Signing not (or not): A typological perspective on standard negation in Sign Language of the Netherlands

Abstract

AbstractThe expression of standard negation by means of manual and/or non-manual markers has been described for a considerable number of sign languages. Typological comparisons have revealed an intriguing dichotomy: while some sign languages require a manual negative element in negative clauses (manual-dominant sign languages), in others negation can be realized by a non-manual marker alone (in particular a headshake; non-manual-dominant sign languages). We are here adding data from Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT) to the picture, and we demonstrate that NGT belongs to the latter group. Still, detailed comparison suggests that NGT patterns differently from other non-manual-dominant sign languages, thereby improving our understanding of the typological variation in this domain. A novel contribution of the present study is that it is based on naturalistic corpus data, showing more variation than often found in elicitation and grammaticality judgment studies of sign languages, but also presenting new problems of interpretation.