DOI: 10.1075/dia.22039.ger ISSN: 0176-4225
Abrupt grammatical reorganization of an emergent sign language
Austin German- Linguistics and Language
- Language and Linguistics
Abstract
This study traces the development of discrete, combinatorial structure in Zinacantec Family Homesign (‘Z Sign’), a sign language developed since the 1970s by several deaf siblings in Mexico (
Haviland
2020b
), focusing on the expression of motion. The results reveal that the first signer, who generated a homesign system
without access to language models, represents motion events holistically. Later-born signers, who acquired this homesign system
from infancy, distribute the components of motion events over sequences of discrete signs. Furthermore, later-born signers exhibit
greater regularity of form-meaning mappings and increased articulatory efficiency. Importantly, these changes occur abruptly
between the first- and second-born signers, rather than incrementally across signers. This study extends previous findings for
Nicaraguan Sign Language (Senghas et al. 2004
) to a social group of a much smaller
scale, suggesting that the parallel processes of cultural transmission and language acquisition drive language emergence,
regardless of community size.