Syntax-discourse interface

Muhammed’s file 1 narrative, as we will see next, reveals his advanced command of the mechanisms that involve the syntax-discourse interface.

Referential establishment and maintenance. Muhammed uses several linguistic devices to establish and maintain reference, including agreement verbs and det_exist as in (113b), in which he correctly establishes and picks up the locus associated with the rediscovered frog. The target-like choice of loci to express referential identity is also illustrated in (113c): the initial locus of the verb form take corresponds with the locus associated previously with the frog in (113b) (incidentally, this locus in turn corresponds with the locus picked up by det_loc in (113a), in which the signer speculates on the frog’s whereabouts).

Interestingly, some determiners and pronouns are associated with a locus to the left of the signer, toward the location of the story book pictures. This is the case of pron_pers in example (109) discussed above, in which the pronoun refers to the boy. In fact, with the exception of the two instances of det_art used in combination with the NP dog, all other determiners or pronouns associated with this locus refer to the boy. Examples of pronouns and determiners associated with other loci in the sign space are provided in (114), in which the frog parents are reported to bid good-bye to the boy, and in (115), in which the signer as a narrator comments upon the story. A change in eye gaze direction and body orientation occurs in case of referential shifts (cf. (109) and (114)), where the perspective marked through these non-manual means agrees with the loci established previously for the boy and the frog’s parents. Agreement is also marked appropriately in the context of the shifted referential frameworks (the boy waves to the parents in (109) and the parents to the boy in (114)). Taken together, these observations allow for the conclusion that the contrastive use of loci is mastered by Muhammed at this stage. The use of a locus corresponding with the location of the story book pictures might be interpreted as a strategy to ensure an unambiguous association of loci with the respective characters. This is clearly different from the pronoun-stacking phenomenon observed in the production of infant signers (cf. section 3.2.3.1).

Reference forms and functions. As we can glean from Table 3.16, NPs predominate as a means used to reintroduce a protagonist that was temporarily out of discourse focus with a percentage of 66.7 out of a total percentage of 28.3 of reference forms serving this function. However, pronouns and determiners are also occasionally used to reintroduce a referent (26.7%). Notice that these linguistic devices contribute to an unambiguous identification of the characters reintroduced. As for reference maintenance, subject drop clearly predominates (78.1% out of a total percentage of 60.4), with full NPs and det/pron serving this function on an occasional basis (12.5% and 9.4% respectively). All in all the analysis reveals that while some form-function correspondences predominate, some reference forms are used to serve various functions (cf. Figure 3.1 for further illustration).

Table 3.16: Reference forms and functions in Muhammed’s file 1.*

* Expressed as a percentage of the total number of reference forms (proportions of forms used for respective function in brackets). Absolute numbers are provided in the Appendix Table C-1.

Figure 3.1: Proportion of reference forms and functions in Muhammed’s file 1.

Expression of spatial relations. As we can see in Table 3.17, which provides an overview of spatial relations expressed in file 1, Muhammed provides information on the ground only in two contexts, namely, in the episode involving the boy’s searching of a tree hole and, secondly, in the episode concerning the boy’s falling into the water. In the former case, the ground is introduced overtly via an NP, before it is backgrounded via the h2-classifier, as we could see in example (112). In the latter, the NP establishes the location representing the ground for the spatial verb FALL.

Apart from these cases, Muhammed provides little detailed information on the ground in this narrative. For example, Muhammed narrates that the frog “wants to get out”, but does not specify that the frog is sitting in a jar before he decides to run away. Further, the complexity of the event involving the deer is not narrated in detail. Muhammed does not mention the misperception of tree branches that are in reality the deer’s antlers. Crucially, the boy’s falling on the deer’s head, which ultimately leads to his falling into the water remains unexpressed, too. Finally, although we learn that the frogs are located at some place, the information on their sitting behind a log is not provided. It is important to note, though, that the information missed out does not reflect a deficit at the grammatical level or a gap concerning the syntax-discourse interface. Rather, the overview leads us to conclude that Muhammed produces a narrative that is organised top-down, with little detail on information that is considered to be part of the background.

Table 3.17: Expression of spatial relations in Muhammed’s file 1.

Summarising, the analysis of the data makes apparent that Muhammed produces a largely coherent story. The narrator’s comments on parts of the story (as in example (115) above) or the expression of characters’ thoughts (as in example (116) produced after the boy’s calling the frog) reveal that he is well advanced at the narrative level.