Manual question markers and focus doubling: two possible syntactic analyses

That the non-manuals reach their maximum at the end of the clause (this is also true for the raised eyebrows) could be taken as evidence for a right-peripheral interrogative head or, alternatively, as evidence for the fact that the phrase struc-ture below the IntP has moved in an Aboh-&-Pfau-like manner into SpecIntP as

Figure 3.7: Non-manual markings used with polar interrogatives with low and high epistemic commitment. In both cases, the eyebrows are raised and the head is put forward. When the head is additionally tilted to the side as in the picture on the left, the signer signals that s/he is insecure about the proposition. When the head is held straight, in contrast, the signer is confident.

discussed in the previous section for Sign Language of the Netherlands. Using distributional facts of focus and question particles, I will show that both options can be syntactically implemented. Before doing this, I will briefly discuss the use of question particles and focus marking in polar interrogatives in DGS.

Similar to what Aboh & Pfau (2010) describe for Sign Language of the Nether-lands, it is possible in DGS to make use of an optional clause-final question parti-cle that is extremely similar to the one used in Sign Language of the Netherlands and is usually also glossed p-ug. Its use is illustrated in (67).

(67) index2can cook p-ug^pol

‘Can you cook?’

If p-ug is indeed located in the head of the IntP, the suggestion that all manual material located in the IP in DGS is moved to SpecIntP is a plausible scenario.

Alternatively, one might hypothesize that the Int° is right-headed in DGS.

The same conclusions are to be drawn from the position of focus doubles in DGS. Polar interrogatives, together with imperatives, show a peculiar pattern of pronoun doubling in DGS. In many cases, polar questions with pronoun doubling are not unmarked polar questions. Instead, questions with doubled pronouns often receive emphasis, mainly to indicate that the speaker is surprised (however, this is not necessarily the case. Sometimes pronoun doubling also takes place in regular polar questions). This is illustrated in the following examples.

(68) a. index2can cook^pol

‘Can you cook?’ Regular polar question

b.

pol

index₂can cookindex^foc₂

‘YOU can cook?’ Pronoun doubling

Doubling as in (68b) has generally been referred to as ‘focus doubling’ in the literature. The term ‘focus doubling’ is chosen as it is assumed that the clause-final double is located in a focus position, to be more precise in the head of a focus phrase as only heads, but not phrases, can be doubled (e.g., de Quadros 1999; Sandler & Lillo-Martin 2006, but see Wilbur 2012 who argues that doubling does not serve as a focus, but as a marker of emphasis). This is in line with the idea that focus is located in a clause-final position in many sign languages (see Wilbur 1991; 1994; 1996; 1997 for American Sign Language). Besides pronouns, other parts of speech can undergo doubling in DGS as well. This is, for example, true forwh-signs or modals.

If the focus double is in the head of FocP, the fact that it occurs clause-finally in DGS is, again, in line with the idea of the IP being moved to SpecIntP or a right-headed Foc°. Additionally, both modeling possibilities are in line with the fact that the intensity peak of the non-manuals is clause-final in DGS. If taken to the extremes (with all heads and specifiers on the same side), these two modeling possibilities look as depicted in (69).

(69) a. IntP

Int FocP Foc IP Foc°

SpecFocP Int°

SpecIntP

b. IntP

SpecIntP blablabla

Int Int° FocP SpecFocP Foc

Foc° IP

Figure 3.8: The palm-up gesture has to follow a focus double in DGS.

The structure on the left (69a) allows specifiers and heads to the right, while the structure on the right (69b) shows an anti-symmetric Aboh-&-Pfau-style struc-ture with all heads and specifiers to the left. To form a polar interrogative, we need to assume movement of the IP material into the specifier of the IntP in the right structure. The non-manuals would then be triggered by spec-head agree-ment. In the case that a focus double is present, we would assume that it is not only the IP, but the whole FocP that moves to SpecInt. For the model on the left, one would assume an active Int° triggering the non-manuals via c-command without additional movement to SpecInt. In both models, p-ug and focus doubles are predicted to be clause final.

However, the models differ in their prediction of how p-ug and the focus dou-ble are ordered. The Aboh-&-Pfau-style structure predicts that the focus doudou-ble follows p-ug, while the structure on the right predicts the opposite. What we find is that the question particle p-ug follows rather than precedes the pronoun double in DGS, as shown in (70) and Figure (3.8).

(70) a. *index2beer buy index2p-ug^pol

*‘Are you buying beer?’

b. *index₂beer buy p-ug index^pol₂

*‘Are you buying beer?’

The model on the left in (69) can derive a structure like the one in (70a) as shown in the tree in (71).

(71) IntP Int

FocP Foc

IP index2beer buy

Foc°

index2

SpecFocP

Int°

p-ug

SpecIntP

While this model gets rid of the additional movement steps that would be needed in an anti-symmetric model, it is not impossible to derive the correct order in the latter. For this, we would assume that the focus double is moved into Foc° in a first step. Next, the entire IP is moved into SpecFocP and finally, the entire FocP is moved into the specifier of the IntP. This is shown in (72).

(72) IntP

SpecIntP blablabla

Int Int°

p-ug

FocP SpecFocP

blablabla

Foc Foc°

index2

IP

index2beer buy

1

3 2

To this end, from the empirical data available, it cannot be decided which deriva-tion is correct. However, the fact that the right-headed structure can explain the clause-final intensity peak of the non-manuals via c-command and is able to de-rive the right order without any additional movements makes it more likely to be on the right track.

In the next section, I will discuss constituent interrogatives. Again, I will first introduce the phenomenon and its analyses for spoken languages, then give an overview of the situation found in sign languages, and finally discuss and analyze the situation in DGS.