held information and restricted by phonology. Potentially two-handed signs appeared to not block a hold, but undergo Weak Drop and dominance reversals. The doubling strategy is motivated by the foregrounding of the doubled information. Non-manual markers present the specific strategies available for a visual modality that is, denoting events and marking several simultaneous events.

Full text (added May 29, 2020)

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