Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Iconic plurality

  • Original Research
  • Published:
Linguistics and Philosophy Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

ASL (American Sign Language) can express plurals by repeating a noun, in an unpunctuated fashion, in different parts of signing space. We argue that this construction may come with a rich (and at-issue) iconic component: the geometric arrangement of the repetitions provides information about the arrangement of the denoted plurality; in addition, the number and speed of the repetitions provide information about the size of the denoted plurality. Interestingly, the shape of the repetitions may introduce a new singular discourse referent when a vertex can be inferred to denote a singular object. Thus one may point towards the first or last iteration of a horizontal repetition of BOOK to denote the left- or right-edge of the corresponding row. This yields a remarkable interaction between iconic semantics and standard logical semantics. We show that our analysis extends to ‘punctuated’ repetitions, which involve clearly individuated iterations of a singular noun. While these may initially look like coordinated indefinites, they are better handled by the same iconic framework as plural, unpunctuated repetitions. Some repetition-based mass terms also give rise to iconic effects, and to different readings depending on whether the repetition is continuous, unpunctuated, or punctuated. Our analysis highlights the need for a formal semantics with iconicity to study the integration of such iconic and logical conditions. It also raises a question: can similar facts be found in spoken language when gestures are taken into account? We suggest that several effects can be replicated, especially when one considers examples involving ‘pro-speech gestures’ (= gestures that fully replace some spoken expressions).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abner, N., Namboodiripad, S., Spaepen, E., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2015). Morphology in child homesign: Evidence from number marking. In Slides of a talk given at the 2015 annual meeting of the Linguistics Society of America, Portland, Oregon.

  • Abner, N., & Wilbur, R. (2017). Quantification in American Sign Language. In E. Keenan & D. Paperno (Eds.), Handbook of quantifiers in natural language (Vol. 2). Cham: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chierchia, G. (2010). Mass nouns, vagueness and semantic variation. Synthese, 174, 99–149.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clark, H. H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Coppola, M., Spaepen, E., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2013). Communicating about quantity without a language model: Number devices in homesign grammar. Cognitive Psychology, 67, 1–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Daw, N. (2012). How vision works: The physiological mechanisms behind what we see. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Deal, A. R. (2017). Countability distinctions and semantic variation. Natural Language Semantics, 25, 125–171.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ebert, C. & Ebert, C. (2014). Gestures, demonstratives, and the attributive/referential distinction. In Handout of a talk given at semantics and philosophy in Europe (SPE 7), Berlin.

  • Emmorey, K., & Herzig, M. (2003). Categorical versus gradient properties of classifier constructions in ASL. In K. Emmorey (Ed.), Perspectives on classifier constructions in signed languages (pp. 222–246). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Feldstein, E. (2015). The development of grammatical number and space: Reconsidering evidence from child language and homesign through adult gesture. Manuscript, Harvard University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fischer, S. (1973). Two processes of reduplication in the American Sign Language. Foundations of Language, 9, 469–480.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fricke, E. (2008). Grundlagen einer multimodalen Grammatik des Deutschen: Syntaktische Strukturen und Funktionen. Frankfurt (Oder): Habilitation treatise, European University Viadrina.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giorgolo, G. (2010). Space and time in our hands. PhD Dissertation, Utrecht University.

  • Greenberg, G. (2013). Beyond resemblance. Philosophical Review, 122, 2.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heim, I., & Kratzer, A. (1998). Semantics in generative grammar. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Henderson, R. (2016). Pluractional demonstrations. Manuscript. http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003127.

  • Ionin, T., & Matushansky, O. (2006). The composition of complex cardinals. Journal of Semantics, 23, 315–360.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jenkins, R., & Kerr, C. (2013). Identifiable images of bystanders extracted from corneal reflections. PLoS ONE, 8(12), e83325. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083325.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kendon, A. (2004). Gesture: Visible action as utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Koulidobrova, E. (2018). Counting nouns in ASL. Manuscript, Central Connecticut State University. http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/003871.

  • Kuhn, J. (2015). Cross-categorial singular and plural reference in sign language. Doctoral dissertation, New York University.

  • Kuhn, J., & Aristodemo, V. (2017). Pluractionality, iconicity, and scope in French Sign Language. Semantics & Pragmatics, 10(6).

  • Ladewig, S. (2011). Syntactic and semantic integration of gestures into speech: Structural, cognitive, and conceptual aspects. PhD thesis, European University Viadrina, Frankfurt (Oder).

  • Lima, S. (2014). All notional mass nouns are count nouns in Yudja. In Proceedings of SALT 24 (pp. 534–554).

  • Link, G. (1998). Algebraic semantics in language and philosophy. Stanford: CSLI.

    Google Scholar 

  • Loehr, D. P. (2004). Gesture and intonation. Doctoral dissertation, Georgetown University, Washington, DC.

  • McNeill, D. (2005). Gesture and thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Nicolas, D. (2016). The logic of mass expressions. In Zalta, E. N. (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Winter 2016 ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/logic-massexpress/.

  • Nijhof, S., & Zwitserlood, I. (1999). Pluralization in sign language of the Netherlands (NGT). In J. Don & T. Sanders (Eds.), OTS yearbook 1998–1999 (pp. 58–78). Utrecht: Utrechts Instituut voor Linguistiek OTS.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nouwen, R. (2003). Plural pronominal anaphora in context. Number 84 in Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics Dissertations, LOT, Utrecht.

  • Nouwen, R. (2015). Plurality. In P. Dekker & M. Aloni (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Petronio, K. (1995). Bare noun phrases, verbs and quantification in ASL. In E. Bach, E. Jelinek, A. Kratzer, & B. Partee (Eds.), Quantification in natural language (Vol. 2, pp. 603–618). Berlin: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pfau, R., & Steinbach, M. (2006). Pluralization in sign and in speech: A cross-modal typological study. Linguistic Typology, 10, 49–135.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sandler, W., & Lillo-Martin, D. (2006). Sign language and linguistic universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sauerland, U. (2003). A new semantics for number. In R. Young & Y. Zhou (Eds.), Proceedings of SALT 13. Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications, Cornell University.

  • Schlenker, P. (2011). Donkey anaphora: The view from Sign Language (ASL and LSF). Linguistics and Philosophy, 34(4), 341–395.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schlenker, P. (2014). Iconic features. Natural Language Semantics, 22(4), 299–356.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schlenker, P. (2017a). Sign language and the foundations of anaphora. Annual Review of Linguistics, 3, 149–177.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schlenker, P. (2017b). Gestural grammar. Manuscript, Institut Jean-Nicod and New York University.

  • Schlenker, P. (to appear a). Visible meaning: Sign language and the foundations of semantics. Theoretical Linguistics.

  • Schlenker, P. (to appear b). Super Monsters II. Semantics & Pragmatics.

  • Schlenker, P. (to appear c). Gesture projection and cosuppositions. Linguistics & Philosophy.

  • Schlenker, P. (to appear d). Iconic pragmatics. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory.

  • Schlenker, P. (to appear e). Gestural Semantics: Replicating the typology of linguistic inferences with pro- and post-speech gestures. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory.

  • Schlenker, P., & Chemla, E. (2018). Gestural agreement. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory. 36(2), 587–625. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11049-017-9378-8.

  • Schlenker, P., Lamberton, J., & Santoro, M. (2013). Iconic variables. Linguistics and Philosophy, 36(2), 91–149.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Slama-Cazacu, T. (1976). Nonverbal components in message sequence: “Mixed syntax”. In W. C. McCormack & S. A. Wurm (Eds.), Language and man: Anthropological issues (pp. 217–227). The Hague: Mouton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spector, B. (2007). Aspects of the pragmatics of plural morphology: On higher-order implicatures. In U. Sauerland & P. Stateva (Eds.), Presuppositions and implicatures in compositional semantics (pp. 243–281). New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Sprouse, J., & Almeida, D. (2012). Assessing the reliability of textbook data in syntax: Adger’s core syntax. Journal of Linguistics, 48(3), 609–652.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Supalla, T. (1982). Structure and acquisition of verbs of motion and location in American Sign Language. PhD Thesis, University of California, San Diego.

  • Wilbur, R. (1987). American Sign Language: Linguistic and applied dimensions. Boston: Little, Brown.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zweig, E. (2006). The implications of dependent plural readings. In C. Davis, A. R. Deal, & Y. Zabbal (Eds.), Proceedings of the thirty-sixth annual meeting of the North East Linguistic Society (p. 735).

  • Zwitserlood, I. (2012). Classifiers. In R. Pfau, M. Steinbach, & B. Woll (Eds.), Sign language: An international handbook (pp. 158–186). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The research leading to these results received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement No. 324115-FRONTSEM (PI: Schlenker). Research was conducted at Institut d’Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure—PSL Research University. Institut d’Etudes Cognitives is supported by Grants ANR-10-LABX-0087 IEC et ANR-10-IDEX-0001-02 PSL*. Special thanks to Sam Alxatib, Emmanuel Chemla, Masha Esipova, Jeremy Kuhn, Salvador Mascarenhas, Rob Pasternak, Benjamin Spector, Brent Strickland and Lyn Tieu for helpful remarks on this research, and to Brian Buccola for discussion of an English sentence of interest. We are also grateful to Helen Koulidobrova for sending us her manuscript on ‘Counting Nouns in ASL’ (we received it after the present piece was almost finalized, so systematic comparisons are left for the future). We greatly benefited from the remarkably constructive comments of Malte Zimmermann and three anonymous reviewers (Malte Zimmermann’s suggestions lead to an important improvement of the final analysis). Many thanks to Lucie Ravaux for preparing the bibliography and checking averages.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Département d’Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Institut Jean-Nicod (ENS - EHESS - CNRS), Paris, France

    Philippe Schlenker

  2. PSL Research University, Paris, France

    Philippe Schlenker

  3. New York University, New York, USA

    Philippe Schlenker

  4. New York, NY, USA

    Jonathan Lamberton

Authors
  1. Philippe Schlenker
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jonathan Lamberton
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

PS initiated this research, constructed all examples in consultation with JL, and developed all the analysis. JL was the ASL consultant for the initial phase of the work. When it was written, he provided transcriptions and translations, as well as descriptions of the iconic properties of the signs. Any theoretical discussion among co-authors occurred only after the data were collected and the first version of the article was written, and primarily by email because the authors were not on the same continent. The separation between the two phases of the work was intended to minimize the risk the ‘theoretical contamination’ of sign language judgments.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Philippe Schlenker.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (MP4 32816 kb)

Supplementary material 2 (MP4 94895 kb)

Supplementary material 3 (DOCX 199 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Schlenker, P., Lamberton, J. Iconic plurality. Linguist and Philos 42, 45–108 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-018-9236-0

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-018-9236-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation