Josep Quer (ICREA-Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona)
Agreement across modalities
Although verb agreement has occupied a prominent place in sign language research from the very beginning, it is far from clear how its idiosyncrasies vis-à- vis spoken language agreement systems should be properly analysed and integrated into a general theory of the language faculty. In these seminars we will review the properties of agreement systems in the visual-gestural modality, relying on cross-linguistic evidence, as well as existing approaches to agreement phenomena in sign languages. We will evaluate them critically both for their own merits and shortcomings and with respect to prevailing views of agreement in spoken languages. Some alternatives to the received views on this topic will be discussed. We will bring into the discussion the study of sign language auxiliaries and evidence from acquisition research. We will also dwell on some syntactic consequences of sign language agreement for sentence structure and for the licensing of null arguments.
Toutes les séances se dérouleront à l'université Paris-Diderot, bâtiment Olympe de Gouges, salle 134, de 15h à 17h.