A fundamental assumption underlying in the Principles and Parameters (henceforth, P&P) framework is that all languages have some basic, syntactically defined constituent order, which form the basic word order depending upon the setting of the word order (henceforth, WO) parameter. It is usually recognized that this order may be altered somewhat for pragmatic purposes.
The ordering of the constituents will be examined in Indian Sign Language (henceforth, ISL) to determine its WO, if there is any as assumed in the P&P approach. The approach taken to determine the WO in ISL shall be based on the clause as well on sentence with respect to the transitivity of the verb and the verb typology.
A. Intransitive sentence with the plain verb:
1. YESTERDAY INDEX FRONT RUN
He ran yesterday.
The WO is S O V.
B. Transitive sentence with plain verb:
2. R-A-M INDEX IPSI (LOC) S-I-T-A INDEX CONTRA (LOC) LIKE
Ram likes Sita.
3. FEM- S-I-T-A INDEX IPSI R-A-M INDEX CONTRA (LOC) LIKE
Ram likes Sita.
In the single elicitation, the above sentence (3) is ambiguous with regard to the subject and the object since both are [+ animate, + human]. If one of the arguments is [- animate], the sentence is unambiguous. Therefore, the animacy hierarchy operates in ISL in the plain verb constructions. The animacy hierarchy can be formulated as:
[+ animate + human] < [+ animate – human] < [- animate].
However, the WO is: i. S O V ii. O S V iii. S V iv. O V v. V
The later three orders are found in the discourse, where the presuppositionality and the topic are established.
C. Transitive sentence with the regular and the backwards verbs:
4. INDEX SELF X 2 FEM-INDEX IPSI (LOC) SELF-HELP-IPSI
5. FEM-INDEX IPSI (LOC) INDEX SELF X 2 SELF-HELP-IPSI
6. INDEX IPSI SELF-HELP-IPSI
7. FEM-INDEX IPSI (LOC) SELF-HELP-IPSI
8. SELF-HELP-IPSI
I help her.
9. INDEX SELF INDEX FRONT FRONT-INVITE-SELF
10. INDEX FRONT INDEX SELF FRONT-INVITE-SELF
11. INDEX FRONT FRONT-INVITE-SELF
12. INDEX SELF FRONT-INVITE-SELF
13. FRONT-INVITE-SELF
I invite you.
The WO is: i. S O V ii. O S V iii. S V iv. O V v. V
D. Ditransitive with the regular and the backwards verb:
14. FACE-ARC IPSI (LOC) FEM-INDEX CONTRA (LOC) ONE MUG IPSI-GIVE-CONTRA
They gave a mug to her.
15. FEM-INDEX CONTRA (LOC) FEM-INDEX IPSI (LOC) ONE BOOK IPSI-SEND-CONTRA
She sent a book to her.
16. FEM-INDEXIPSI BOOK MASC-INDEX CONTRA CONTRA-GIVE-IPSI
He gave a book to her.
17. BOOK FEM-INDEXIPSI MASC-INDEX CONTRA CONTRA-GIVE-IPSI
He gave a book to her.
In the ditransitive sentence with the regular or with the backwards verbs, the possible ordering of the constituents are as the following:
i. S O DO V ii. S DO O V iii. O S DO V iv. O DO S V v. DO S O V vi. DO O S V vii. S DO V viii. DO S V ix. O DO V x. DO O V xi. DO V xii. DO V (with incorporated DO)
E. Complementation
In the subordinate clause, the complement of the verb (both infinite as well as finite) can appear on the either side as shown in the following sentences:
18. INDEX SELFx2 THINK MASC-INDEX IPSI CLEVER
19. MASC-INDEXIPSI CLEVER INDEX IPSI INDEX SELFx2 THINK
I think he is clever.
The WO in the subordinate clause is as follows:
i. SVO ii. OSV
The WO shows that there is no uniform WO in ISL, and the NP arguments, which are overt for topic can be dropped (discussed later). From the above WO as seen in ISL, one thing that stands out alone is its nonconfigurational properties. Hale (1983) described three properties as being characteristic of nonconfiguarational languages in a pretheoretical sense: relative freedom of WO, the pervasive dropping of noun phrase arguments, and the existence of discontinuous expressions (Baker 1996: 9-10). In ISL the above mentioned first two properties hold.
In ISL, as seen above single verbs can stand alone as predication in themselves. Eg. SELF-GIVE-FRONT (I give you), SELF-INVITE-FRONT (You invite me). The agreement verb shows overt obligatory agreement with the subject and the object arguments. However, the affixation of the argument is not uniform i.e. it is subject verb object (SVO) in the regular agreement verbs and object verb subject (OVS) in the backwards agreement verbs. The order of affixation is rigidly fixed with respect to the verb typology (see chapter V). This shows that ISL is a head marking language.
Moreover, the affixation of the argument does not hold across all the verbs as in the case of the plain verbs. Infact, ISL verb is morphologically complex. All the verbs in ISL have the DIR of the pMOV in its underlying form but the surface manifestation is filtered out by the semantics of the verb, transitivity, theta-roles, the phonological and the phonetic factors (see chapter V). In other words, the null morpheme (zero morpheme) is posited in such verbs. This assumption posits towards Jelinek’s (1984) Pronominal Argument Hypothesis (henceforth, PAH) and Baker’s (1996) Polysynthesis Parameter.
Jelinek’s (1984) approach to configurationality holds that the inflectional morphemes on a verb count as the subject and object of the verb. These morphemes are argument morphemes (also known as pronominal affixes) and incorporated roots. These are the kinds of morphemes on a verb that are suitable for expressing an argument of that verb (Baker 1996: 15). These morphemes are the arguments of the verb, receiving a theta-role from it directly. Thus, the verb’s theta-role must be assigned to an appropriate phrase by theta-criterion. The conceptual content of the Polysynthesis Parameter i.e. Morphological Visibility Condition (MVC) proposed by Baker (1996: 17) states:
A phrase X is visible for theta- role assignment from a head Y only if it is coindexed with a morpheme in the word containing Y via: i. an agreement relationship, or ii. a movement relationship.
Let us examine ISL with the properties of polysynthetic languages. ISL share a large number of properties of polysynthetic languages.
i. Free word order and massive pro-drop.
ii. The argument adposition is lacking in ISL as verbs do not subcategorize for adposition arguments, but by conflation in the Lexicon like in Mohawk (Baker 1996: 418).
iii. The infinitive is not found in ISL like in Mohawk (Baker 1996), Ainu (Shibatani 1990) and Nahuatl (Andrews 1975) (as cited in Baker 1996).
iv. Wh movement takes place.
v. The plural morpheme need not be manifested in the noun root. The verb morphology can show plurality as in Mohawk (Baker 1996: 90)
In polysynthetic languages like Mohawk (Baker 1996: 21), the third person neuter DO does not show overt agreement with the verb. Hence, the null morpheme is posited, which is restricted to third person neuter. However, in ISL, the overt DO does not show agreement with all the R-expressions irrespective of animacy. In all the ditransitive sentences with the overt DO as shown above the DO remains (the incorporation of DO is rare) in an argument position. In the incorporation of the DO, which is statistically rare, the incorporation is of the classifier rather than of noun DO. As incorporation is one of the agreement morphemes, but the overt DO remains in the argument position in case of incorporation, too in ISL. To posit that the incorporated DO absorb case and consequently, the overt DO is dislocated to an adjunct position maintains that there is null morpheme for DO in the verb. Since, incorporation is rare and none of the DO show agreement in verb, to posit null morpheme is a burden for acquisition as the child finds no positive evidence in any instance. However, the DO is left dislocated due to the case filter. Thus, in ISL, incorporation does not interact with agreement. Hence, ISL is not a polysynthetic language as obligatoriness of the agreement morpheme is a property of polysynthetic language (Baker 1996: 89). Due to the overt agreement, other overt NPs are in adjunct position because the overt agreement absorbs the case feature of the head that it attaches to (see Baker 1991a). As a result, overt NPs cannot appear in corresponding argument positions. They appear at clause peripheral positions where Case filter does not apply (see Baker 1996 for fuller discussion). In ISL, we find only left dislocation of the NP arguments unlike in polysynthesis languages like Mapudungun, where the dislocated NPs are found in the either side of the clause.
In the polysynthetic languages like Mohawk, both the agreement morphemes and the lexical roots count as rendering an argument visible. In ISL, the agreement relationship holds but do not have incorporation phenomena at all or have sporadic incorporation that does not interact with agreement as it lacks the obligatoriness of the agreement of the DO with the verb. In ISL, the overt DO and the incorporated DO classifier can co-occur unlike in Mohawk, where one restricts the other. Thus, ISL confirms to Jelinek’s (1984) theory of nonconfigurationality. Therefore, ISL is a nonconfigurational head marking language like Navajo, Walpiri, Salish, etc. (see Baker 1996: 17-18) but not a polysynthetic language like Mohawk, Mapudungun, etc. Hence, the setting of the proposed Polysynthesis Parameter is "NO" for ISL.
In ISL, the complement clauses appear in the argument position governed by verb that selects them i.e. on the right of the verb. On the other hand, the object NP cannot occur in the argument position i.e. on the right of the verb. The occurrence of the object NP is barred because ISL verb in its underlying form has the DIR of the pMOV, which is an agreement morpheme (see chapter 5). As the agreement absorbs the case of the object NP, it is forced to be dislocated to the adjunct position, where the Case filter does not apply. Hence, the complement clauses differ from the object NP in ISL.
In ISL, the overt NP-subject and the overt NP-object are left dislocated due to the Case filter as the case is absorbed by the agreement affix on the verb. As the overt NP-direct object does not show agreement on the verb but gets case through the complex predicate. However, this does not form well-formed sentence. As we have seen above that the argument affixes absorb case forcing the overt NPs to be dislocated where the Case filter does not apply. Similarly, case assigned overt DO need to be left of the verb i.e. SVO to derive well-formed sentence. However, in ISL scrambling is allowed. The overt NPs, Tense/NP adverb as well as are scrambled in different positions.
As seen in the above in the well formed sentences, the verb is always in the clause final position. The ISL verb always occurs in the clause final position due to the relative phonological weight of the verb. Thus, a well formed sentence is derived. In this respect, the nonconfigurationality with respect to DO derives from the case marking like in Hindi-Urdu, not from agreement like in polysynthetic languages. On the other hand, the nonconfigurationality of the overt NP-subject and the overt NP- object derives from the agreement. In this sense, in ISL, the parameter setting for MVC is ‘NO’.
To summarize, nonconfigurationality is derived through two ways in ISL:
a. Dislocation of case absorbed overt NPs i.e. subject and object.
b. Scrambling.
This proves that ISL is not a polysynthetic language but certainly a nonconfigurational language.
The ordering of the constituents will be examined in Indian Sign Language (henceforth, ISL) to determine its WO, if there is any as assumed in the P&P approach. The approach taken to determine the WO in ISL shall be based on the clause as well on sentence with respect to the transitivity of the verb and the verb typology.
A. Intransitive sentence with the plain verb:
1. YESTERDAY INDEX FRONT RUN
He ran yesterday.
The WO is S O V.
B. Transitive sentence with plain verb:
2. R-A-M INDEX IPSI (LOC) S-I-T-A INDEX CONTRA (LOC) LIKE
Ram likes Sita.
3. FEM- S-I-T-A INDEX IPSI R-A-M INDEX CONTRA (LOC) LIKE
Ram likes Sita.
In the single elicitation, the above sentence (3) is ambiguous with regard to the subject and the object since both are [+ animate, + human]. If one of the arguments is [- animate], the sentence is unambiguous. Therefore, the animacy hierarchy operates in ISL in the plain verb constructions. The animacy hierarchy can be formulated as:
[+ animate + human] < [+ animate – human] < [- animate].
However, the WO is: i. S O V ii. O S V iii. S V iv. O V v. V
The later three orders are found in the discourse, where the presuppositionality and the topic are established.
C. Transitive sentence with the regular and the backwards verbs:
4. INDEX SELF X 2 FEM-INDEX IPSI (LOC) SELF-HELP-IPSI
5. FEM-INDEX IPSI (LOC) INDEX SELF X 2 SELF-HELP-IPSI
6. INDEX IPSI SELF-HELP-IPSI
7. FEM-INDEX IPSI (LOC) SELF-HELP-IPSI
8. SELF-HELP-IPSI
I help her.
9. INDEX SELF INDEX FRONT FRONT-INVITE-SELF
10. INDEX FRONT INDEX SELF FRONT-INVITE-SELF
11. INDEX FRONT FRONT-INVITE-SELF
12. INDEX SELF FRONT-INVITE-SELF
13. FRONT-INVITE-SELF
I invite you.
The WO is: i. S O V ii. O S V iii. S V iv. O V v. V
D. Ditransitive with the regular and the backwards verb:
14. FACE-ARC IPSI (LOC) FEM-INDEX CONTRA (LOC) ONE MUG IPSI-GIVE-CONTRA
They gave a mug to her.
15. FEM-INDEX CONTRA (LOC) FEM-INDEX IPSI (LOC) ONE BOOK IPSI-SEND-CONTRA
She sent a book to her.
16. FEM-INDEXIPSI BOOK MASC-INDEX CONTRA CONTRA-GIVE-IPSI
He gave a book to her.
17. BOOK FEM-INDEXIPSI MASC-INDEX CONTRA CONTRA-GIVE-IPSI
He gave a book to her.
In the ditransitive sentence with the regular or with the backwards verbs, the possible ordering of the constituents are as the following:
i. S O DO V ii. S DO O V iii. O S DO V iv. O DO S V v. DO S O V vi. DO O S V vii. S DO V viii. DO S V ix. O DO V x. DO O V xi. DO V xii. DO V (with incorporated DO)
E. Complementation
In the subordinate clause, the complement of the verb (both infinite as well as finite) can appear on the either side as shown in the following sentences:
18. INDEX SELFx2 THINK MASC-INDEX IPSI CLEVER
19. MASC-INDEXIPSI CLEVER INDEX IPSI INDEX SELFx2 THINK
I think he is clever.
The WO in the subordinate clause is as follows:
i. SVO ii. OSV
The WO shows that there is no uniform WO in ISL, and the NP arguments, which are overt for topic can be dropped (discussed later). From the above WO as seen in ISL, one thing that stands out alone is its nonconfigurational properties. Hale (1983) described three properties as being characteristic of nonconfiguarational languages in a pretheoretical sense: relative freedom of WO, the pervasive dropping of noun phrase arguments, and the existence of discontinuous expressions (Baker 1996: 9-10). In ISL the above mentioned first two properties hold.
In ISL, as seen above single verbs can stand alone as predication in themselves. Eg. SELF-GIVE-FRONT (I give you), SELF-INVITE-FRONT (You invite me). The agreement verb shows overt obligatory agreement with the subject and the object arguments. However, the affixation of the argument is not uniform i.e. it is subject verb object (SVO) in the regular agreement verbs and object verb subject (OVS) in the backwards agreement verbs. The order of affixation is rigidly fixed with respect to the verb typology (see chapter V). This shows that ISL is a head marking language.
Moreover, the affixation of the argument does not hold across all the verbs as in the case of the plain verbs. Infact, ISL verb is morphologically complex. All the verbs in ISL have the DIR of the pMOV in its underlying form but the surface manifestation is filtered out by the semantics of the verb, transitivity, theta-roles, the phonological and the phonetic factors (see chapter V). In other words, the null morpheme (zero morpheme) is posited in such verbs. This assumption posits towards Jelinek’s (1984) Pronominal Argument Hypothesis (henceforth, PAH) and Baker’s (1996) Polysynthesis Parameter.
Jelinek’s (1984) approach to configurationality holds that the inflectional morphemes on a verb count as the subject and object of the verb. These morphemes are argument morphemes (also known as pronominal affixes) and incorporated roots. These are the kinds of morphemes on a verb that are suitable for expressing an argument of that verb (Baker 1996: 15). These morphemes are the arguments of the verb, receiving a theta-role from it directly. Thus, the verb’s theta-role must be assigned to an appropriate phrase by theta-criterion. The conceptual content of the Polysynthesis Parameter i.e. Morphological Visibility Condition (MVC) proposed by Baker (1996: 17) states:
A phrase X is visible for theta- role assignment from a head Y only if it is coindexed with a morpheme in the word containing Y via: i. an agreement relationship, or ii. a movement relationship.
Let us examine ISL with the properties of polysynthetic languages. ISL share a large number of properties of polysynthetic languages.
i. Free word order and massive pro-drop.
ii. The argument adposition is lacking in ISL as verbs do not subcategorize for adposition arguments, but by conflation in the Lexicon like in Mohawk (Baker 1996: 418).
iii. The infinitive is not found in ISL like in Mohawk (Baker 1996), Ainu (Shibatani 1990) and Nahuatl (Andrews 1975) (as cited in Baker 1996).
iv. Wh movement takes place.
v. The plural morpheme need not be manifested in the noun root. The verb morphology can show plurality as in Mohawk (Baker 1996: 90)
In polysynthetic languages like Mohawk (Baker 1996: 21), the third person neuter DO does not show overt agreement with the verb. Hence, the null morpheme is posited, which is restricted to third person neuter. However, in ISL, the overt DO does not show agreement with all the R-expressions irrespective of animacy. In all the ditransitive sentences with the overt DO as shown above the DO remains (the incorporation of DO is rare) in an argument position. In the incorporation of the DO, which is statistically rare, the incorporation is of the classifier rather than of noun DO. As incorporation is one of the agreement morphemes, but the overt DO remains in the argument position in case of incorporation, too in ISL. To posit that the incorporated DO absorb case and consequently, the overt DO is dislocated to an adjunct position maintains that there is null morpheme for DO in the verb. Since, incorporation is rare and none of the DO show agreement in verb, to posit null morpheme is a burden for acquisition as the child finds no positive evidence in any instance. However, the DO is left dislocated due to the case filter. Thus, in ISL, incorporation does not interact with agreement. Hence, ISL is not a polysynthetic language as obligatoriness of the agreement morpheme is a property of polysynthetic language (Baker 1996: 89). Due to the overt agreement, other overt NPs are in adjunct position because the overt agreement absorbs the case feature of the head that it attaches to (see Baker 1991a). As a result, overt NPs cannot appear in corresponding argument positions. They appear at clause peripheral positions where Case filter does not apply (see Baker 1996 for fuller discussion). In ISL, we find only left dislocation of the NP arguments unlike in polysynthesis languages like Mapudungun, where the dislocated NPs are found in the either side of the clause.
In the polysynthetic languages like Mohawk, both the agreement morphemes and the lexical roots count as rendering an argument visible. In ISL, the agreement relationship holds but do not have incorporation phenomena at all or have sporadic incorporation that does not interact with agreement as it lacks the obligatoriness of the agreement of the DO with the verb. In ISL, the overt DO and the incorporated DO classifier can co-occur unlike in Mohawk, where one restricts the other. Thus, ISL confirms to Jelinek’s (1984) theory of nonconfigurationality. Therefore, ISL is a nonconfigurational head marking language like Navajo, Walpiri, Salish, etc. (see Baker 1996: 17-18) but not a polysynthetic language like Mohawk, Mapudungun, etc. Hence, the setting of the proposed Polysynthesis Parameter is "NO" for ISL.
In ISL, the complement clauses appear in the argument position governed by verb that selects them i.e. on the right of the verb. On the other hand, the object NP cannot occur in the argument position i.e. on the right of the verb. The occurrence of the object NP is barred because ISL verb in its underlying form has the DIR of the pMOV, which is an agreement morpheme (see chapter 5). As the agreement absorbs the case of the object NP, it is forced to be dislocated to the adjunct position, where the Case filter does not apply. Hence, the complement clauses differ from the object NP in ISL.
In ISL, the overt NP-subject and the overt NP-object are left dislocated due to the Case filter as the case is absorbed by the agreement affix on the verb. As the overt NP-direct object does not show agreement on the verb but gets case through the complex predicate. However, this does not form well-formed sentence. As we have seen above that the argument affixes absorb case forcing the overt NPs to be dislocated where the Case filter does not apply. Similarly, case assigned overt DO need to be left of the verb i.e. SVO to derive well-formed sentence. However, in ISL scrambling is allowed. The overt NPs, Tense/NP adverb as well as are scrambled in different positions.
As seen in the above in the well formed sentences, the verb is always in the clause final position. The ISL verb always occurs in the clause final position due to the relative phonological weight of the verb. Thus, a well formed sentence is derived. In this respect, the nonconfigurationality with respect to DO derives from the case marking like in Hindi-Urdu, not from agreement like in polysynthetic languages. On the other hand, the nonconfigurationality of the overt NP-subject and the overt NP- object derives from the agreement. In this sense, in ISL, the parameter setting for MVC is ‘NO’.
To summarize, nonconfigurationality is derived through two ways in ISL:
a. Dislocation of case absorbed overt NPs i.e. subject and object.
b. Scrambling.
This proves that ISL is not a polysynthetic language but certainly a nonconfigurational language.
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