Sign Language Class Tag Structure Research

A classifier is a symbol for an object of a particular CLass (CLayton Valli & Ceil Lucas, quoted by Rachel Sutton & Bencie Woll,1999). It is a handshape to denote a predicate when made in a particular location, direction and/or movement, or with a particular non-manual feature. As one of major problems in sign language, however, the classifier construction in Shanghai sign language has never been investigated as a special field.Firsthand linguistic data on Shanghai sign language has become available through extensive targeted field survey and formed the corpus that contains linguistic data bearing classifiers. classifier-bearing handshapes have been categorized and studied, which add much to the research of Shanghai sign language classifiers. A great part of the work has been devoted to controversial body and body-part classifier and instrumental classifier. Body and body-part classifier has been put forward as a special and irreplaceable function in sign language of visual-gestural modality and serves as a special classifier. Instrumental classifier and handling classifier should also serve as an independent classifier.The 4th and 5th chapters are the centerpiece of the thesis. On the basis of current research, both at home and abroad, and theories on cognitive linguistics, and theories on cognitive semantics and Talmy's ideas about movement event in particular, an in-depth investigation has been made into the classifier location and verbs of motion and location in the Shanghai sign language. Given Talmy's conceptual model that path may refer to the site occupied by FIGURE, it follows that, in Shanghai Sign Language, the core schema of BE1 predicates is "site"(i.e., PATHs) rather than "path" of the figural entity. The core schema, PATHS, is mapped onto the midlevel verb stem represented semantically as [BE1+FIGURE]. It is realized phonetically through a specific downward movement and its end point is a site (i.e., location in space). This core schema can further combine with the co-event MANNER to encode manner of existence or location.The analysis of serial verbs of motion reveals that verbs of motion often precede verbs of path and the manner of motion along a path can mapped onto verbs of path. But this kind of combination is associated with a subset of CLassificatory handshapes that highlight the legged property of the noun category.The Being event in Shanghai Sign Language has similar semantic structure with the existential sentences in Mandarin Chinese. There existing embedded structure in structure of verbs of location, which demonstrated the general quality of recursiveness of Language. In the expression of event of BE1, micro-event of BE1 is embedded in macro-event of BE1.This paper analyzes the "real space" constructed by the signer, which is essential to the expressing and understanding of sentences in sign language. The repetition of antecedent at the end of sentences in sign language functions on eliminating ambiguity of the reference of classifier in a sentence. There are also some "imitating-signs" that imitate the real activity usually precedes a classifier predicate and may contain some pre-language components. The focus on information of speakers is usually involved in the selection of classifier.