Mc Neill, d & Al -Catalogo- 5-2196 (0339) Impresion Pendiente

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Psycholosical Review Copyrigh t 1996 by the Am erica n Psycholog ical Association , lnc,1996 , Vol . 103 , No. 1 , 34-55 0033-29 5X/96/$ 3 .00

S i le n c e I s L ib era tin g" R e m o v i n g t h e H a n d c u f f s o n G r a m m a t i c a l

E x p r e s s io n i n th e M a n u a l M o d a l i t y

Susan Goldin-Meadow and D avid McNeillU n i v e r s i ty o f C h i c a g o

Jenn y SingletonU n i v e r s it y o f I ll i n o i s a t U r b a n a - C h a m p a i g n

Gra mm atical propert ies are found in conventional s ign languages of the de af and in unconventional

gesture systems created by dea f children lacking language models . However, they d o not ar ise in

spontaneous gestures produced along with speech. Th e authors propose a mod el explaining when

the m anual m odali ty will assume gram matical propert ies and when i t will not . The mode l arguesthat two gram matical features, segmentat ion and hierarchical combination, appea r in al l set t ings

in which one hu man comm unicates symbolical ly with another. These propert ies are preferentially

assumed by speech whenever words are spoken, con straining the m anual m odali ty to a global form.

However, when the manu al mo dali ty must carry the ful l burden of comm unicat ion, i t is f reed from

the global form i t assumes when integrated with speech --only to be constrained by the task of

symbo lic comm unicat ion to take on the g ramm atical propert ies of segmentat ion and h ierarchical

combina t ion .

P e r h a p s t h e c l e a r e s t e x a m p l e o f t h e r o b u s t n e s s o f l a n g u ag e

c o m e s f r o m t h e f a c t t h a t l a n g u a g e is n o t t i e d t o t h e m o u t h a n d

e a r b u t c a n a l so b e p r o c e s s e d b y t h e h a n d a n d e y e . S i g n l a n -

g u a g e s o f t h e d e a f h a v e b e e n f o u n d t o t a k e o v e r a ll o f t h e f u n c -

t i o n s a n d t o a s s u m e t h e g r a m m a t i c a l p r o p e r t i e s c h a r a c t e r i s t ic

o f s p o k e n l a n g u a g e s ( e . g . , K l i m a & B e l l u g i , 1 9 7 9 ) . M o r e o v e r ,

w h e n e x p o s e d t o a c o n v e n t i o n a l s i g n l a n g u a g e su c h a s A m e r i -

c a n S i g n L a n g u a g e , d e a f c h i l d r e n a c q u i r e t h e l a n g u a g e a s e f f o r t-

l e ss l y a s h e a r i n g c h i l d r e n a c q u i r e s p o k e n l a n g u a g e ( N e w p o r t &

M e i er , 1 9 8 5 ) . T h u s , t h e m a n u a l m o d a l i t y c a n s e rv e as a m e -

d i u m f o r la n g u a g e , s u g g e s t in g t h a t t h e c a p a c i t y f o r c r e a t i n g a n d

l e a r n i n g a l i n g u i s t ic s y s t e m i s m o d a l i t y i n d e p e n d e n t . H o w e v e r,

c o m m u n i c a t i o n i n t h e m a n u a l m o d a l i t y d o e s n o t a l w a y s a s -s u m e l a n g u a g el i k e p r o p e r t ie s . I n p a r t i c u l a r , w h e n h e a r i n g

a d u l t s a n d c h i l d r e n u s e t h e i r h a n d s t o g e s t u r e a s t h e y s p e a k ,

t h o s e g e st u r es d o n o t t a k e o n t h e g r a m m a t i c a l p r o p e r t i e s c h a r -

a c t e r is t i c o f s p ee c h ( M c N e i l l , 1 9 9 2 ) .

I n t h i s a r ti c l e , w e p r o p o s e a m o d e l t h a t e x p l a i n s w h e n t h e

Susan Goldin-Meadow an d D avid McNeil l, De partm ent o f Psychol-

ogy, Universi ty of Chicagn; Jen ny Singleton, D epartm ent of Psychology,

Universi ty of I l l inois at Urbana-C hamp aign.

Th is work was suppor ted by Gran t BNS 8810769 f rom the Na t iona l

Science Foundation, Gran ts RO 1 DC0049 an d RO 1 DC 10561 from the

National Inst i tute on Deafness and O ther Com municat ion Disorders ,

grants from the Spencer Founda tion, a grant from the Universi ty of I l l i -nois Research Board, and Gran t 5 T32 HD07307-05 from the NationalInst i tute for Child Health and H uma n Development.

We would l ike to thank M. W. Alibal i , A. Woodward, R. Mayberry,

and G. Gigerenzer for their thoughtful comm ents on the manusc ript ; R.Glenberg an d L. Gran dau for their assis tance in collecting data; and T.Gonzales, D . Langer, A. Li, V. Kenny, B. Soil, J. W eakland, L. Jucha,

and C. W achter for their assistance in cod ing and d ata analysis.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addre ssed to SusanGoldin-Meadow, Dep artmen t of Psychology, Universi ty of Chicago,

5730 South Woodlawn Avenue,Chicago, Illinois 60637. Electronic ma il

may be sent via Interne t to [email protected].

34

m a n u a l m o d a l i t y w i l l a s s u m e g r a m m a t i c a l p r o p e r t i e s a n d

w h e n i t w i ll no t . T h e m o d e l a r g u e s t h a t w h e n c o m m u n i c a t o r s

d o n o t a t t e n d t o t h e i r g e s t u r e s , a s w h e n t h e y g e s t u r e u n w i t -

t i n g l y w h i l e t h e y s p e a k , t h e m a n u a l m o d a l i t y p l a y s a r o l e i n

r e l a t i o n t o s p e e c h , a n d i t s f o r m i s c o n s t r a i n e d b y t h a t r e l a t i o n -

s h i p . A s a r e s u l t , w h e n i t a c c o m p a n i e s s p e e c h , m a n u a l c o m -

m u n i c a t i o n i s g l o b a l a n d m i m e t i c i n f o r m a n d i s n o t c h a r a c -

t e r i z e d b y s e g m e n t a t i o n a n d h i e r a r c h i c a l c o m b i n a t i o n - - t w o

h a l l m a r k s o f g r a m m a t i c a l s t r u c t u r e . I n c o n t r a s t, w h e n c o m -

m u n i c a t o r s a r e f o r c e d t o r e l y s o l e ly o n g e s t u re , t h a t i s , w h e n

g e s t u r e is p r o d u c e d o n i t s o w n w i t h o u t s p e e c h a n d t h u s i t s e l f

m u s t a s s u m e t h e f u l l b u r d e n o f c o m m u n i c a t i o n , t h e m a n u a l

m o d a l i t y is l ib e r a t e d f ro m t h e c o n s t r a i n t s i m p o s e d o n i t b ys p e e c h - - o n l y t o b e c o n s tr a i n e d t o ta k e o n t h e g r a m m a t i c a l

p r o p e r t i e s e s s e nt i al t o h u m a n l a n gu a g e , m o s t n o t a b l y s e g m e n -

t a t i o n a n d h i e r a rc h i c a l c o m b i n a t i o n .

W e b e g i n b y d e s c r i b i n g t h e g e s t u r e s t h a t a c c o m p a n y s p e e c h ,

f o c u s i n g o n t w o e s s e n t i a l p o i n t s : ( a ) T h e g e s t u r e s p r o d u c e d

a l o n g w i t h s p e e c h f o r m , w i t h t h a t s p e e c h , a n i n t e g r a t e d s y s t e m ,

a n d ( b ) t h e r o l e s t h a t g e s tu r e a n d s p e e c h p l a y i n t h i s i n t e g r a t e d

s y s t e m a r e d i s t i n c t , w i t h s p e e c h c o n v e y i n g i n f o r m a t i o n i n a l i n -

e a r a n d s e g m e n t e d f a s h i o n a n d g e s t u r e c o n v e y i n g i n f o r m a t i o n

i n a g l o b a l a n d n o n c o m p o s i t i o n a l m a n n e r . W e t h e n c o n t r a s t th e

g e s t u r es t h a t a c c o m p a n y s p e e c h w i t h a n a t u r a l i s t i c s i tu a t i o n i n

w h i c h g e s tu r e h a s a s s u m e d t h e p r i m a r y b u r d e n o f c o m m u n i c a -

t i o n a n d ( w e a r g u e ) h a s c o n s e q u e n t l y t a k e n o n t h e g r a m m a t i c a lp r o p e r t i e s t h a t a r e e s s e n ti a l t o h u m a n l a n g u a ge . F i n a l ly , w e e x -

p e r i m e n t a l l y t e s t o u r h y p o t h e s i s t h a t g e s t u r e b e c o m e s g r a m -

m a t i c a l o n l y w h e n i t a s s u m e s t h e f u l l b u r d e n o f c o m m u n i c a -

t i o n . W e a s k e d h e a r i n g a d u l t s t o d e s c r i b e a s e r ie s o f s c e ne s u s i n g

o n l y t h e i r h a n d s ( a n d n o t t h e i r m o u t h s ) , a n d w e c o n t r a s t e d

t h e s e s e l f - s u ff i c i en t g e s t u r e s w i t h t h e g e s t u r e s t h e s e s a m e a d u l t s

s p o n t a n e o u s l y p r o d u c e d w h e n a s k e d t o d e s c r i b e t h e s a m e

s c e n e s v er b a ll y . W e f o u n d t h a t t h e g e s t u r e s p r o d u c e d w i t h o u t

s p e e c h w e r e c h a r a c t e r i z e d b y t h e r u d i m e n t s o f a s i m p l e s y n -

t a x - i n p a r ti c u la r , t h e y w er e s e g m e n te d a n d c o m b i n e d h i e r a r -



GRAMMATICAL EXPRESSION IN THE MANUAL MODALITY 35

chically. These regularities of form, reminiscent of linguistic

structure, were not found in the gestures that accompanied

speech. Our findings suggest that grammatical expression is not

dictated by the modality in which it is produced, nor is it re-

stricted to established languages (signed or spoken) that have

evolved over time. Rather, grammatical expression may well be

a natural outgrowth of the way humans use symbols to commu-

nicate with other humans.

Gestures That Acc ompany Speech

Acts of speaking are often accompanied by movements of the

hands and arms called gestures (Kendon, 1972, used the term

gesticulation). We focus in this section on movements of this

type, that is, on movements that occur only during speech and

that are difficult to interpret in the absence o f speech. As a re-

sult, we include gestures that have variously been called picto-grams, ideograms, illustrators, and ba tons (Ekman & Friesen,

1969), but we exclude another, better known, more stereotypic

type o f gesture called emblems (Ekman & Friesen, 1969). Em-

blems are gestures that have conventional paraphrases or names

and can be used as if they were spoken words. In many uses theyare, in fact, unspoken words; for example, the "okay" sign can

be used without speech in American culture to mean "things

are fine." Our goal here is to describe spontaneous gestures that

are not regulated by a conventional social code.

Ges tures Convey Me an ing

Whereas verbal behavior is assumed to be closely tied to a

speaker's thoughts, nonverbal behavior, including gesture, has

traditionally been assumed to reflect the speaker's feelings or

emotions (Wundt, 1900/1973; for a review of studies focusing

on gesture as a reflection of emotion and attitude see Feyereisen

& de Lannoy, 1991 ). More recently, however, researchers who

have focused on the hand gestures individuals produce while

speaking (e.g., Kendon, 1980; McNeill, 1985, 1987, 1992 ) have

argued that gesture can convey substantive information and, as

such, can provide insight into a speaker's mental representa-

tion. For example, McNeill (1987) found that adults use hand

gestures to portray concrete images (such as the actions or attri-

butes of cartoon characters) as well as abstract concepts (such

as mathematical concepts of quotients, factors, or even limits

in calculus). Moreover, the gestures that adults produce when

speaking have been found to convey the kinds of semantic in-

formation that speech conveys (although gesture cannot always

be decoded as precisely and reliably as is speech; Krauss, Mor-

rel-Samuels, & Colasante, 1991 ).

Children, too, often use hand gestures as they speak(Jancovic, Devoe; & Wiener, 1975), gesturing when asked to

narrate a s tory (e.g., McNeill, 1992) or when asked to explain

their responses to a problem (e.g., Church & Goldin-Meadow,

1986). The gestures children produce in a problem-solving sit-

uation have been used to provide insight into the way children

represent those problems. For example, Evans and Rubin

(1979) taught children between the ages of 5 and 10 to play a

simple board game and then asked them to explain the game

to an adult. The children 's verbal statements of the rules were

routinely accompanied by gestures that conveyed information

about their knowledge of the game. As a second example,

Crowder and Newman (1993) found that gestures were an ex-

pected mode of communication in a sixth-grade science lesson

on the seasons and that the gestures the students produced re-

vealed knowledge that the children possessed about the seasons

(e.g., a child discussing the seasons used both hands to produce

a symmetrical gesture, laying down temperature bands on ei-

ther side of the equator, and thus revealing, through her hands,

knowledge of the symmetry of the hemispheres).

These examples from both adults and children make it clear

that gesture can convey meaning and can offer a view of the

speaker's mental representation.

G e s t u re a n d S p e e c h F o r m a n I n t e g r a te d S y s t e m

Gesture no t only conveys meaning but it does so in a manner

that is integrated with speech. Several types of evidence lend

support to the view that gesture and speech form a single, uni-

fied system. First, gestures occur with speech. Whereas em-

blems may be delivered in utter silence, the gestures that are the

focus of attention in this section are almost invariably accom-

panied by speech. McNeill (1992) found that 90% of gestureswere produced when the gesturer was speaking. Thus, acts of

speaking and gesturing are bound to each other in time.

Second, gestures and speech are semantically and pragmati-

cally coexpressive. When people speak, they produce a variety

of gesture types (iconics, metaphorics, beats, cohesives, deictics;

of. McNeill, ! 992), and each type of gesture has a characteristic

type of speech with which it occurs. For example, iconic ges-

tures are gestures whose forms have a transparent relationship

to the notions they convey. Iconics accompany utterances that

depict concrete objects and events and fulfill a narrative func-

tion ( i.e., they accompany he speech that tells the story ). As an

example, a speaker produced the following iconic gesture when

describing a scene from a comic book in which a character

bends a tree back to the ground: The speaker grasped his hand

• s though gripping something and pulled his hand back. He pro-

duced this gesture as he uttered the words "and he bends it way

back," a concrete description O an event in the story. In con-

trast, metaphoric gestures are also pictorial, but the pictorial

content presents an abstract idea rather than a concrete object

or event. Metaphorics accompany utterances that refer to the

structure of the discourse rather than to a particular event in

the narrative (i.e., they accompany metanarrative rather than

narrative utterances). As an example, a speaker produced the

following metaphoric gesture when announcing that what he

had just seen and was about to recount was a cartoon: The

speaker raised his hands as though he were offering an object to

the listener. He produced this gesture as he said "it was a Sylves-ter and Tweety cartoon," an utterance that set up and intro-

duced the topic of discussion rather than formed part of the

storyline. Other gesture types similarly have their own parallels

with speech (see McNeill, 1992, chapter 7 ), suggesting a linked

relationship between the two modalities.

Finally, gesture and speech are synchronous and thus form a

unified system in this sense. The gesture and the linguistic seg-

ment representing the same information as that gesture are co-

temporal. Specifically, the gesture movement- -the "stroke"--

lines up in time with the equivalent linguistic segment; for exam-



36 GOLDIN-MEADOW, McNEILL, AND SINGLETON

p i e , i n t h e p r e v i o u s e x a m p l e o f a n i c o n i c g e s tu r e , t h e s p e a k e r

p r o d u c e d t h e s t r o k e o f t h e g e s tu r e j u s t a s h e s a i d " b e n d s i t w a y

b a c k " ( s e e K i t a , 1 9 93 , f o r m o r e s u b t l e e x a m p l e s o f h o w s p e e c h

a n d g e s t u r e a d j u s t t o e a c h o t h e r i n t i m i n g ; M o r r e l - S a m u e l s &

K r a u s s , 1992,f o r e v i d e n c e t h a t t h e t i m i n g o f g e s t u r e a n d s p e e c h

i s re l a t e d to t h e r a t e d f a m i l i a r i t y o f t h e s p o k e n w o r d ; a n d S c o b l e

& M a y b e r r y , 1994, f o r e v id e n c e t h a t g e s t u r e a n d s p e e c h a r e s y n -

c h r o n i z e d e v e n w h e n , a s i n s t u t t e r i n g , t h e s p e e c h p r o d u c t i o n p r o -

c e s s g o e s a w r y ) . S u c h s y n c h r o n y i m p l i e s t h a t t h e s p e a k e r i s p r e -

s e n ti n g t h e s a m e m e a n i n g i n b o t h c h a n n e l s a t th e s a m e m o m e n t

a n d t h a t g e s t u r e a n d s p e e c h f o r m a s i n g le , i n t e g r a t e d s y s t e m .

Gesture an d Speech Convey Mea ning Differently

A l t h o u g h g e s t u r e a n d s p e e c h r e f e r to t h e s a m e e v e n t , th e y d o

n o t a l w a y s co n v e y p r e c is e l y t h e s a m e i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t t h a t

e v e n t. F o r e x a m p l e , w h e n d e s c r i b i n g G r a n n y ' s c h a s e a f t e r S y l-

v e s t e r i n a c a r t o o n n a r r a t i v e , a s p e a k e r s a i d " s h e c h a s e s h i m

o u t a g a i n " w h i l e m o v i n g h e r h a n d a s t h o u g h s w i n g in g a n o b j e c t

( M c N e i l l , 1 9 9 2 ) . S p e e c h c o n v e y s t h e i d e a s o f p u r s u i t a n d r e -

c u r r e n c e , b u t g e s t u re c o n v e y s t h e w e a p o n u s e d ( a n u m b r e l l a )

d u r i n g t h e c h a s e . B o t h s p e e c h a n d g e s t u r e r e f e r t o t h e s a m ee v e n t , b u t e a c h p r e s e n t s a s o m e w h a t d i f f e r e n t a s p e c t o f i t .I

W h y a r e g e s t u re a n d s p e e c h s o e a s i ly a b l e t o t a k e d i f f e r e n t

p e r s p e ct i v es o n t h e s a m e e v e n t ? W e s u g g e s t t h a t t h e m e t h o d

u s e d b y g e s t u re f o r c o n v e y i n g m e a n i n g i s f u n d a m e n t a l l y d i ff e r-

e n t f r o m t h a t o f s p ee c h .

S p e e c h h a s t h e e f f e ct o f s e g m e n t i n g a n d l i n e a r i z i n g m e a n i n g .

W h a t m i g h t b e a n i n s t a n t a n e o u s t h o u g h t i s d i v i d e d u p a n d

s t r u n g o u t t h r o u g h t i m e . A s i n g l e e v e n t , sa y, s o m e b o d y s i t t i n g

d o w n o n a c h a i r , m u s t b e c o n v e y e d i n s e g m e n t s : t h e p e r s o n , t h e

c h a i r , t h e m o v e m e n t , t h e d i r e c t i o n , a n d s o f o r t h . T h e s e s e g -

m e n t s a r e o r g a n i z e d i n t o a h i e r a r c h i c a l l y s t r u c t u r e d s t r i n g o f

w o r d s . T h e t o t a l e f f ec t i s t o p r e s e n t w h a t h a d b e e n a s i n g l e i n -

s t a n t a n e o u s p i c t u r e i n t h e f o r m o f a s t r i n g o f s e g m e n t s . S e g-

m e n t a t i o n a n d l i n e a r i z a t i o n t o f o r m a h i e r a r c h y a r e e s s e n ti a l

c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s o f a l l l i n g u i s t i c s y s t e m s ( i n c l u d i n g s i g n l a n -

g u a g es t h a t a r e n o t s p o k e n a t a l l, s e e b e l o w ) .

D e S a u s s u r e ( 1 9 1 6 / 1 9 5 9 ) a r g u e d t h a t t h e l i n e a r - s e g m e n t e d

c h a r a c t e r o f s p o k e n l a n g u a g e i s a p r o p e r t y t h a t a r i s e s b e c a u s e

l a ng u a g e is u n i d i m e n s i o n a l b u t m e a n i n g s a r e m u l t i d i m e n s i o n a l .

L a n g u a g e c a n o n l y v a r y a l o n g t h e s in g l e d i m e n s i o n o f t i m e . A t

a l l l e v e ls ( p h o n e m e s , w o r d s , p h r a s e s , s e n t e n c e s , a n d d i s c o u r s e ) ,

l a n g u a g e d e p e n d s o n v a r i a t i o n s a lo n g t h i s o n e a x i s o f t i m e . T h i s

r e s t r i c t i o n f o r c e s l a n g u a g e to b r e a k m e a n i n g c o m p l e x e s i n t o s e g -

m e n t s a n d t o r e c o n s t r u c t m u l t i d im e n s i o n a l m e a n i n g s b y c o m -

b i n i n g t h e s e g m e n t s i n t i m e .

T h e g e s t u re s t h a t a c c o m p a n y s p e e c h a r e d i f f e re n t in t h e i r b a -

s ic o r g a n i z a ti o n . T h e y a r e t h e m s e l v e s f re e t o v a r y o n d i m e n -s i o ns o f s p a c e, t i m e , f o r m , t r a j e c to r y , a n d s o f o r t h a n d c a n p r e s -

e n t m e a n i n g c o m p l e x e s w i t h o u t u n d e r g o i n g s e g m e n t a t i o n o r

l i n e a r i z a ti o n . U n l i k e s p o k e n s e n t e n ce s i n w h i c h l o w e r c o n s t i t u -

e n t s c o m b i n e i n t o h i g h e r c o n s t i tu e n t s , e a c h g e s t u r e i s a c o m -

p l e t e ex p r e s s io n o f m e a n i n g u n t o i t s e lf ( M c N e i l l , 1 9 9 2 ) . F o r

e x a m p l e , i n d e s c r i b i n g a n i n d i v i d u a l r u n n i n g , a s p e a k e r m o v e d

h i s h a n d f o r w a r d w h i l e w i g g l i n g h i s i n d e x a n d m i d d l e f i n g er s.

T h e g e s t u r e i s a s y m b o l i n t h a t i t r e p r e s e n t s s o m e t h i n g o t h e r

t h a n i t s e l f - - t h e h a n d i s n o t a h a n d b u t a c h a r a c te r , th e m o v e -

m e n t i s n o t a h a n d i n m o t i o n b u t t h e c h a r a c t e r i n m o t i o n , t h e

s p a c e i s n o t t h e p h y s i c a l s p a c e o f t h e n a r r a t o r b u t a n a r r ~

s p a c e , t h e w i g g l i n g fi n g e rs a r e n o t f i n g er s b u t r u n n i n g 1

M o r e o v e r, t h e g e s t u r e i s a s y m b o l t h e p a r t s o f w h i c h g a i n m q

i n g b e c a u s e o f t h e m e a n i n g o f t h e w h o l e . T h e w i g g li n g f in

m e a n " r u n n i n g " o n l y b e c a u s e w e k n o w t h a t t h e g e s t u re ,

w h o l e , d e p i c t s s o m e o n e r u n n i n g a n d n o t b e c a u s e t h i s s pe l

u s e s w ig g l in g f in g e rs to m e a n r u n n i n g i n a n y o t h e r c o n t e x t

d e e d , i n o t h e r g e s t u r e s p r o d u c e d b y t h i s s a m e s p e a k e r , w ig@

f i n g er s m a y w e l l h a v e a v e r y d i f f e r e n t m e a n i n g ( e .g . , i n d e c i:

b e t w e e n t w o a l t e r n a t i v e s ) . T o a r g u e t h a t t h e w i g g l i n g f i n g e rs

t u r e i s c o m p o s e d o f s e p a r a te l y m e a n i n g f u l p a r t s , o n e w c

h a v e t o s h o w t h a t e a c h o f t h e t h r e e c o m p o n e n t s t h a t c o m ic

t h e g e s t u r e - - t h e V h a n d s h a p e , t h e w ig g l in g m o t i o n , a n d

f o r w a r d m o t i o n - - i s u s e d f o r a s t ab l e m e a n i n g a c r o s s t h e S l~

e r ' s g e s t u r a l r e p e r t o i r e . T h e d a t a s u g g e s t t h a t t h e r e i s n o s

s t a b i l it y i n t h e g e s t u re s t h a t a c c o m p a n y s p e e c h ( M c N

1 9 9 2 ) . M o r e o v er , b e c a u s e t h e s p e a k e r d o e s n o t c o n s i s te n t l y

t h e f o r m s t h a t c o n s t i t u t e t h e w i g g l i n g f i n g e rs g e s t u r e f o r s ~

m e a n i n g s , t h e g e s t u r e c a n n o t s t a n d o n i t s o w n w i t h o u t s p e e c

a n d t h i s i s c o n s i s t e n t w i t h t h e p r i n c i p l e t h a t s p e e c h a n d g e s'

f o r m a n i n t e g r a t e d s y s te m .

I n a d d i t i o n t o t h e f a c t t h a t t h e g e s t u r e s a c c o m p a n y i n g S lXd o n o t a p p e a r t o b e c o m p o s e d o f m e a n i n g f u l p ar t s a n d 1

a r e n o t w h o l e s c r e a t e d f r o m p a r t s , t h e s e g e st u r e s a l s o d o

t h e m s e l v e s c o m b i n e t o c r e a t e l a r g e r w h o l e s. M o s t o f t h e t i

g e s t u r e s a r e " o n e t o a c l a u s e , " t h a t i s , a s p o k e n c l a u s e i s a c c

p a n i e d b y a s i n g le g e s t u r e ( M c N e i l l , 1 9 9 2 ) . M o r e o v e r , e v e n t

i n g t h e t i m e s w h e n m o r e t h a n o n e g e s t u r e o c c u r s w i t h i n a s i:

c l a u se , th e g e s t u re s d o n o t c o m b i n e i n t o a m o r e c o m p l e x

t u r e " c l a u s e . " E a c h g e s t u r e d e p i c t s t h e c o n t e n t f r o m a d i f fe

a n g le , b r i n g i n g o u t a d i f fe r e n t a sp e c t o r t e m p o r a l p h a s e ,

e a c h i s a c o m p l e t e e x p r e s s i o n o f m e a n i n g b y i t s e lf . F o r e x a m

w h i l e u t t e r i n g t h e c l a u s e " a n d s h e g r a b s t h e k n i f e , " a sp e~

p r o d u c e d t w o g e s t u re s : T h e h a n d f i rs t g r o p e d i n a c i r c l e

t h e p a l m f a c in g d o w n a n d t h e f i ng e rs e x t e n d e d ( p r o d u c e d a ~

J Instances in w hich gesture and speech convey different infol

t ion in a p roblem -solving si tuat ion have been cal led mismat(Ch urch & Goldin-Meadow, 1986). Mism atches occur frequ~

when indiv iduals , part icu lar ly children, are asked to describe how

solved a task (A libal i & Goldin-Meadow, 1993; Crowder & N ewr

1993; Evans & Rubin , 1979; Goldin-Meadow, Alibal i , & Chu

1993; Perry, Chur ch, & Goldin-Meadow, 1988). A t first glance,

tu re - speech mismatches migh t appear to con t rad ic t the c la im

gesture and speech form an integrated system. H owever, even the

mism atches do convey different inform ation in gesture a nd in spethey do no t v io la te the p r inc ip les o f ges tu re - speech in tegra t ion

sc r ibed in the t ex t . In pa r t i cu la r , mismatches a re semant ica l ly c

pressive in the sense that both mod ali t ies describe the sam e even1belt each taking a different perspective on that event . Considerexam ple, a chi ld in the conservation task who says that the amou~

water is different because " the glass is ta l l" wh ile indicat ing the w

of the glass with her hands. Although this chi ld is indeed expre~two different pieces of inform ation in the two mod ali t ies , she is n~

theless describing the sam e object in gesture and in speech. More,

the t im ing of the mism atch also ref lects an integra ted system.child produ ces the width gesture a s she says "tal l ," thus syn chroneexpressing her two perspectives on the glass (for fu rther evidence

mismatches a re p red ica ted on an in tegra ted ges tu re -speech sysl

see Butcher & Goldin-Meadow, 1995 ) .



GRAM M AT I CAL E XP RE SS ION I N T HE M ANUAL M ODAL I T Y 37

w o r d " s h e " w a s u t t e r e d ) a n d t h e n t h e h a n d t u r n e d u p a n d

c l osed t o a f i st a s t hough g r i pp i ng a kn i f e ( p r oduce d a l ong wi t h

t he wor ds "g r abs t he kn i f e" ) . T he ges t u r es a r e r e l a t ed bu t do

no t com bi ne i n t o a s i ng le h i ghe r un i t cha r ac t e r i zed by t he s ame

proper t ies as a spoken clause. Rather , the ges tures present suc-

cessive snaps hots of the scene. Th e spo ken w ords a l so descr ibe

t h i s s cene , bu t wher eas t he wor ds - - " she , " "g r abs , " and " t he

k n i f e " - - -c o m b i n e o f o r m t h e c l a u se , t h e g e s tu r e s m g r o p i n g a n d

g r a b b i n g - - - d o n o t c o m b i n e t o f o r m a n y t h i n g r e s e m b l i n g a

clause. Rather , each ges ture represen ts a pre dicate u nto i tse lf .

I n s u m m a r y , th e g e s tu r e s t h a t a c c o m p a n y s p e e c h f o r m a n

i n t egr a t ed sys t em wi th t ha t speech and , w i t h i n t he ges t u r e -

speech sys tem, convey semant i c mean i ng . G es t u r e i s no t on l y

semant i ca l l y and p r agm at i ca l ly coexpr es s ive w i th speech , bu t i t

i s a lso synchr on ous w i t h speech . As a r e su lt , w hen ges t u r e i s

p r oduced a l ong wi t h speech , i t s f o r m i s cons t r a i ned by t he

f r ami ng t ha t speech p r ov i des . I n pa r t i cu l a r , ges t u r e i s con-

s t r a ined t o t ake on a g l oba l and m i met i c f o r m .

T hus , when p r oduced a l ong wi t h speech , ges t u r es do no t

a n d - - w e w o u l d a r gu e , b e c a u s e o f th e c o n s t r a in t s i m p o s e d b y

s p e e c h m c a n n o t a s s u m e t h e l i n e a r a n d s e g m e n t e d f o r m o f t h e

words they accompany. In the next sect ion, however , we wi l lshow t ha t t he m anua l m oda l i t y a t t imes can t ake on a l i nea r and

segment ed f o r m , and we wi ll a r gue t ha t i t does so when i t i s a

s p e a k e r' s so l e m e a n s o f c o m m u n i c a t i o n .

G e s t u r e s T h a t A s s u m e t h e P r i m a r y B u r d e n o f

C o m m u n i c a t i o n

W e b e g i n b y d e s c ri b in g c o m m u n i c a t i o n s y s t e m s in t h e m a n -

ua l mod a l i t y t ha t a r e cod i f ied and t ha t a r e used , and l ea r ned , a s

na t i ve languages by d ea f peop l e - - conv en t i on a l s i gn l anguages .

W e then t u r n t o t he "unco nven t i ona l " and i d i osync r a t i c ges tu r e

sys t ems i nven t ed by dea f ch i l d r en who have no t been exposed

t o conven t i ona l s ign l anguage t o com mu ni ca t e w i t h t he hea r i ng

i nd i v idua l s a r oun d t hem .

Convent ional S ign Langua ges

T he s i gn l anguages o f t he dea f a r e au t onom ous l anguages t ha t

a r e no t based on t he spoken l anguages o f hea r i ng cu l t u r es

(Bel lugi & Studder t -Kennedy, 1980; Kl ima & Bel lugi , 1979;

L ane & Gr os j ean , 1980) . A s i gn l anguage such a s Amer i can

S i gn L anguage ( AS L ) i s a p r i mar y l i ngu i s t i c sys t em pas sed

down f r om o ne gene r a t ion o f dea f peop l e to t he n ex t and i s a

language in the ful l sense of the word. L ike sp oken languages,

ASL is s t ruc tured a t synta ct ic (F ischer, 1974; Liddel l , 1980;

Li l lo-Mar t in, 1986; Padde n, 1983) , m orph ological (F ischer,

1973; F ischer & Gou gh, 1978; Kl im a & Bellugi, 1979; New por t ,1981; Supal la , 1982, 1986; Supal la & New por t , 1978) , an d

"pho nolog ical"2 (Bat t i son , 1974; Coul ter , 1990; Lane , Boyes-

Bra em , & Bellugi, 1976; Liddell , 1984; Liddel l & Joh nson ,

1986; Padden & Per lmut ter , 1987; Sandier, 1986; S toko e, 1960;

Wilbur, 1986 ) levels.

T hus , u n l i ke t he ges t u r es t ha t acc om pan y speech , t he si gns

o f A S L c o m b i n e w i t h o n e a n o t h e r t o c r e a t e l a r g e r w h o l e s, t h a t

i s, s en tences . L i ke m an y spoken l anguages, AS L h as a bas i c o r

canon i ca l wo r d / s i gn o r de r , a l t hough i t has cons i de r ab l e wor d

or de r f lex ib il it y. S ub j e c t - ve r b- o b j ec t ( S V O) i s t he un ma r ked

or de r , w i t h o t he r o r de r s pos s i b l e on l y when one o f t he cons t i t -

uen t s i s f r on t ed and ma r ked f o r top i c ( F i sche r & Gou gh , 1978;

F r i edm an , 1976; L i dde ll , 1980 ; P adden , 1983) . M or eover , and

desp i t e t he f ac t t ha t t he adu l t l anguage shows cons i de r ab l e

wor d o r de r f l ex ib il it y, wor d o r de r p l ays an i m po r t an t r o l e i n

t he ea r l y s t ages o f AS L acqu i s i t i on . D ea f ch i l d r en l ea r n i ng

A S L f r o m t h e i r d e a f p a r e n t s u s e c o n s i s te n t w o r d o r d e r a s a

syn t ac t i c dev i ce ea r l y i n deve l opment ( Hof f me i s t e r , 1978 ;

New por t & Ashb r ook , 1977; Newp or t & M eie r, 1985 ) and

t he i r p r e f e r r ed o r de r is S VO, t he canon i ca l o r de r o f t he adu l t

sys t em ( Hof f me i s t e r , 1978) .

I n add i t i on , and aga i n un l i ke t he ges t u r es t ha t accompany

s p e ec h , t h e s ig n s o f A S L a r e t h e m s e l v e s c o m p o s e d o f m e a n i n g -

f u l componen t s , t ha t i s , mor phemes . L i ke spoken l anguages ,

AS L has deve l oped g r amm at i ca l m ar ke r s t ha t s e r ve a s i nf lec -

t ional (e .g. , F ischer , 1973; F ischer & Gough, 1978; Kl ima &

Bel lugi , 1979; Met lay & Supa l la , 1995) an d der ivat iona l mo~:-

phem es ( e.g. , S upa l l a & N ewpor t , 1978 ) . I n o t he r w or ds , the r e

a r e r egu l a r changes i n bas i c f o r m as soc i a t ed w i t h sys t ema t i c

changes i n mean i ng , and t hese changes occur i n t e r na l t o a s i gn.

F o r e x a m p l e , th e A S L v e r b " a s k b o t h " i s c o m p o s e d o f tw o p a r t s

s i mul t aneous l y p r oduced : "a sk , " whi ch ( i n i t s un i n f l ec t edf or m) i s p r oduced by movi ng t he i ndex f i nge r away f r om t he

ches t a r ea ( neu t r a l space ) and bend i ng i t a s i t moves , and

" b o t h , " w h i c h i n v o l ve s p r o d u c i n g t h i s s a m e m o v e m e n t t w i ce ,

once t o t he l e f t and once t o t he f i gh t . T h i s dua l mot i on i s a

g r a m m a t i c a l m o r p h e m e ( m a r k i n g t h e n o t i o n " d u a l p e r s o n " )

t ha t can b e added t o a s e t o f ve r bs in AS L and , w hen added , i t

cons i s ten t l y con t r i bu t e s t he mean i ng " bo t h" t o t he ve r b ( K l i m a

& Bellugi, 1979 ).

N o t e t h a t t h e s i m u l t a n eo u s o c c u r r e n c e o f m o r p h e m e s w i t h i n

a sign can give an A SL sign an ic onic quali ty. However, signs in

AS L a r e no t a l ways i con ic . F or exam pl e , t he s i gn f o r " s l ow" i s

m a d e b y m o v i n g o n e h a n d a c r o s s t h e b a c k o f t h e o t h e r h a n d.

W h en t he s i gn i s modi f i ed t o be "ve r y s l ow ," i t i s ma de morerapidly because t h i s is the pa r t i cu l a r m odi f i ca t ion o f mo vem ent

as soc i a ted w i t h a n i n t ens i f ica t i on me an i ng ( K l i ma & Be l lug i,

1979) . T h us , m odi f y i ng the m ean i ng o f a s ign can r edu ce i t s

i con i c it y i n AS L s i m pl y because t he mean i ng o f the s i gn a s a

whol e i s, i n r u l e - gover ned f a sh ion , m ade u p o f t he m ean i ngs o f

t h e c o m p o n e n t s t h a t c o m p r i s e it .

I n con t r a s t , a s desc r i bed above , the ges t u r es t ha t acc om pan y

s p e e c h a r e n o t c o m p o s e d o f p a r t s b u t a r e i n s te a d n o n c o m p o -

s i t iona l whol es . Because t he ges t u r e a s a whol e m us t be a goo d

r epr esen t a t i on o f i t s r e f e r en t , the ad d i t i on o f s ema nt i c i n f o r -

ma t i on t o a spon t aneous ges t u r e a l ways i nc r eases i t s i con i c -

i t y - - i f somet h i ng i s t hough t o f a s ve r y s l ow , t he ges t u r e f o r i t i s

a l so ve r y s l ow ( M cN ei l l , 1992) . T he ges t u r e a s a whol e r epr e -

sen t s "ve r y s low" and , a l t hough o ne cou l d , i n p r inc i p l e , b r ea kup t he ge s t u r e i n t o t wo pa r t s ( e .g . , " sl ow ," a m ove me nt ac r os s

t h e b a c k o f t h e h a n d , a n d " v e r y , " a n e x a g g e r a te d a n d s lo w e d

m o v e m e n t ) , t h e r e is n o e v i d e n c e t h a t t h e s e p a r ti c u l a r f o r m s

h a v e i n d e p e n d e n t a n d c o n s i s t e n t m e a n i n g a c r o s s a r a n g e o f

g e s t u r e s - - a s t h e y w o u l d h a v e t o i f t h e y w e r e p a r t o f a m o r p h o -

l og i ca l sys t em l i ke AS L ' s.

2 This level s called phonological n sign language despite the absenc eof sound because t is composed of distinctive units that are meaninglessand contrastive, hallmarks of he phonological evel n speech.




T hus , con ven t i ona l s ign l anguages such a s AS L , whi ch a r e

u s e d b y t h e d e a f a s t h e ir p r i m a r y c o m m u n i c a t i o n s y s te m s , e x -

h i b i t the com pl ex i t i e s o f i ngu i st ic o r gan i za t i on f ound i n a l l spo-

ken l anguages. A l t hough t he m anua l mod a l i t y p r esen t s one w i t h

t he op por t un i t y t o mi met i ca l l y dep i c t even t s a s g l oba l wholes

( a s one sees i n t he ges tu r es tha t ac com pan y speech) , w hen t he

mod a l i t y a s sumes t he f ul l bur den o f comm uni ca t i on , g l oba l

r epr esen t a t ion i s abandon ed i n f avor o f r epr esen t a t i on by pa r t s

t ha t combi ne t o f o r m a sys t em of h i e r a r ch i ca l l y a r r anged se -

q u e n c es o f l i n e a r s e g m e n ts ( i. e ., m o r p h e m e s c o m b i n e t o f o r m

s igns, whi ch , i n t u r n , c om bi ne t o f o r m sen t ences ) . W e sugges t

t ha t t h i s t ype o f segmen t ed r epr esen t a t i on a r i s e s i n s ign l an-

guage ( and no t i n spon t aneous ges t u r e ) because , i n s i gn l an-

guage , t he ma nua l m oda l i t y i t s e lf a s sumes t he p r i m ar y bur d en

o f c o m m u n i c a t io n .

S i gn languages o f t he dea f , i n add i t i on t o be i ng p r i m ar y co m-

mun i ca t i on sys t ems , a r e a l so sys t ems t ha t have h i s t o r ie s and a r e

pas sed down f r om o ne gene r a t i on o f user s to t he nex t

(Fr i shbcrg, 1975 ) . The y are cod i f ied l inguis t ic sys tem s and, in

t h i s sense , a r e ve r y d if f e ren t f r om t he ges t u r es t ha t acco mp any

speech . I n t he nex t s ec t i on , we exami ne a s i t ua t i on i n whi ch

noncod i f i ed ges tu r e i ts e l f a s sumes t he f u l l bur den o f com mu ni -ca t i on . W e ask whe t he r ges tu r es tha t t ake on t he f unc t i on o f a

p r i m a r y c o m m u n i c a t i o n s y s t e m m o r e c lo se ly r e s e m b l e i n f o r m

t he ges t u res t ha t acco mp any speech o r t he s i gns o f a conven-

tional language.

W h e n G e s tu r e I s t h e O n l y M e a n s o f C o m m u n i c a t i o n

Available

As ment i oned above , dea f ch i ld r en bo r n t o de a f pa r en t s and

exposed f r om b i r t h t o a conven t i ona l s ign l anguage such a s AS L

acqu i r e t ha t l anguage na t u r a ll y ; t ha t i s, t hese ch i l d r en p r og r es s

t h r ough s t ages in acq u i r i ng s i gn l anguage s imi l a r t o t hose o f

hear ing chi ldren acqui r ing a spoken language (Casel l i , 1983;

Hoffmeis ter , 1978; Ho ffmeis ter & Wilbur , 1980; Kan tor , 1982;

New por t & Ashbr ook , 1977; Newp or t & M ei er , 1985 ) . T hus , i n

an ap pr opr i a t e l ingu is ti c en v i r o nm ent - - i n t h i s case , a s ign ing

e n v i r o n m e n t - - d e a f c h i ld r e n a r e n o t h a n d i c a p p e d w i th r e s p e c t

to language learning.

However , 90% of dea f ch i l d r en a r e no t b or n t o dea f pa r en t s

who cou l d p r ov i de ea r l y exposur e t o a conven t i ona l s i gn l an-

guage . Ra t he r, t hey a r e bor n t o he a r i ng pa r en t s who , qu i t e na t -

u ra ll y, t end t o exp ose t he i r ch i l d ren t o speech ( Ho f f me i s t e r &

W i lbur, 1980) . Unf or t una t e l y , i t i s ex t r eme l y unc om mo n f o r

dea f ch i l d ren w i t h s eve r e t o p r o f oun d h ea r i ng l osses t o acqu i r e

t he spoken l anguage o f he i r hea r i ng pa r en t s spon t aneous l y , t ha t

i s , wi tho ut intensive and special ized ins t ruct ion. Even wi th in-

s t r uc ti on , de a f ch i l d r en ' s acqu i s it i on o f speech i s mar k ed l y de -l ayed when c om par ed e i t he r w i t h t he acqu i s i ti on o f speech by

hea t i ng ch i l d r en o f hea r i ng pa r en t s o r w i t h t he acqu i s i t ion o f

s i gn by dea f ch i ld r en o f dea f pa r en ts . B y age 5 o r 6 , and desp i t e

i n t ens i ve ea rl y t r a i n i ng p r ogr a ms , m an y p r of oun d l y dea f ch i l-

d r en have on l y a ve r y r educed o r a l l ingu i s ti c capac i t y ( Conr ad ,

1979; Mayb erry, 1992; Meadow, 1968) .

I n add i t i on , un l e s s hea r i ng pa r e n t s s end t he i r dea f ch i ld r en

t o a s choo l i n w hi ch s i gn l anguage i s used , these dea f ch i ld r en

a r e no t l i ke ly to r ece ive conven t i ona l s i gn l anguage i npu t . Un -

d e r s u c h i n o p p o r t u n e c i r c u m s t a n c e s, t h e s e d e a f c h il d r e n

m i g h t b e e x p e c t e d t o f a i l t o c o m m u n i c a t e a t a l l o r p e r h a p s t o

c o m m u n i c a t e o n l y in n o n s y m b o l i c w a ys . T h i s t u r n s o u t n o t t o

be t he case .

S t ud i es o f dea f ch i ld r en o f hea r i ng pa r en t s have shown t ha t

t hese ch i l d ren spon t aneous l y use ges t u r es ( r e f e r r ed t o a s homesigns) t o c o m m u n i c a t e , e v e n i f t h e y a r e n o t e x p o s e d t o a c o n -

vent ional s ign language model (Fant , 1972; Lenneberg, 1964;

M oor es , 1974; T e r voor t , 1961 ) . G i ven a hom e env i r on me nt i n

w h i c h f a m i l y m e m b e r s c o m m u n i c a t e w i th e a c h o t h e r th r o u g h

ma ny d i f f e ren t channe ls , one mi gh t expec t t ha t t he dea f ch i ld

woul d exp l o i t t he acces s i b l e moda l i t y ( t he manua l moda l i t y )

f o r t he pur po ses o f comm uni ca t i on . T he ques t i on we ask he r e i s

whe t he r t he ges t u r es t he ch i ld uses t o com mu ni ca t e a r e s t r uc -

tured in languagelike ways or whethe r they resem ble the global ,

nonseg ment ed g es t u res t ha t t he hea r i ng i nd i v i dua l s i n t he i r en -

v i r onm ent use a s t hey speak .

Gestures are combined into strings. G o l d i n - M e a d o w a n d

her co ll eagues ( F e l dman , Gol d i n - M eadow, & Gl e i t m an , 1978;

Gol d i n - M eadow, 1979; Gol d i n - M eadow & F e l dman , 1977;

Gol d i n - M eadow & M yl ander, 1984, 1990a) obse r ved t he hom e

s i gns o f 6 dea f ch il d r en o f hea r i ng pa r en t s i n P h i l ade l ph i a and

4 i n Chi cago and f ou nd t ha t a l l 10 ch i ld r en used ges t u r e to com -mu ni ca t e desp i t e the f ac t t ha t t hey wer e no t ex posed t o a con-

ven t i ona l si gn l anguage. T he ch i l d r en used t h r ee ma j or t ypes o f

ges tures: ( a) D eict ic ges tures were typical ly poin ts that m ain-

mi ned a cons t an t k i nes i c f o r m i n a l l con t ex t s . T hese de i c t i c s

were used to s ingle out o bjects , people , places , and the l ike . (b)

Char ac t e r i z i ng ges t u r es wer e s t y l i zed l ~ mt om i mes , t he i con i c

f o r m s o f whi ch va r i ed w i t h t he i n t ended m ean i ng o f each s i gn

( e .g . , a f is t poun ded i n t he a i r a s i f someo ne was hamm er i ng) .

Char ac t e r i z i ng ges t u r es wer e o f t en used a s p r ed i ca t e s convey i ng

act ion and at t r ibute informat ion ( i .e . , as verbs and adject ives ,

respect ively) but co uld a l so be used a s labels for objects ( i .e . , as

nou ns; see Goldin-M eadow , Butcher , Mylander, & Dod ge,

1994) . ( c ) M ar ke r ges tu r es wer e t yp ica l l y head o r hand m ove-

ment s ( e .g . , nod , headshake , o r t wo- handed " f l i p" ) t ha t a r e

conven t i ona l i zed w i t h i n t he ch i l d ' s cu l t u r e and t ha t t he ch i l -

d r en used a s m odul a t o r s ( e .g . , to a f f i r m, nega te , o r dou b t ) .

Unl i ke t he ges t u res t ha t hea r i ng adu l t s and hea r i ng ch i l d r en

pr od uce a l ong wi th speech , whi ch a r e r a r e l y com bi ned w i t h one

ano t he r , t he home- s i gn i ng dea f ch i l d r en ' s ges t u res wer e f r e -

quen t l y com bi ned i n t o s tr ings. M o t or i c c r i t e r ia wer e used t o

i sola te s tr ings of ges tures . In par t icular , in the analyse s of the

dea f ch i l d r en ' s ges t u res , t wo ges t u r es wer e cons ide r ed pa r t o f

t he s am e ges t u r e st r i ng i f t hey wer e connec t ed b y a con t i nuou s

f low of mo vem ent . I n co n t r a s t , t wo ges t u r es wer e cons i de red

d i s ti nc t , each com pr i s i ng i ts own u n i t , i f t he han d r e t r ac t ed o r

re laxed betw een the tw o ges tures.

Moreover, the c hi ldren 's ges ture s t r ings conve yed the range ofseman t i c r e l a t ions t yp i ca l l y f ound i n ea r l y ch i ld l anguage ( i n

pa r t i cu l a r , ac t i on and a t t r i bu t e r e l a t i ons ) . T he ch i l d r en com-

b i ned po i n t s w i t h o t he r po i n t s ( e .g . , a po i n t a t a t oy f o ll owed by

a po i n t a t t he t ab l e t o r eques t t ha t t he t oy b e t r ans f e r r ed to t he

t ab l e ) , po i n t s w i t h cha r ac t e r i z i ng ges t u r es ( e .g . , a po i n t a t a

bubb l e j a r f ol lowed by t he cha r ac t e r i z ing ges t u r e " t w i s t " t o

c o m m e n t o n t h e f a c t t h a t t h e ja r h a s j u s t b e e n t w is t ed o p e n ) ,

and cha r ac t e r i z i ng ges t u res w i t h o t he r cha r ac t e r i z ing ges t u r es

( a s exempl i f i ed i n t he nex t pa r ag r aph ) .

S t r ings o f cha r ac t e r i z ing ges t u r es wer e o f t wo t ypes . T h e f ir s t



GRAMMA TI CAL EXPRESSION I N THE MANUAL MOD ALI TY 39

t ype we r e s t r i ngs i n wh i c h e a c h c ha r a c t e r i z i ng ge s t u r e r e p r e -

s e n t e d a s e pa r a t e p r opos i t i on ( e . g . , a "h i t " - c ha r a c t e r i z i ng ge s -

t u r e f o ll o w e d b y a " f a l r ' - c h a r a c t e r i z i n g g e s tu r e , u s e d t o c o m -

m e n t o n t he f a c t t ha t t he c h i l d ha d h i t t he t owe r [ a ct ~ ] a nd t he

t o w e r h a d f a ll e n [ a c t : ] ) . N o t e t h a t t h i s t y p e o f c h a r a c t e r iz i n g

+ c ha r a c t e r i z i ng s t r i ng , c onve y i ng a s i t doe s t wo p r opo s i t i ons

w i t h i n t h e b o u n d s o f a s i n g le s t r in g ( a s d e f i n e d b y t h e m o t o r i c

c r i t e r i a de s c r i be d a bo ve ) , s ugge s t s t ha t t he de a f c h i l d ' s s y s t e m

i s r e c u r s i ve ( a s y s t e m i n wh i c h a un i t c a n be u s e d t o de r i ve, by

r u l e s o f t he s y s t e m, a l onge r s tr i ng t ha t c o n t a i n s t h e o r i g i na l

u n i t ) . R e c u r s i o n i s a c e n t r a l c o m p o n e n t o f al l n a t u r a l l a n g u ag e s

a nd g ive s la ngua ge i t s ge ne r a ti ve c a pa c i t y . The s e c ond t yp e we r e

s t ri n g s i n w h i c h t h e t w o c h a r a c t e r i z i n g g e s t u re s w e r e p a r t o f t h e

s a m e p r opos i t i on , w i t h one ge s t u r e r e p r e s e n t i ng t he ve r b o f the

p r o p o s i t io n a n d t h e o t h e r r e p r es e n t i n g a n o u n w i t h i n t h a t s a m e

pr opo s i t i on ( e .g . , a n " e a t " - c h a r a c t e r i z i ng ge s t u r e f o l l owe d by a

"g i ve " - c h a r a c t e r i z i ng ge s tu r e , u s e d t o r e que s t t ha t a t oy g r a pe ,

wh i c h wa s i n f a c t i ne d i b l e , be g i ven t o t he c h i l d who t he n t h r e w

t he g r a pe r a t he r t ha n e a t i ng i t ) . I n t h i s i n s t a nc e , t he " e a t " ge s -

t u r e w a s u s e d t o i d e n t i fy a n o b j e c t a n d t h u s a p p e a r e d t o b e p l a y -

i ng a noun l i ke r o l e i n t he s t r i ng ( s e e Go l d i n - Me a dow e t a l . ,

1 9 9 4 , f o r e vi d e n c e t h a t n o u n a n d v e r b u s e s o f c h a r a c te r i z in gge s t u r e s a r e d i s t i ngu i s he d w i t h i n t he d e a f c h i l d ' s ge s t u r e s ) .

Gesture strings are structured. T h e d e a f c h i l d r e n ' s g e s tu r e

s t r i ngs s ha r e d s e ve ra l s t r uc t u r a l p r ope r t i e s w i t h e a r l y s e n t e nc e s

i n c h i l d l a ngua ge a nd , on t h i s ba s i s , wa r r a n t t he l a be l " s e n -

t e n c e ." F o r e x a m p l e , a l t h o u g h t h e c h i l d r e n d i d n o t p r o d u c e g e s -

t u r e s f o r a ll o f t he pos s i b l e t he ma t i c r o l e s t ha t c ou l d be c on -

ve ye d wi t h i n a s e n t e nc e , t he y we r e no t ha p ha z a r d i n t he i r s e le c -

t i o n o f w h i c h r o l es t o c o n v e y i n g e s t ur e . T h e c h i l d r e n w e r e m o r e

l i ke l y t o p r oduc e a ge s t u r e f o r t he pa t i e n t ( e . g . , c he e s e ) i n a

s e n t e n c e a b o u t e a t i n g t h a n t o p r o d u c e a g e s t u r e f o r t h e a c t o r

( e . g . , mous e ) . I n a dd i t i on , t he c h i l d r e n p r oduc e d ge s t u r e s f o r

t he i n t r a ns i ti ve a c t o r (e . g ., t he m ous e i n a s e n t e nc e de s c r i b i ng a

m o u s e r u n n i n g t o h i s h o l e ) as o f t e n a s t h e y p r o d u c e d g e s t u r e s

f o r the pa t i e n t ( e . g. , t he c he e s e i n a s e n t e nc e de s c r i b i ng a m ous e

e a t in g c h e e s e ) a n d f a r m o r e o f t e n t h a n t h e y p r o d u c e d g e s tu r e s

f o r t he t r a ns i ti ve a c t o r ( e .g . , t he mo us e i n a s e n t e nc e de s c r i b i ng

a m ous e e a t i ng c he e s e ) . I n t h i s wa y , t he l i ke l i hood o f p r od uc -

t i on s e r ve d t o d i s t i ngu i s h a mo ng t he m a t i c r o l e s .

A s a s e c o n d e x a m p l e o f st r u c t u r e , t h e c h i l d r e n a l s o d is t in -

g u i s h e d a m o n g t h e t h e m a t i c r o l e s th e y d i d e x p r e s s b y p l a c in g

t he ge s t u r e f o r a g i ven r o l e i n a pa r t i c u l a r p os i t i on i n a ge s t u r e

s t r i ng ; t ha t i s , t he ge s t u r e s t he c h i l d r e n p r oduc e d wi t h i n t he i r

s t r i n g s w e r e n o t p r o d u c e d i n h a p h a z a r d o r d e r b u t r a t h e r a p -

pe a r e d t o f o l l ow a s m a l l s e t o f ge s t u r e o r de r r e gu l a r i t i e s

( G o l d i n - M e a d o w , 1 9 7 9 ; G o l d i n - M e a d o w & M y l an d e r, 1 9 8 4 ) .

Ge s t u r e o r d e r r e gu l a r i ti e s de s c r i be whe r e t he ge s t u r e f o r a pa r -

t i t u l a r t he m a t i c r o l e i s li ke l y t o a p pe a r i n a ge s t u r e s t r ing . Fo re xa mp l e , ge s t u r e s f o r a n ob j e c t p l a y i ng t he pa t i e n t r o l e t e nde d

t o p r e c e d e g e s tu r e s f o r t h e a c t ; f o r e x a m p l e , t o c o m m e n t o n t h e

f a c t t h a t h e i n t e n d e d t o t h r o w a t o y g r a p e, o n e c h i l d p r o d u c e d

t h e s tr i n g " g r a p e t h r o w " w a p o i n t i n g g e s tu r e f o r t h e p a t ie n t

( g r a p e ) f o ll o w e d b y a c h a r a c t e r iz i n g g e s t u r e f o r th e a c t ( t h r o w ) .

A s a s e c o n d e x a m p l e , g e s t u re s f o r t h e a c t t e n d e d t o p r e c e d e g e s -

t u r e s f o r a n ob j e c t p l a y i ng t he r o l e o f r e c i p i e n t o r goa l ; f o r e x -

a m p l e , t o r e q u e s t t h a t a n o b j e c t b e m o v e d t o t h e t a b le , a c h i l d

p r o d u c e d t h e s t ri n g " t r a n s f e r t a b l e " - - a c h a r a c t e r i z in g g e s t u re

f o r the a c t ( t r a n s f e r ) f o l l owe d by a po i n t i ng ge s t u r e f o r t he r e -

c i p i e n t ( t a b l e ) . F i na l ly , ge s t u re s f o r a n ob j e c t p l a y i ng t he r o l e o f

pa t i e n t t e n de d t o p r e c e d e ge s t u r e s f o r t he ob j e c t p l a y i ng t he r o l e

o f re c i p ie n t ; f o r e x a m p l e , t o c o m m e n t o n t h e f a c t t h a t a t o y

duc k ha d be e n ha nde d t o h i s s i s t e r , a c h i l d p r oduc e d t he s t r i ng

" d u c k s i s t e r " - - a p o i n t i n g g e st u r e fo r t h e p a t i e n t ( d u c k ) f o l-

l owe d by a po i n t i ng ge s t u r e f o r t he r e c i p i e n t ( s i s t e r ) .

T h u s , w h e n t h e c h i l d r e n p r o d u c e d g e s tu r e s f o r t h e p a t i e n t,

a c t , o r r e c i p i e n t w i t h i n a s i ng l e s t r i ng , t he y t e nde d t o p r oduc e

t he s e ge s t u r e s a c c o r d i n g t o t he f o l l owi ng o r de r :

ge s t u r e s t r i ng -- ~ pa t i e n t - a c t - r e c i p i e n t .

I n s u m m a r y , t h e d e a f c h il d r e n c o n j o i n e d t h e g e s t u r e s th e y

p r o d u c e d i n t o s t ri n g s c h a r a c t e r iz e d b y g e s t u r e o r d e r r e g u l a ri -

t i e s a s we ll a s by l i ke l i hood o f p r o duc t i on r e gu l a r it i e s . Th e ge s -

t u r e s t ri n g s c o u l d t h e re f o r e b e s a i d t o c o n f o r m t o a s y n t a x , a l-

be i t a s i mp l e one .

Gestures are themselves composed o f parts. T h e d e a f c h il -

d r e n ' s g e s t u r e s n o t o n l y f o r m e d p a r t s o f lo n g e r s e n t e n c e u n i t s

b u t t h e y t h e m s e l v e s w e r e m a d e u p o f s m a l l e r p a r ts . F o r e x a m -

p l e, t o r e q u e s t t h e e x p e r i m e n t e r t o l a y a p e n n y d o w n f i a t o n a

t o y , o n e d e a f c h i l d p r o d u c e d a d o w n w a r d m o t i o n w i t h h i s h a n ds ha p e d l i ke a n O . I n i t s e l f t h i s c ou l d be a g l oba l ge s t u r e p r e s e n t -

i n g t h e s h a p e a n d t r a j e c t o r y as a n u n a n a l y z e d w h o l e . T h e e x -

p e r i m e n t e r p r e t e n d e d n o t t o u n d e r s t a n d a n d , a f t er s ev e ra l r e p e -

t i ti ons , t he c h i l d f a c t o r e d t he ge s t u r e i n t o i t s c om pon e n t s : F i r s t

he s t a ti c a l l y he l d up t he ge s t u r e f o r a r ou nd ob j e c t ( t he O h a nd

s h a p e ) a n d t h e n , q u i t e d e l i b er a te l y a n d w i t h h i s h a n d n o l o n g e r

i n t h e O s h a p e b u t e x h i b i ti n g a f l at p a l m , m a d e t h e t r a j e c t o r y

f o r d o w n w a r d m o v e m e n t . T h e o r i g i n a l g e s t u re w a s t h u s d e c o m -

p o s e d i n t o t w o e l e m e n t s . T h i s e x a m p l e i m p l i e s t h e p r e s e n c e o f

a s y s t e m o f l i ng u i s ti c s e g m e n t s i n w h i c h t h e c o m p l e x m e a n i n g

o f " r o u n d + t h i n g + m o v i n g + d o w n w a r d " is b r o k e n i n to c o m -

p o n e n t s a n d t h e c o m p o n e n t s c o m b i n e d i n t o a ge s tu r e . T h e e x -

p e r i m e n t e r ' s f e i g n e d la c k o f u n d e r s t a n d i n g m a y h a v e b e e n i n -

s t r um e n t a l i n ge t t ing t he c h i l d t o f a c t o r h is ge s t u r e i n t o p a r t s a tt ha t pa r t i c u l a r mome n t . Howe ve r , t he po i n t we s t r e s s he r e i s

t ha t , whe n t he ge s t u r e wa s b r oke n i n t o pa r t s , t hos e pa r t s c on -

f o r m e d t o a w i d e r s y s te m , o n e t h a t a c c o u n t e d f o r th e v a s t m a -

j o r i t y o f g e s t u re s p r o d u c e d b y t h i s p a r t i c u l a r c h i ld ( G o l d i n -

M e a d o w & M y l a n d e r, 1 9 9 0 b ) . T h u s , t h e d e a f c h i l d ' s g e s t u r e s - -

u n l i k e t h e s p o n t a n e o u s g e s t i c u la t i o ns o f h e a r i n g a d u l t s a n d c h i l-

d r e n - a r e t h em s e l ve s c o m p o s e d o f s im p l e r ge s tu r e e le m e n t s ?

T h e p a r t i c u l a r c o m b i n a t i o n d e s c r i b e d a b o v e w a s o n e a m o n g

m a n y i n t he de a f c h i l d ' s ge s t u r e s y s t e m, f o r inde e d t h i s c h i l d , a s

we ll a s 3 o t he r s whos e ge s t u r e s ha ve be e n a na l yz e d f o r c om po -

n e n t s , h a d e a c h d e v i s e d a m o r p h o l o g i c a l s y s t e m ( G o l d i n -

Me a dow & Myl a nde r , 1990b ; Go l d i n - Me a dow, Myl a nde r , &

Bu t c he r , 1995 ) . Sys t e m a t i c c om pos i t i on a l i t y o f ge s t u r e s w i t h i n

3 It is possible that speakers who gesture in contexts in w hich speech

is present bu t no t fully audible would demonstrate a similar process offactoring their gestures as they sp eak --for exam ple, in Tim es Square at

the height o f the N ew Year 's Eve frenzy. However, we suspect that, b e-cause of the t ightly timed arrangement that gesture maintains w ith thespeech it accompanies (cf. Kita, 1993; McN eill, 1992 , speakers in sucha situation w ould factor their gestures into component parts only if theyalso factored their speech into parts ( or if they gave up and stoppedtalking altogether).




a system of contrasts is crucial evidence of segmentation and

combination.

As an example of how this child combined the components

in his gestures to contrast with one another, the fist hand shape

(a component representing "narrow, long objects" in the child's

system) was frequently combined with a short arc motion (a

component meaning "reposition"). The meaning of the fist +

short arc combination was a composite of the meanings of its

component parts--"reposition a narrow, long object" (used,

for example, to describe pulling out a newspaper). When the

same fist hand shape was combined with a different mot ion, an

arc to-and-fro (meaning "move back and forth"), the meaning

of this new fis t + arc to-and-fro combination reflected the

changed motion and the constant hand shapeR"move back and

forth a narrow, long object" (used to describe waving a balloon

string back and forth). The child's gestures can therefore be

said to conform to a paradigm or system of contrasts.

The gesture systems of 4 children have been analyzed at this

level and, although similar in many respects, were sufficiently

different to suggest that the children had introduced relatively

arbitrary distinctions into their systems. For example, in con-

trast to the first child who used the fist hand shape to representnarrow and long objects, 2 o f the other children used the same

hand shape to represent objects that were also narrow but could

be of any length (Goldin-Meadow et al., 1995). However, all of

the children produced gestures that could be characterized by

paradigms of hand shape and motion combinations. Thus, each

child was found to use a limited set of discrete hand shape and

motion forms--that is, the forms were categorical rather than

continuous; to consistently associate each hand shape or mot ion

form with a particular meaning (or set of meanings) throughout

the corp us- -that is, each form was meaningful (and, in this

sense, the children's hand shape and motion units formed part

of a morphological, as opposed to a phonological, system); and

to produce most o f the hand shapes with more than one motion

and most of the motions with more than one hand shape- -tha t

is, each hand shape and motion was an independent and mean-

ingful morpheme that could combine with other morphemes in

the system to create larger meaningful units (the system was

combinatorial).

The chi ldren's ges tures are dif ferent f ro m their hearing moth-

ers" gestures. Despite their limited access to a conventional

linguistic model, the deaf children were found to elaborate a

gestural communication system that was linear and segmented.

Nevertheless, even if the deaf child is not making use of a con-

ventional language model, it is possible that the child's hearing

parents are responsible for the form of the child' s gestures. In

an effort to communicate, the hearing parents of hese deaf chil-

dren might have spontaneously generated segmented and com-binatorial gestures that their children then learned.

However, in an analysis of the syntactic structure of gestures

produced by six hearing mother-de af child pairs, Goldin-

Meadow and Mylander (1983, 1984) found that the hearing

mothers produced very few gesture strings and the gesture

strings that they did produce either were not structured or

were structured differently from their children's gesture

strings. To determine whether the deaf children used the spon-

taneous gestures their hearing parents produced as a model

for their own morphological systems, Goldin-Meadow and her

colleagues (Goldin-Meadow & Mylander, 1990b; Goldin-

Meadow et al., 1995) coded the gestures each mother pro-

duced within the framework of the morphological system de-

veloped by her child. Each mother was found to use her ges-

tures in a more restricted way than her child, omitting many

of the morphemes that the child produced (or using the ones

she did produce more narrowly than the child) and omitting

completely many of the hand shape /motion combinations that

the child produced. In addition, the mothers' gestures were

analyzed with the same tools used to analyze the children's

gestures; that is, the mother's gestures were treated as a system

unto itself. However, the resulting systems for the mothers did

not capture thei r children 's gestures well at all. Moreover, the

differences t hat were found across the children 's systems could

not be traced to their mothers' systems.

W hy were t he gest ures o f mo t her and ch i l d so d i ff erent ? The

deaf children's gestures were structured in languagelike ways

(both syntactic and morphologic) despite the fact that their

hearing mothers' gestures were not. Why was there so little in

common between the gesture systems of mother and child? One

might have expected that because they interact with one an-

other on a daily basis, mother and child would develop gesturesystems that resemble one another. They did not.

We suggest that the hearing mothers' gestures and the deaf

children's gestures were structured so differently because the

hearing mothers produced gestures for a very different purpose

than did the deaf children (cf. Goldin-Meadow, 1993). The deaf

children used gesture as their sole means of communication;

thus, their gestures were forced to assume the full burden of

communicat ion. In contrast, the hearing mothers rarely ges-

tured without speaking (not surprisingly, given that the mothers

were committed to teaching their children spoken English);

thus, their gestures were all produced along with speech and

served a role in relation to that speech, which itself assumed the

primary burden of communication. In fact, the gestures that

the hearing mothers produced appeared to be no different from

the gestures that hearing individuals typically use with speech

(Bekken, Goldin-Meadow, & Dymkowski, 1990).

As we have argued above, the gestures that hearing individu-

als produce along with speech form an integrated system with

that speech; it is only when analyzed without speech (i.e., when

coded with the sound turned off) that these gestures appear to

be unsystematic. Thus, we suggest that because the gestures

produced by the deaf children's hearing mothers formed an in-

tegrated system with their speech and were constrained by that

speech, those gestures were not "free" to assume the lan-

guagelike qualities of their deaf children's gestures. One might

suspect that if the mothers merely refrained from speaking as

they gestured, their gestures might have become more lan-guagelike in structure, assuming the segmented and combina-

torial form also found in the children's gestures. The next sec-

tion constitutes an experimental test of this prediction.

Gesture With and Without Speech: An Experimental

Manipulation

We have shown that the manual modality, when it is used to

accompany speech, does not take on the segmented and hierar-

chical combinatorial form that is characteristic of language.



G R A M M A T I C A L E X P R ES S IO N I N T H E M A N U A L M O D A L I T Y 4 1

T h e m a n u a l m o d a l i t y c a n , h o w ev e r, a s s u m e t h i s f o r m , a n d i t

d o e s s o w h e n i t s e rv e s a s a p r i m a r y c o m m u n i c a t i o n s y s t e m , a s

i n t h e c o n v e n t i o n a l s i g n l a n g u ag e s o f t h e d e a f o r t h e i d i o s y n -

c r a t i c g e s t u r e s y s t e m s u s e d b y d e a f c h i l d r e n o f h e a r i n g p a r e n t s

w h o u s e g e s t u r e a s t h e i r s o l e m e a n s o f c o m m u n i c a t i o n . T h e s e

f i n di n g s s u g g es t t h a t c o m b i n a t o r i a l s t r u c t u r e a t m o r e t h a n o n e

l e v e l ( i . e . , w i t h i n - w o r d a n d a c r o s s - w o r d s t r u c t u r e ) i s f u n d a -

m e n t a l t o h u m a n l a n g u a g e - - s o f u n d a m e n t a l t h a t i t w il l a r i s e in

h u m a n l a n g u a g e s t h a t a r e p r o d u c e d i n a n o t h e r m o d a l i t y , t h e

m a n u a l m o d a l i t y , e v e n i n t h o s e m a n u a l s y s t e m s d e v e l o p e d w i t h -

o u t a c c e ss t o a c o n v e n t i o n a l l a n g u a g e m o d e l . 4 T h u s , h i e r a r c h i -

c a l c o m b i n a t o r i a l s t r u c t u r e i s n o t f o r c e d o n l a n g u a g e b y t h e

m o d a l i t y in w h i c h i t i s p r o d u c e d , n o r i s i t m a i n t a i n e d a s a u n i -

v e r sa l p r o p e r t y o f l a n g u a g e s o l e ly b y h i s t o r i c a l t r a d i t io n .

W e e x p l o r e h e r e t h e h y p o t h e s i s t h a t s e g m e n t e d a n d h i e r a r c h i -

c a l c o m b i n a t o r i a l s t r u c t u r e w i l l a r i s e s p o n t a n e o u s ly , a t l e a s t i n

t h e m a n u a l m o d a l i t y , w h e n g e s t u r e i s r e q u i r e d t o c a r r y t h e p r i -

m a r y b u r d e n o f c o m m u n i c a t i o n , b u t n o t w h e n g e s t u re i s us e d

i n r e l a t i o n t o s p e e c h . T o t e s t t h is h y p o t h e s i s , w e c o n d u c t e d a n

e x p e r i m e n t i n w h i c h h e a r i n g a d u l t s w e r e a s k e d t o d e s c r i b e a

s e r ie s o f sc e n e s w i th a n d w i t h o u t s p e e c h . W e p r e d i c t e d t h a t t h e

g e s t u re s th e a d u l t s w o u l d p r o d u c e w i t h o u t s p e e c h w o u l d b e s e g -m e n t e d a n d h i e r a r c h i c a l l y c o m b i n a t o r i a l a n d , a s s u c h , w o u l d

b e d i s t i n c t f r o m t h e g e s t u re s th e s e s a m e a d u l t s w o u l d p r o d u c e

w h e n t h e y d e s c r i b e d t h e s c e n e s v e r b al l y .

The S t imulus for a S tu dy o f Ges ture With and WithoutSpeech

T o e x p l o r e th e w a y i n w h i c h i n d i v i d u a l s u se g e s t u r e w i t h a n d

w i t h o u t s p e e c h , w e n e e d e d a s t i m u l u s t h a t w o u l d e v o k e c o m -

m u n i c a t i o n u n d e r b o t h c o n d i t i o n s . W e c h o s e t o u s e t h e V e r b s o f

M o t i o n P r o d u c t i o n ( V M P ) t e s t d e v e l o p e d b y S u p a l l a ( 1 9 8 2 ;

s e e a l s o S u p a l l a e t a l . , i n p r e s s ) t o a s s es s k n o w l e d g e o f v e r b s o f

m o t i o n i n n a t i v e A S L s i g n e rs . T h i s t e s t is c o m p o s e d o f a s e ri e s

o f u n r e l a t e d s c e n e s i n w h i c h s m a l l o b j e c t s m o v e a c r o s s s p a c e .

T h e t e s t i n v o l v e s n o c o n v e n t i o n a l l a n g u a g e ( i . e . , n e i t h e r s i g n

n o r s p e e c h ) a n d t h u s c o u l d e a s i l y b e a d a p t e d f o r u s e w i t h i n d i -

v i d u a l s w h o a r e n o t f a m i l i a r w i t h A S L , a n d c o u l d b e u s e d t o

e l i c i t g e s t u r e w i t h o u t s p e e c h a s w e l l a s g e s t u r e w i t h s p e e c h . W e

b e g i n w i t h a d e s c r i p t i o n o f t h e s t r u c t u r e o f v er b s o f m o t i o n i n

A S L i n g e n e r a l , a n d t h e V M P t e s t i n p a r t i c u l a r .

Verbs of motion in ASL. R e s e a rc h o n s t e m - f o r m a t i o n p r o -

c e s se s h a s f o u n d A S L t o b e c o m p a r a b l e t o t h o s e s p o k e n l a n -

g u a g e s t h a t a r e m o r p h o l o g i c a l l y q u i t e c o m p l e x . T h i s r e s e a r c h

h a s f o c u s e d o n s i g n s t h a t a r e h i g h l y m i m e t i c i n f o r m ( a s c o n -

t r a s t e d w i t h t h e " f r o z e n " s i g n s o f A S L t h a t a r e l i s t ed i n A S L

d i c t i o n a r i e s a s s i n g l e - m o r p h e m e s t e m s ) . M i m e t i c s i g n s i n A S L

w e r e o r i g i n a l ly t h o u g h t t o b e b u i l t o n a n a n a l o g u s e o f m o v e -m e n t a n d s p a c e i n w h i c h m o v e m e n t i s m a p p e d i n a c o n t i n u o u s

r a t h e r t h a n a d i s c r e t e f a s h i o n ( C o h e n , N a m i r , & S c h l e s i n g e r ,

1 9 77 ; D e M a t t e o , 1 9 7 7 ) . I n o t h e r w o r d s , m i m e t i c s i g n s w e r e

t h o u g h t n o t t o b e d i v is i b l e i n t o c o m p o n e n t p a r t s , b u t r a t h e r

w e r e c o n s i d e r ed u n a n a l y z a b l e l e x i c a l i t e m s t h a t m a p p e d , a s

w h o l e s , o n t o e v e n t s i n t h e w o r l d ( a n d , a s s u c h , w o u l d h a v e b e e n

c o m p a r a b l e t o t h e g e s tu r e s t h a t a c c o m p a n y s p e e c h ) . H o w e v e r,

m o r e r e c e n t r e s e a r c h h a s sh o w n t h e s e m i m e t i c s i g n s t o b e c o m -

p o s e d o f c o m b i n a t i o n s o f a l i m i t e d s e t o f d i sc r e t e m o r p h e m e s

( M c D o n a l d , 1 9 8 2 ; N e w p o r t , 1 9 8 1 ; S c h i c k , 1 9 8 7 , 1 9 9 0 ; S u -

p a l l a , 1 9 8 2 ) . F o r e x a m p l e , t o d e s c r i b e a d r u n k ' s w e a v i n g w a l k

d o w n a p a t h , a n A S L s i g n e r w o u l d n o t r e p r e s e n t t h e i d i o s y n -

c r a s ie s o f t h e d r u n k ' s p a r t i c u l a r m e a n d e r i n g s , b u t w o u l d i n -

s t e a d u se a c o n v e n t i o n a l m o r p h e m e r e p r e s e n t i n g r a n d o m

m o v e m e n t ( i .e . , a s id e - t o - s id e m o t i o n ) i n c o n j u n c t i o n w i t h a

c o n v e n t i o n a l m o r p h e m e r e p r e s e n t i n g c h a n g e o f l o c a t i o n .

The VMP test. N e w p o r t a n d S u p a l l a ( 1 9 9 2 ; N e w p o r t ,

1 9 9 0 ) h av e s h o w n t h a t v e r b s o f m o t i o n i n A S L c o n t a i n a s m a n ya s s ix s i m u l t a n e o u s l y p r o d u c e d m o r p h e m e s a f f ix e d o n a s i n g l e

v e r b s t e m . S u p a l l a ( 1 9 8 2 ) d e s i g n e d t h e V M P t e s t t o e x p l o r e t h e

t y p e s o f m o r p h e m e s t h a t c o n s t it u t e t he p r i m a r y m o r p h o l o g y o f

A S L v e r b s o f m o t i o n ( f i ve m o t i o n a n d l o c a t i o n a n d t w o h a n d

s h a p e m o r p h e m e s ) . E v e r y A S L v e r b o f m o t i o n r e q u ir e s a t l ea s t

a c e n t r a l o b j e c t h a n d s h a p e m o r p h e m e ( i n d i c a t i n g t h e c l a ss o f

t h e o b j e c t t h a t i s m o v i n g , i . e ., i ts c a t e g o r y [ e . g . , a h u m a n o r a

v e h i c le ] o r i t s s h a p e [ e . g. , r o u n d o r s t r a i g h t ] ) a n d a r o o t m o t i o n

m o r p h e m e ( i n d i c a t i n g t h e t y p e o f p a t h t r a v e r s e d b y t h e m o v i n g

o b j e c t ; e . g. , a l i n e a r p a t h , a n a r c e d p a t h , o r a c i r c l e ) . F o r e x a m -

p l e, t h e r o o t m o r p h e m e " l i n e a r p a t h " ( r e p r e s en t i n g c ha n g e o f

l o c a t i o n al o n g a s t r a ig h t p a t h ) c a n b e c o m b i n e d w i t h o n e o f

m a n y p o s s i b l e c e n t r a l o b j e c t m o r p h e m e s r e p r e s e n t i n g t h e m o v -

i n g o b j e c t (e . g ., b e n t V = a s m a l l a n i m a l ; t h u m b p o i n t i n g u p

w i t h t h e i n d e x a n d m i d d l e f in g e rs e x t e n d e d = a v e h i c l e ) . T h e s e

c o m b i n a t i o n s c r e a t e a s e t o f s i g n s f o r w h i c h t h e m e a n i n g s a r e

p r e d i c t a b l e f r o m t h e m e a n i n g s o f t h e i n d i v i d u a l m o t i o n a n d

h a n d s h a p e m o r p h e m e s ( i . e ., a s m a l l a n i m a l m o v e s a l o n g a

s t r a i g h t p a t h o r a v e h i c l e m o v e s a lo n g a s t r a i g h t p a t h ) . A l o n g

w i t h t h e r o o t a n d c e n t r a l o b j e c t m o r p h e m e s t h a t a r e r e q u i s i t e

i n e v e r y v e rb o f m o t i o n , t h e v e r b m a y a l s o c o n t a i n a m o r p h e m e

f o r a s e c o n d a r y o b j e c t . F o r e x a m p l e , i f t h e v e h i c l e h a n d s h a p e

w e r e a d d e d t o t h e r o o t a n d c e n t r a l o b j e c t m o r p h e m e s i n t h e

p r e v i o u s e x a m p l e , t h e r e s u l t i n g m e a n i n g w o u l d b e " a s m a l l a n -

i m a l m o v e s a l o n g a s t r a ig h t p a t h i n r e l a t i o n t o a v e h i c le . "

T h e V M P t e s t is c o m p o s e d o f 1 2 0 s h o r t- f i l m e d e v e n t s o f t o y

p e o p l e a n d o b j e c t s t h a t m o v e i n. v a r y i n g p a t h s a n d m a n n e r s o f

m o t i o n ; f o r e x a m p l e , a d o l l u m p i n g i n t o a h o o p o r a r o b o t m o v -

i n g p a s t a m o t o r c y c l e . T h e t e s t i t e m s a r e e a c h c o n s t r u c t e d t o

e l i c i t a s i n g l e v e r b o f m o t i o n .

4 Although the dea f children in Goldin-M eadow 'sstudies were devel-

oping their gesture systems without direct access to a usable conven-

t ional language model , they were using their gestures to com mun icate

with hearing individuals who did have knowledge of a conventional lan-

guage. The hearing parents o f the dea f children m ight have select ively

reinforced part icular gestural c omb inations that the ir chi ldren began

using on a t r ial-an d-error basis . I f so, the s tructure found in the dea f

children 's gestures would be at tr ibu table to the children 's hearing par-ents (who did have a conventional language) and not to the ch ildren

(who d id n o t have such a m ode l ) . However, in a s tu dy o f s ix moth er -

child dyads, Goldin-M eadow and Mylander (1983, 1984) found that

the hearing m others did n ot respon d to their dea f chi ldren 's gesturestrings on the basis of the o rder in w hich the gestures in tho se strings

were produced. Th e m others were as l ikely to respond to s trings that

conform ed to the child 's predom inant gesture order pat tern as they were.

to respon d to s tr ings that did no t conform to this pat tern. These f indings

suggest tha t m aterna l responsiveness, and th us a conventional language

mode l by proxy, was not shaping the s tructural pat terns found in thedeaf children 's gestures.



4 2 G O L D I N - M E A D O W , M c N E I L L , A N D S I N G L E T O N

Method

Participants and procedure. Si x t e e n h e a r i n g a d u l t s p a r t i c i p a t e d i n

t h e s tu dy . N o n e o f t h e h e a r i n g p a r t i c i p a n ts h a d k n o w l e d ge o f A S L o r

a n y o t h e r s i g n l a n g u a g e . Th e a d u l t s w e re a l l s t u d e n t s a t t h e U n i v e rs i t y

o f C h i c a g o a n d w e r e r e c r u i t e d t h r o u g h s i g n - up s h e e t s d i s tr i b u t e d i n

p sy c h o lo g y c la s se s o r p o s t e d i n v a r i o u s c a m p u s b u i l d i n g s . We p re s e n t e d

e a c h p a r t i c i p a n t w i t h 4 0 s e g m e n t s f r o m t h e V M P t e s t se l e c te d s o t h a t

h a l f c o n t a i n e d a s i n g le m o v i n g o b j e c t a n d h a l f c o n t a i n e d o n e o b j e c t

mo v i n g in re l a t i o n t o a s e c o n d o b j e c t . Th e t e s t wa s a d m i n i s t e re d b y t h e

s a m e e x p e r i m e n t e r ( J e n n y S i n g l e to n ) f o r a l l p a r ti c i p a n t s i n a q u i e t

r o o m a t t h e U n i v e r s it y o f C h i c a g o a n d w a s v i d e o ta p e d . E a c h p a r t i ci -

p a n t w a s f ir s t a s k e d t o v i e w t h e s e g m e n t s a n d d e s c r i b e t h e m ; n o m e n t i o n

wa s ma d e o f g e s t u re fo r t h i s f ir s t p a s s t h ro u g h t h e se g me n t s , a l t h o u g h i t

wa s a n t i c i p a t e d t h a t g e s t u r i n g wo u l d o c c u r sp o n t a n e o u s l y ( t h e g e s t u re

+ sp e e c h c o n d i t i o n ) . Th e p a r t i c i p a n t wa s t h e n a sk e d t o v i e w t h e se g -

m e n t s a g a i n , t h i s t i m e u s i n g g e s t u re a n d n o s p e e c h t o d e p i c t w h a t h a p -

p e n e d i n e a c h s e g m e n t ( t h e g e s t ur e c o n d i t i o n ) .

Coding the form of individual gestures. Th e v a s t ma j o r i t y o f g e s -

t u r e s p r o d u c e d i n b o t h c o n d i t i o n s w e re i c o n i c. T h e o c c a s io n a l m e t a -

p h o r i c g e s t u re o r b e a t p ro d u c e d i n t h e g e s t u re + sp e e c h c o n d i t i o n wa s

d e sc r i b e d b u t n o t i n c l u d e d i n fu r t h e r a n a ly se s . Ea c h o f t h e g e s t u re s p ro -

d u c e d i n t h e t w o c o n d i t i o n s w a s d e s c r ib e d a l o n g t w o d i m e n s i o n s u s i n g

c a t e g o r i e s e s t a b l i sh e d b y Su p a l l a ( 1 9 8 2 ) : t h e sh a p e o f t h e h a n d a n dt h e t r a j e c to r y o f t h e m o t i o n . F o r e x a m p l e , t o d e s c r ib e a c i r c l e m o v i n g

d i a g o n a l l y a c ro ss t h e v i d e o sc re e n , o n e p a r t i c i p a n t sh a p e d h i s i n d e x

f i n ge r a n d t h u m b i n t o a c i rc l e a n d mo v e d t h e c i rc l e f ro m t h e l e f t, a t

wa i s t le v el , u p a n d a c ro ss t o t h e r i g h t , a t e y e l ev e l. Th e h a n d s h a p e w a s

c o n s i de r e d a n O a n d t h e m o t i o n w a s c o n s i d e re d a l i n e a r p a t h .

W e r e l ie d o n c h a n g e s i n t h e s h a p e o f t h e h a n d o r i n t h e t r a j e c t o r y o f

t h e m o t i o n t o d e t e r m i n e w h e t h e r a p a r t i c u l a r h a n d s h a p e a n d m o t i o n

c o m b i n a t i o n f o r m e d a s i ng l e g e s tu r e ( a s i n t h e p r e c e d i n g e x a m p l e ) o r

t wo g e s t u re s . Fo r e x a mp l e , w h e n d e sc r i b i n g t h e c i rc l e mo v i n g a c ro ss t h e

v i d e o sc re e n , i f t h e p a r t i c i p a n t h e l d h i s O-sh a p e d h a n d i n sp a c e b u t ,

b e f o re m o v i n g h i s h a n d i n a l i n e a r p a th , c h a n g e d h i s h a n d s h a p e f r o m

a n O t o a n i n d e x f i n g e r p o i n t , we wo u l d a t t r i b u t e t o t h e p a r t i c i p a n t t wo

g e s tu r e s ( t h e O - h a n d h e l d i n s p a c e a n d t h e p o i n t m o v e d i n a l i n e a r p a t h )

r a t h e r t h a n o n e .

Coding strings of gestures. I f m o r e t h a n o n e g e s t u re w a s p r o d u c e dt o d e sc r i b e a p a r t i c u l a r s c e n e , we d e t e rmi n e d wh e t h e r t h o se g e s t u re s

we re c o n n e c t e d i n t o a s t r i n g u s i n g t h e fo l l o wi n g c r i t e r i o n . Two g e s t u re s

we re c o n s i d e re d p a r t o f t h e sa m e g e s t u re s t r i n g i f t h e y we re c o n n e c t e d

b y a c o n t i n u o u s f lo w o f mo v e me n t . Two g e s t u re s we re c o n s i d e re d d i s -

t i n c t, e a c h c o m p r i s i n g it s o w n u n i t , i f t h e h a n d r e t r a c t e d o r r e l a x e d o r i f

t h e re wa s a p a u se l o n g e r t h a n o n e se c o n d b e t w e e n t h e t wo g e s t u re s . Fo r

e x a mp l e , i f t h e p a r t i c i p a n t h e l d a n O h a n d s h a p e i n p l a c e a t c h e s t l e ve l

a n d t h e n , w i t h o u t d r o p p i n g h i s h a n d o r p a u s i n g, m o v e d a p o i n t i n g h a n d

d i a g o n a l l y f ro m l e f t t o r i g h t , t h e t wo g e s t u re s wo u l d b e c o n s i d e re d t o

c o n s t i t u t e a g e s t u re s t r i n g . I f, h o we ve r , t h e p a r t i c i p a n t r e l a x e d h i s h a n d

b e fo re p ro d u c i n g t h e d i a g o n a l g e s t u re o r p a u se d fo r l o n g e r t h a n o n e

se c o n d t h e t wo g e s t u re s wo u l d b e c o n s i d e re d se p a ra t e u n i t s . Th e sa m e

c r i te r i a w e r e u s e d t o d e t e r m i n e g e s t u r e c o n n e c t e d n e s s i n b o t h c o n d i -

t i o n s . As a re su l t , wh e t h e r o r n o t t w o g e s t u re s we re p ro d u c e d a l o n g wi t h

a s i n g le sp o k e n c l a u se i n t h e g e s tu re + sp e e c h c o n d i t i o n d i d n o t c o n -t r i b u t e a t a l l t o o u r d e c i s i o n a s t o wh e t h e r t h o se t wo g e s t u re s we re c o n -

n e c t e d ; i n d e e d , we ma d e t h e se d e c i s i o n s wi t h t h e so u n d t u rn e d o f f.

Coding the meaning of individual gestures. In a d d i t i o n t o c o d i n g

d e c i s i o n s i n v o l v i n g t h e fo rm o f t h e g e s t u re , we a l so ma d e c o d i n g d e c i -

s i o n s in v o l v i n g m e a n i n g s a n d a t t r i b u t e d m e a n i n g t o e a c h o f t h e i c o n i c

g e s t u re s p ro d u c e d i n t h e t wo c o n d i t i o n s . We c o d e d t h e g e s t u re s i n t h e

g e s t u re + sp e e c h c o n d i t i o n wi t h t h e so u n d t u rn e d o f f, b u t , i n b o t h c o n -

d i t i o n s , we k n e w w h i c h sc e n e t h e p a r t i c i p a n t wa s d e sc r i b i n g a n d c o d e d

t h e g e s tu re s i n re l a t i o n t o t h a t s c e n e . Th re e se m a n t i c e l e me n t s a p p e a re d

i n t h e sc e n e s a n d c o u l d , i n p r i n c i p l e , b e c o n v e y e d g e s t u ra l l y - - t h e a c -

t i o n , t h e mo v i n g o b je c t , a n d t h e s t a t i o n a r y o b j e c t .

I f th e p a r t i c i p a n t p r o d u c e d a m o v e m e n t t h a t c a p t u r e d a n y a s p e c t o f

t h e m o t i o n p o r t r a y e d i n t h e s c e n e, t h e g e s t u r e w a s a s s u m e d t o r e p r e s e n t

t h e a c t i o n i n t h e sc e n e a n d w a s c o n se q u e n t l y l a b e l e d action. F o r e x a m -

p l e , if , t o d e s c r ib e a d o l t j u m p i n g i n t o a h o o p , t h e p a r t i c i p a n t a r c e d h e r

h a n d f r o m P o i n t 1 t o P o i n t 2 , t h e g e s t u r e w a s co n s i d e r ed a s y m b o l f o r

t h e m o t i o n a n d t h u s a n a c t i o n g e s tu r e .

A s d e s c r i b e d a b o v e, h a l f o f t h e s c e n e s s h o w n t o e a c h p a r t i c i p a n t i n -

v o l v e d a s i n g l e o b j e c t m o v i n g i n sp a c e (e .g . , a wi n d -u p t o y b i r d ro l l s

a c r o s s t h e s c r e e n ) , a n d h a l f n v o l v e d tw o o b j e c t s , o n e m o v i n g i n r e l a t i o nt o t h e o t h e r ( e .g . , a r o b o t m o v e s p a s t a m o t o r c y c l e ). F o r b o t h t h e o n e -

o b j e c t a n d t h e t w o - o b j e c t sc e n es , i f t h e p a r t i c i p a n t p r o d u c e d a g e s t u r e

t h a t c a p t u r e d a n a s p e c t o f t h e o b j e c t t h a t w a s m o v i n g i n t h e s c e n e , i t w a s

a s s u m e d t o r e p r e s e n t t h a t o b j e c t a n d w a s c o n s e q u e n t l y l a b el e d moving

object. Fo r e x a m p l e , i f , to d e sc r i b e a d o l l wi t h c u r l y h a i r wa l k i n g a c ro ss

t h e s c r e e n, t h e p a r t i c i p a n t m o v e d b o t h h a n d s i n c u r l l i k e sh a p e s a t t h e

s i d e o f h e r h e a d , t h a t g e s t u re wa s c o n s i d e re d t o b e a sy m b o l fo r t h e d o l l ,

a n d t h u s a m o v i n g o b j e c t g e s t u re .

F o r t h e t w o - o b j e c t sc e n es , i f t h e p a r t i c i p a n t p r o d u c e d a g e s t u r e t h a t

c a p t u r e d a n a s p e c t o f t h e o b j e c t th a t d i d n o t m o v e i n t h e s c e n e, i t w a s

a s s u m e d t o r e p r e s e n t t h a t o b j e c t a n d w a s c o n s e q u e n tl y l a b e le d station-

ary object. F o r e x a m p l e , i f, t o d e s c r i b e t h e d o l l j u m p i n g i n t o t h e h o o p ,

t h e p a r t i c i p a n t s h a p e d h i s i n d e x f in g e r a n d t h u m b i n t o a c i rc l e, h o l d i n g

t h e sh a p e a t c h e s t l e v e l, t h a t g e s t u re wa s c o n s i d e re d t o b e a sy mb o l fo r

t h e h o o p , a n d t h u s a s t a t i o n a r y o b j e c t g e s t u re .Coding object information incorporated into the action. A t t i m e s ,

t h e h a n d s h a p e o f t h e a c t i o n g e s t u r e p o r t r a y e d a n a s p e c t o f e i th e r t h e

m o v i n g o b j e c t o r t h e s t a t i o n a r y o b j e c t . F o r e x a m p l e , t o d e s c r i b e a c i r -

c l e m o v i n g d i a g o n al l y a c r o s s t h e s c r e e n , o n e p a r t i c i p a n t s h a p e d h e r

i n d e x f i n ge r a n d t h u m b i n t o a c i r c l e a n d m o v e d t h e c i r c l e f r o m l e f t to

r i g h t a n d u p w a r d . B e c a u s e i t c o n v e y e d t h e m o v e m e n t i n t h e s c e n e ,

t h e g e s t u r e w a s c o n s i d e r e d t o b e a n a c t i o n . H o w e v er , t h e g e s t u re d i d

i n c o r p o r a t e i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t t h e c i r c l e, t h e m o v i n g o b je c t , a n d w a s

c o n s e q u e n t l y c la s s if i e d a s a n a c t i o n t h a t h a d m o v i n g o b j e c t i n f o r m a -

t i o n i n c o r p o r a t e d i n t o i t s f o r m . A s a n e x a m p l e o f i n c o r p o r a t i o n o f

t h e s t a t i o n a r y o b j e c t , to d e s c r i b e t h e d o l l j u m p i n g i n t o a h o o p , o n e

p a r t i c i p a n t m o v e d h e r r i g h t i n d e x f i n g e r a c r o s s s p a c e a n d i n t o h e r l e f t

h a n d , s h a p e d a s a c i r c le . T h e g e s t u r e w a s c o n s i d e r e d t o b e a n a c t i o n

b u t , b e c a u s e i t c o n v e y e d i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t t h e c i r c le , t h i s t im e p l a y-

i n g t h e r o l e o f t h e s t a t i o n a r y o b j e c t , t h e a c t i o n g e s t u r e w a s c l a ss i f ie d a si n c o r p o r a t i n g t h e s t a t i o n a r y o b j e c t .

Reliabili ty of the coding decisions. C o d e r s w e r e t r a i n e d t o t r a n -

s c r i b e t h e f o r m a n d m e a n i n g o f t h e g e s t u r e s a c c o r d i n g t o a s y s t e m

a d a p t e d f r o m t w o s o u r c e s - - S u p a l l a ' s ( 1 9 8 2 ) s y s t e m f o r c o d i n g s i g n e d

l a n g u a g e s a n d M c Ne i l l ' s (1 9 9 2 ) sy s t e m fo r c o d i n g g e s t i c u l a t i o n . In -

t e rc o d e r re l i a b i l i t y wa s c a l c u l a t e d b e t we e n a p a i r o f c o d e rs b l i n d t o t h e

h y p o t h e se s o f t h e s t u d y o n a su b se t o f t h e d a t a . R e l i a b i l i ty wa s a s ses se d

se p a ra t e l y fo r t h e g e s tu re c o n d i t i o n a n d t h e g e s t u re + sp e e c h c o n d i t i o n .

Fo r d e sc r i b i n g t h e fo rm o f i n d i v i d u a l g e s t u re s ( i n c l u d i n g d e c i s i o n s

a b o u t w h e t h e r a h a n d s h a p e / m o t i o n c o m b i n a t io n f o r m e d o n e o r t w o

g e s t u re s ) , r e l i a b i l i t y wa s 8 5 % a g r e e m e n t i n t h e g e s t u re c o n d i t i o n a n d

8 0 % i n t h e g e s t u re + sp e e c h c o n d i t i o n . F o r d e c i d i n g wh e t h e r t wo g e s-

t u re s we re c o n n e c t e d i n t o a s t r i n g , r e l i a b i l it y wa s t 0 0 % i n t h e g e s t u re

c o n d i t i o n a n d 9 3 % i n t h e g e s t u re + sp e e c h c o n d i t i o n . Fo r c l a s s i fy in g a

g e s t u re a s e i t h e r a n a c t i o n , a mo v i n g o b j e c t, o r a s t a t i o n a ry o b j e c t , r e l i-a b i l i t y wa s 8 5 % i n t h e g e s t u re c o n d i t i o n a n d 1 0 0 % i n t h e g e s t u re +

sp e e c h c o n d i t i o n . F i n a l ly , fo r d e c i d i n g wh e t h e r a n a c t i o n i n c o rp o ra t e d

i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t a n o b j e c t i n t o i t s f o r m , r e l i a b il i ty w a s 9 8 % i n t h e

g e s t u re c o n d i t i o n a n d 1 0 0% i n t h e g e s t u re + sp e e c h c o n d i t i o n . Th e d a t a

we re a n a l y z e d u s i n g p a i re d t t es t s , c o m p a r i n g re sp o n se s i n t h e g e s t u re

c o n d i t i o n wi t h t h o se i n t h e g e s t u re + sp e e c h c o n d i t i o n .

Results

N o t s u r p r i s in g l y , p a r t i c i p a n t s w e r e m o r e l i k e ly t o p r o d u c e

m o r e g e s t u r e s i n t h e g e s t u r e c o n d i t i o n , i n w h i c h t h e y w e r e s p e -




Figure 1. The m ean propo rtion of semantic elements conveyed in the gesture + speech condition and the

gesture condition. The proportion for each semantic element reflects the number of responses that con-

rained a gesture for tha t sem antic element, divid ed by the tota l numb er of gestured responses in which th e

element could have been conveyed. In bo th conditions, partici pants produc ed gestures for a sizable propor-

tion of each of the three elements. S = stationa ry object; M = moving object; A = action. Th e error bars

reflect the sta ndard error.

c i f ica l ly inst ruc ted to do so , than in the gesture + speech condi-

t ion , in which gesture was not ment ioned in the task inst ruc-

t ions. The par t ic ipants pr oduc ed gestures for a ll 40 of the scenes

in the gesture condi t ion , bu t for only an average of 19 .4 of the

scenes in the gesture + speech condi t io n ( range f rom 8-37, SD

= 10.22). As a resu l t , the to ta l numb er o f gestures prod uced in

the gesture condi t ion (M = 96 .9 , SD = 47.6) was grea te r than

the to ta l number produced in the gesture + speech condi t ion

(M = 3 8 .6 , SD = 29.7) . However , in both the gesture and the

gesture + speech condi t ions, when par t ic ipants d id produ ce

gestures , they tended to pro duce m ore than one gesture (as op-

posed to just one) per response ; on average , par t ic ipants pro-

duced 2 .4 (SD = 1 .2) gestures per response in the gesture con-

di t ion and 1 .8 gestures per response (SD = 0 .54) in the gesture

+ speech condi t ion . Because par t ic ipants d id not pro duce ges-

tures for every scene in the gesture + speech condi t ion , and be-

cause we a re par t icu la r ly in te rested in com parison s of how par-

t ic ipants used the gestures they d id produce , we ana lyzed the

da ta in the gesture versus gesture + speech condi t ions as pro-

p o r t i o n s o f th e r e sp o n se s e ac h p a r t i c ip a n t p ro d u c e d th a t i n -

c luded gestures (see be low).

Sem antic elements conveyed in gesture. We b e g in b y e x a m-

in ing how of ten par t ic ipants conveyed in gesture each of the

th re e se ma n t i c e l e me n t s - - th e a c t io n , t h e mo v in g o b je c t , a n d

th e s t a t i o n a ry o b je c t - - i n t h e tw o c o n d i ti o n s . F ig u re 1 pre se n t sthe mean propor t ion of gestures for ac t ions, moving objec ts ,

and sta t ionary objec ts produced by par t ic ipants in the gesture

+ speech condi t ion and the gesture condi t ion . The proport ion

for each semant ic e lem ent re f lects the num ber of responses tha t

conta ined a gesture for tha t semant ic e lement , d iv ided by the

to ta l num ber o f responses in which the e lemen t could have been

conveyed. Thus, for the gesture condi t ion in which a l l par t ic i -

pants p rodu ced a t least some gestures in a l l 40 scenes, the de-

nom ina to r was 40 for the moving objec t and the ac t ion (becaus e

both a re involved in a l l 40 of the scen es-- the o ne-objec t scenes

as wel l as the two-objec t scenes) and 20 for the s ta t ionary objec t

(because they were involved only in the two-objec t scenes) . For

the gesture + speech condi t ion , the denomi na to r for each indi-

v id u a l d i ff e red a n d d e p e n d e d o n th e p a r t i c u l a r n u mb e r o f o n e -

objec t and two-objec t scenes for which tha t par t ic ipant pro-

duced any gestures a t a l l.

As can be seen in Figu re 1 , par t ic ip ants were very l ike ly to

represent the a c t ion in the i r gestures in both condi t ions; a l l o f

the responses in the gesture condi t ion conta ined ac t ions, as d id

84% of the gestured responses in the gesture + speech condi t ion .

The objec ts involved in the ac t ion were less f requent ly repre-

sented in gesture in b oth condi t ions, but s t i l l found fa i r ly of ten ;

52% and 63% o f the responses in the gesture condi t ion con-

ta ined gestures for moving objec ts and sta t ionary objec ts , re -

spect ively , as d id 30% and 49% of gestured respon ses in the ges-

ture + speech condi t ion , respect ively . Each o f the three sem an-

t ic e lements was more l ike ly to be ges tured in the gesture

condi t ion than in the gesture + speech condi t ion . This d i f fe r-

ence was significant for actions, t(1 5) = 3.53, p = .003, and

moving objec ts , t (15) = 2 .98 , p = .009, but not for s ta t ionary

objects, t(1 5) = 1.14, p = .27, n s. However, wh at is par ticu larl y

impressive is not the d i f fe rences be tween the two condi t ions but

the s imi la r i t ies . Par t ic ipants in both the gesture and the gesture

• + speech condi t ions used gesture to convey substant ive infor-

mat ion about the semant ic e lements in the scenes and, in bothcondi t ions, they d id so re la t ive ly f requently . Moreover , the pa t -

te rn of produc t ion was the same in the two condi t ions. Par t ic i -

pants in both the gesture and the gesture + speech condi t ions

p ro d u c e d mo re g e s tu re s fo r a c ti o n s t h a n fo r s t a t i o n ary o b je c t s

and more gestures for s ta t ionary objec ts than for moving ob-

jec ts . We next con sider the form tha t the gestures for these se -

ma n t i c e l e me n t s t o o k in t h e tw o c o n d i t i o n s.

Sema ntic elem ents conveyed in gestur e strings. In the ges-

ture + speech condi t ion , par t ic ipan ts tended to produc e the ges-

tures for the i r semant ic e lements as s ingle uni ts ; tha t i s , they




Figure 2. The types of deme nts comb ined within a single gesture strin g in the gesture + speech condition

and the gesture condition. T he figure presents the mean num ber o f responses containing a partic ular com-

binatio n of elements within a string, as a prop ortion o f the total n umbe r of relevant responses contain inggestures. Relevant responses includ ed the gestured responses to b oth the one-object an d the two-object

scenes for A + M combinations, but only the gestured responses to the two-object scenes for the A + S andthe A + M + S combinations. Participan ts were more likely to prod uce their gestures for semanti c elements

in strings (i.e., concatenated into units larger than the gesture itself) in the gesture condition than in the

gesture + speech condition. S = sta tionary object; M = m oving object; A = action. Th e error bars reflectthe stand ard error.

ra re ly connec ted the gesture for a semant ic e lement wi th an-

other gesture in a gesture s t r ing . Eighty- two percent of the se -

mant ic e lements (ac t ions, moving objec ts , and sta t ionary

objec ts) tha t were conveyed in gesture in the gesture + speech

condi t ion ( i .e . , the sema nt ic e lements tha t w ere gestured in the

gesture + speech condi t ion o f Figure 1 ) were conveyed as s ingle

gestures , unconnec ted to any o ther gestures. In contrast , in the

gesture condi t ion , only 36% of the seman t ic e lements tha t were

conveyed in gesture were conveyed as s ingle, uncon nec ted ges-

tures , t( 15 ) = 5.32, p < .0001.

This f ind ing- - tha t par t ic ipa nts were s ignif icant ly less l ike ly

to conjo in the i r gestures for semant ic e lements in to s t r ings in

the gesture + speech condi t ion than in the gesture con di t ion --

is par t icu la r ly s t r ik ing because as descr ibed above , par t ic ip ants

of ten produced more than one gesture per response in the ges-

ture + speech condi t ion and thus d id have the opportuni ty to

conjo in the i r gestures for semant ic e lements in to s t r ings. In-

deed , and most te l l ing , even i f we rest r ic t our ana lysis only to

those responses in which two or mo re e lemen ts were gestured ,

we st i l l f ind tha t p ar t ic ipan ts were less l ikely to conjo in the i r

gestures in to s t r ings in the gesture + speech condi t ion than inthe gesture condi t ion; 53% o f the responses tha t had more t han

o n e se ma n t i c e l e me n t c o n ta in e d no conjo ined st r ings in the ges-

ture + speech condi t ion versus 3% in the gesture condi t ion ,

t ( 15 ) = 5 .74, p < .0001. Th us, a l though par t ic ipa nts produce d

a lmost as many gestures for ac t ions, moving objec ts , and sta -

t ionary objec ts in the gesture + speech condi t ion as in the ges-

ture cond i t ion (c f. Figure 1 ) , they infrequent ly produc ed those

e lements in gesture s tr ings in the gesture + speech condi t ion .

F ig u re 2 d e sc r ib e s th e p a r t i c u l a r c o mb in a t io n s o f e l e me n t s

found in the gesture s t r ings the par t ic ip ants produc ed in each o f

the two condi t ions. Th e f igure, presents the num ber of responses

conta in ing a par t ic u la r combin a t ion o f e lements in a s t r ing , as a

p ro p o r t i o n o f t h e t o t a l n u mb e r o f r e l e va n t r e spo n se s c o n ta in in g

gestures tha t were produ ced in the two condi t ions. The denom -

ina tor for the gesture condi t ion in Figure 2 was 40 for s t r ings

c o n ta in in g th e mo v in g o b je c t a n d th e a c t io n (b e c a u se b o th a re

involved in a l l 40 o f the sce nes- - the one-objec t scenes as wel l

as the two-objec t scenes) and 20 for s t r ings conta in ing the s ta -

t iona ry objec t and the ac t ion , and for s t r ings conta in ing the s ta -

t ionary objec t , the moving objec t , and the ac t ion (because the

sta t ionary objec t was involved only in the two-o bjec t scenes) .

For the gesture + speech condi t ion , the denom ina tor for each

in d iv id u a l d i ff e red a n d d e p e n d e d o n th e p a r t i c u l a r n u mb e r o f

one-objec t and two-objec t scenes for which tha t par t ic ipant

produced any gestures a t a l l . Par t ic ipants produced signif i -

cant ly more s t r ings in the gesture condi t ion than in the gesture

+ speech condi t ion for a ll th ree types of s t r ing comb ina t ions ---

s t r ings conta in ing three e lements , the ac t ion , the mo ving objec t ,

and the s ta t ionary objec t (38% in the gesture condi t ion vs. 3%

in the gesture + speech condi t ion) , t (15 ) = 5 .05 , p < .000 l -

and both types of s t r ings conta in ing two e lements , the ac t ionand the moving objec t (30% vs. 7%), t ( 15) = 4 .63 , p < .0001,

and the ac t ion and the s ta t ionary objec t ( 18% vs. 9%), t ( 15) =

2.24, p = .04.

The order of semantic e lem ents in ges ture s tr ings . A s F ig u re

2 indica tes , par t ic ipants tended to produce the i r gestures in

st r ings re la tive ly of ten , par t icu la r ly in the gesture condi t ion . We

next asked whether they were l ike ly to p lace gestures for par t ic -

u la r semant ic e lements in par t icu la r posi t ions wi th in the i r

s t r ings; tha t i s , could the i r gesture s t r ings be cha rac te r ized by a

simple syntax? Figure 3 presents the numb er of s t r ings conta in-




Figure3. The mean num ber of strings produced in t he gesture condi-tion (uppe r graph) and the gesture + speech condition (lower grap h),

categorized according to the order o f elements produced. Participants

were more likely to produce their gestures in a consistent order in th egesture condition than in the gesture + speech condition. Moreover, h e

consistent gesture orders found in the gesture condition did n ot con formto canonical word order in English. S = stationary object; M = moving

object; A = action. The "O ther" category, which is marked by an aster-isk in bo th graphs, includes the othe r five orders in which these threeelements could have been produced (i.e., MSA , SAM, MAS, ASM, andAMS). The error bars reflect the standard error.

ing part icular e lements categorized according to the order of

those e lements for part ic ipants in the ges ture condit ion (up per

graph) and for part ic ipants in the ges ture + speech condit ion

(lower graph ).

Look ing f i rs t a t the ges ture condit ion, we found th at part ic-ipan t s p roduced m ore s t r ings fo l lowing the m oving ob jec t -ac -

t ion (MA) orde r than fo l lowing the ac t ion-m oving ob jec t

(A M ) order ( 12.67 vs . 0 .13) , t ( t 4) = 5.94, p < .0001 (center

ba rs o f the uppe r g raph in F igure 3 ) . Indeed , 13 o f the 15 pa r -

t i c ipan t s who pro duced s t r ings con ta in ing ac t ions and m oving

objec t s p roduced som e s t r ings wi th an MA orde r and none

with an AM order; 1 part ic ipa nt p rodu ced 10 s tr ings wit h an

MA order and only 1 with an A M order. The las t of the 15

pa r t i c ipan t s p ro duced one exem pla r in each o rde r . These da ta

suggest that part ic ipan ts were fol lowing an a l l -or-none p at tern

when o rde r ing the e lem ents o f the i r ges tu re s t rings ra the r than

a probabil is t ic one. Such a l l -or-none pat terns are characteris -

t i c o f na tu ra l l anguage .

Part ic ipants a lso produ ced more s tr ings fol lowing the s ta t ion-

ary object-ac t ion (SA ) order than fol lowing the act ion-s ta t ion-

ary object (AS) order (3.73 vs . 0 .07), t (1 4) = 4.99, p < .0001

(bars o n the left s ide of the upper grap h in F igure 3) . Fou rteen

of the 15 part ic ipants wh o produ ced s tr ings containing act ions

and s ta t ionary ob jects prod uced some s tr ings with an SA order

and none with an AS order; the las t part ic ipant produced one

s tr ing with an AS order and n one w ith an SA order. Again, par-

t ic ipants appeared to fol low an a l l -or-none ra ther than a pro ba-

bilistic pattern .

F inally, part ic ipants pro duce d mor e s tr ings fol lowing the s ta-

t iona ry ob jec t -m oving ob jec t -ac t ion (S M A) orde r than s t rings

fol lowing any of the other f ive poss ible orders o f these three e le-

men ts (6.08 vs. 2.17), t( 11 ) = 3.33, p = .007 (b ars on the right

s ide of the upper gra ph in F igure 3) . Eleven of the 12 part ic i-

pants who p rodu ced s tr ings containing act ions, moving objects,

and s ta tiona ry ob jec ts p roduced m ore s t rings with an S MA or -

der than with an y o f the other f ive poss ible orders ; in fact , 6

produced no s t rings o r no m ore than one s t r ing in any o f theother five orders. The last of the 12 particip ants p rod uce d five

s tr ings with an SM A order bu t seven with an MSA order. Thus ,

when p art ic ipants p rodu ced s tr ings of gestures in the ges ture

condit ion, they produ ced those ges tures in part icular orders ac-

cording to the semantic e lemen t represented b y each ges ture .

Not e that one o f the ges ture orders fol lowed by part ic ipants

in the ges tu re cond i t ion co nform ed to an Engli sh pa t t e rn - - th e

MA order that is reminiscent o f what w ould be a subject-verb

order in English (e.g. , "the girl jumps in to the hoop" ) . Given

this fact, i t may n ot be surpris ing that a l l of the few s tr ings con-

ta ining act ions and moving objects that part ic ipants produced

in the ges ture + speech condit ion (which were produc ed a long

with spoken English) a lso conformed to the English-l ike MA

order ra ther than the non-English AM order (2.56 vs . 0 .00),

t (8) = 3.00, p = .017 (see the center bars of the lower graph in

Figure 3) .

However, the other two orders that part ic ipants prod uced in

the ges ture condit ion ( i .e . , SA: "ho op jump," and SM A: "ho op

gir l ju m p " ) do n o t con form to a canon ical o rde r in Engli sh .

Perhaps n ot unrela tedly, part ic ipants p rodu ced very few str ings

containing these combina t ions o f e lements in the ges ture +

speech condit ion, and the few they did produce were not or-

dered as in the ges ture condit ion. In the ges ture + speech con-

di t ion, part ic ipants produ ced a small numb er of st r ings con-

ta ining act ions and s ta t ionary o bjects (cf . F igure 2) and, in to-

ta l , 7 part ic ipants produced s ix s t r ings conforming to the SA

order and four con form ing to the A S order (bars on the left sideof the lower graph in F igure 3) . They a lso produ ced v ery few

strings containing a l l three e lements in the ges ture + speech

condit ion (cf . F igure 2) and, in tota l , 5 part ic ipants prod uced

only one st r ing in the S MA orde r and four in the MAS orde r

(the order most l ike English, e .g . , " the gir l jumps into the

hoop "; bars on the r igh t s ide of the lower graph in F igure 3) .

In summ ary, part ic ipants in the ges ture + speech condit ion

rarely concatenated their ges tures into s t r ings and, when they

did, their s t r ings conf orme d to a canonical order in English. In

contras t , part ic ipants in the ges ture condit ion frequently con-




catenated their gestures into strings, and the elements of those

strings were produced in the following rule-governed order:

gesture string --~ (S) (M) A,

where S = stationary object, M = moving object, A = action,

and the parentheses indicate an optional element. This order

does not conform to a canonical order in English. In addition,

it is worth noting that this particular order distinguishes object-

referring gestures (akin to nouns) from action-referring ges-

tures (akin to verbs ) --actions occurred at the end of the string,

and stationary and moving objects consistently preceded the ac-

tion. A distinction between nouns and verbs is one of the few

that has traditionally been accepted as a linguistic universal

(e.g., Robins, 1952; Sapir, 1921 ) and whose status as a universal

continues to be uncontested (e.g., Givon, 1979; Hawkins, 1988;

Hopper&Thompson, 1984, 1988; Schachter, 1985;Thompson,

1988). It is a distinction that Sapir ( 1921, p. 119) considered to

be essential to the "life of language" and thus one that might be

expected to appear in the gestures o f participants in the gesture

condition, if indeed they were using their gestures in a lan-

guagelike manner.Incorporating a moving object or stationary object into the

act ion. Besidesproducing a separate lexical gesture (i.e., lexi-

calization, a syntactic device based on regularities across ges-

tures within a string), the participants used one other device to

represent the moving or stationary object in a gesture str ing --

they incorporated a hand shape that captured aspects of the ob-

ject into the gesture for the action. This device is reminiscent of

morphological structure, based on regularities within the ges-

ture itself. For example, to describe a circle moving diagonally

across the video screen, several participants produced a diago-

nal movement across space (an action) using a circle hand

shape rather than an index finger, thus "incorporating" the

shape of the moving object into the action gesture (the action

could either occur alone or conjoined with other gestures in a

string). Participants were more likely to incorporate informa-

tion about an object into the action in the gesture condition

than in the gesture + speech condition; 84% of the objects that

could be mentioned in the gesture condition were conveyed by

incorporation, compared with 35% in the gesture + speech con-

dition, t(15) = 5.99,p < .0001.

Moreover, in the gesture condition, participants appeared to

use the device of incorporation into actions, in conjunction

with the lexicalization device, to ensure that all of the semantic

elements that could be conveyed in a string were in fact con-

veyed. Limiting our analysis to responses containing action ges-

tures, Figure 4 shows the proportion of action gestures describ-

ing one-object scenes in which the moving object was explicitlyconveyed in gesture for both the gesture + speech and the ges-

ture conditions. In this figure, an object could be conveyed ei-

ther by a separate lexical gesture produced in a string along with

the action gesture (lexicalization) or by incorporating hand

shape information about the object into the action gesture

(incorporation). The figure also presents, for the two condi-

tions, the proportion of action gestures describing two-object

scenes in which both the moving object and the stationary ob-

ject were explicitly conveyed in gesture (either by lexicalization

or by incorporation).

Figure 4 reveals that, using either incorporation or lexicaliza-

tion, part icipants conveyed 99% of the single objects in the one-

object scenes and 95% of both objects in the two-objects scenes

in the gesture condition. In other words, almost all relevant ob-

jects were conveyed in every gesture response produced by par-

ticipants in the gesture condition. In contrast, in the gesture +

speech condition, participants conveyed 52% of the single ob-

jects in the one-object scenes and only 12% of both objects in

the two-object scenes, significantly fewer than in the gesture

condition, t(15) = 5.16, p < .0001 for the one-object scenes,

and t( 15 ) = 16.02, p < .0001 for the two-object scenes.

At times, participants used both incorporation and lexicali-

zation to redundantly convey a particular object, and they did

so more often in the gesture condition than in the gesture +

speech condition. Thirty-nine percent o f the moving and sta-

tionary objects that could be conveyed in the gesture responses

produced in the gesture condition were conveyed by both incor-

poration and lexicalization, compared with only 7% in the ges-

ture + speech condition, t( 15) = 5.00, p < .0001. Thus, part ic-

ipants tended to make use of redundancy, an impor tant prop-

erty in all natural languages, in the gestures they produced in

the gesture condition but rarely in the gestures they producedin the gesture + speech condition. 5

G e s t ur e W i t h S p e e ch a n d W i t h o u t I t: A S u m m a r y

Before beginning our study of gesture produced alone versus

gesture produced with speech, we examined the contrast in a

naturalistic communication situation. We found that deaf chil-

dren who have not yet been exposed to a conventional sign lan-

guage and who use gesture as their sole means of communica-

tion develop a system o f gestures characterized by hierarchical

levels of organization, with structure both across and within

gestures. In contrast, the hearing mothers of these deaf children,

who also use gesture but always in conjunction with speech,

do no t develop such structures; their gestures represent eventsglobally and in a noncombinatorie fashion.

We then tested the robustness of this contrast by studying

the gestures created by naive adults responding to videotaped

stimuli under experimental conditions. The gestures of he hear-

ing adults in our study were found to resemble the gestures o f

the deaf children when the adults were instructed to use only

gesture in their responses (the gesture condition). In contrast,

the gestures of the adults resembled the gestures of he deaf chil-

dren 's hearing mothers and other hearing adults when the adults

were asked to respond with speech and no mention was made

of gesture (the gesture + speech condition).

Specifically, in the gesture condition, the adults frequently

combined their gestures into strings and those strings were re-liably ordered, with gestures for certain semantic elements oc-

curring in particular positions in the string (i.e., structure

across gestures a t the sentence level). In addition, the verblike

action gestures the adults produced in the gesture condition

5Note, however, hat the information conveyed n the gestures pro-duced in the gesture + speech condition could be (and frequently was)redundant with information expressed in speech; hat is, in the gesture+ speech condition, redundancycould be found either within speech oracross gesture and speech, but not within gesture.




Figure 4. The mean proportion of action gestures for which relevant objects were explicitly conveyed ingesture in the gesture + speech condition and in the gesture condition. Relevant objects included bo th themoving object and the stationary object fo r the actions describing two-object scenes (i.e., two relevant

objects) bu t only the moving object for the actions describing one-object scenes (i.e., one relevant object).An object was considered to be conveyed in gesture ifa separate gesture for the object was produced within

the gesture string containing the action gesture (lexicalization) or if hand shape information representingthe object was incorporated into the action gesture (incorporation). Participants consistently conveyed allof the relevant objects within a gesture string (either by lexicalization or by incorporation) in the gesturecondition but not in the gesture + speech condition. The er ror bars reflect the standard error.

could be sa id to be divisible into hand shape and m otion parts ,

wi th the hand shape o f the ac t ion f requen t ly convey ing info r -

matio n abou t the objects in i ts semantic frame (i . e ., s t ructu re

within the ges ture a t the w ord level) . By us ing the two devices

they deve loped fo r convey ing the ob jec ts in the s cenes J lex i -

cal izat ion ( in which a separate ges ture is produced to convey

the object , akin to a syntact ic device) and incorporat ion ( in

which a par t o f the act ion ges ture , the hand shape, is used to

convey the ob jec t , ak in to a m orpho log ica l dev ice ) - - the

adults co nveyed essent ia l ly a l l of the re levant objects in the

scenes in the ges ture condit ion. Indeed, fa ir ly often in this con-

di t ion, they conveyed an object redundantly, us ing both lexi-

cal izat ion and incorporat ion.

In contras t , a l though the adul ts did prod uce ges tures for ac-

t ions and objects in the ges ture + speech cond it io n-- and d id so

almost as often as they did in the ges ture condit ion (cf . F igure

1 )m th ey rare ly combine d the ges tures for these e lements into

s trings; 82% o f the e lements they conv eyed were conveyed as

single gestures. In other wo rds, they did n ot use their gestures as

bui lding blocks for a larger uni t . In addi t ion, w hen they did use

s tr ings in the ges ture + speech condit ion, the adul ts produce dthe ges tures in those s tr ings in an order reminiscent of canonical

English order. They did not order their gestures in non-English

pat tern s--pat te rns that were found in the ges ture orders of the

s tr ings they produced in the ges ture condit ion. F inal ly, the

adults used incorporat ion to convey objects less often in the

ges ture + speech condit ion than in the ges ture condit ion, a lmost

never us ing incorporat ion redundantly with lexical izat ion to

convey an object , and rare ly us ing the two devices in conc ert to

convey both objects in the two-object scenes. Thus , the parts o f

their gestures were not used system atically with o ther aspects of

the ges tures to conve y information, suggest ing that these parts

may not have funct ioned as independent uni ts in this condition.

In summary, the ges tures produced by the hearing adults in

the ges ture condit ion of our s tudy and those produ ced by the

deaf chi ldren in Goldin-M eadow's s tudies were characterized

by the propert ies of segmentat ion and hierarchical combin a-

t ion. In contras t , the ges tures produc ed b y the hearing adults in

the ges ture + speech condit ion of our s tudy and those prod uced

by the hearing m others o f the dea f chi ldren a long with their

speech were not . We explore the propert ies of segmentat ion and

comb inat ion in the next sect ion, focus ing on the condit ions that

fos ter their app earance.

T h e R e s i l i e nc e o f G r a m m a t i c a l P r o p e rt i e s:

S e g m e n t a ti o n a n d C o m b i n a t i o n i n S y m b o li c H u m a n

C o m m u n i c a t i o n

The Resilience o f Segmentation and Hierarchical

Combination

In previous work, Goldin-M eadow (1 982) identif ied segmen-ta t ion and hierarchical combin at ion as "res i lient propert ies" of

l inguis t ic sys tems--propert ies that appear even when the con-

di t ions of language acquisi t ion va ry great ly from the condit ions

chi ldren typical ly experience. Segmentat ion an d com binat ion

are found in a chi ld ' s communicat ions even when the chi ld is

lacking a conventional language model (Go ldin-Me adow & M y-

lander, 1990 a), when the language mode l that the child does

have is degenerate (S ingle ton & New port , 1992), or when the

child is first exposed to a language model after puberty, well

beyond the age language acquis i t ion typical ly begins (Curt iss,



48 GOLD1N- MEADOW, Mc NEI LL , AND SI NGLETON

1977; Go l d i n - M e a dow , 1978 ; Ne w por t , 1990 ) . The s e p r ope r -

t ie s t h u s a p p e a r t o b e o v e r d e t e r m i n e d i n c h i l d c o m m u n i c a t i o n ,

w i t h a va r i e t y o f t r a je c t o r i e s l e a d i ng t o t he i r de ve l opm e n t .

T h e f i n d i n g s o f th e p r e s e n t s t u d y i n d i c a t e t h a t s e g m e n t a t i o n

a n d h i e r a r c h i c a l c o m b i n a t i o n a l s o a p p e a r i n t h e g e s tu r e s c r e -

a t e d b y h e a r i n g a d u l t s a s k e d t o a b a n d o n s p e e c h a n d u s e o n l y

t h e ir h a n d s t o c o m m u n i c a t e . T h e a p p e a r a n c e o f th e s e p r o p er -

t i e s i n t he he a r i ng a du l t s ' g e s t u r e s i s pa r t i c u l a r l y s t r i k i ng be -

c a u s e t h e y a r e n o t p r o p e r t i e s t y p i c a l ly f o u n d i n t h e g e s t u r e s

h e a r i n g a d u l t s u s e o n a d a i l y b as i s. E v e n m o r e i m p r e s s iv e i s t h e

f a c t t h a t t h e s e p r o p e r t i e s a p p e a r e d immediately n t h e a d u l t s '

g e s tu r e s. W i t h e s s e n ti a ll y n o t i m e f o r re f l e c ti o n o n w h a t m i g h t

b e f u n d a m e n t a l t o l a n g u a g e l i k e c o m m u n i c a t i o n , w h e n a s k e d

t o u s e o n l y t h e i r h a n d s t o c o m m u n i c a t e , t h e a d u l t s i n o u r s t u d y

p r o d u c e d g e s t u r e s c h a r a c t e r i z e d b y s e g m e n t a t i o n a n d h i e r a r -

c h i c a l c o m b i n a t i o n . T h e s e p r o p e r t i e s t h u s a p p e a r t o b e r e s il -

i e n t i n a ll s y m b o l i c h u m a n c o m m u n i c a t i o n , a n d n o t j u s t c h i l d

s ys t e ms .

W ha t i s t he s ou r c e o f t he l i ngu i st i c p r ope r t i e s t ha t a pp e a r i n

t h e g e s tu r e s u s e d b y t h e a d u l t s i n t h e g e s t u r e c o n d i t i o n ( b u t n o t

t h e g e s tu r e + s p e e c h c o n d i t i o n ) i n o u r e x p e r i m e n t a n d i n t h e

g e s tu r e s u s e d b y t h e d e a f c h i ld r e n i n G o l d i n - M e a d o w ' s s t u d i es ?T h e m o d a l i t y i t s e lf o b v i o u s ly c a n n o t e x p l a in t h e s e p r o p e r t ie s

be c a us e t he m oda l i t y i s he l d c ons t a n t a c r o s s a l l o f t he s e s i t ua -

t i ons , eve n t he ge s t u r e + s pe e c h c ond i t i on . I n a dd i t i on , t r a n s f e r s

f r om s pe e c h ( i .e ., mo de l i ng t he ge s t u r e s d i r e c t l y a f t e r p r ope r t i e s

i n s pe e c h ) do no t e x p l a i n t he p r ope r t i e s , a t l e a s t no t a l l o f t he m,

b e c a u s e t h e o r d e r i n g p a t t e r n u s e d b y t h e a d u l t s i n t h e g e s t u re

c o n d i t i o n d id n o t c o n f o r m t o a c a n o n i c a l E n g l i s h o r d e r a n d t h u s

c ou l d n o t ha ve be e n r e a d i l y de r i ve d f r om Eng l i s h . Mor e ove r , t he

d e a f c h il d r e n o f h e a r i n g p a r e n t s h a v e n o u s a b le s p o k e n l a n g u a g e

s ou r c e f o r t he i r ge s t u r e s y s t e ms , bu t s t il l d e ve l op the p r ope r t i e s

o f s e g m e n t a ti o n a n d h i e r a rc h i c a l c o m b i n a t i o n i n t h o s e s y s t e m s

( s e e F o o t n o t e 4 ) .

Are Segmentation and Hierarchical CombinationImposed by the Structure of Thought?

On e pos s i b i l it y is t ha t t he p r ope r t i e s o f s e gme n t a t i on a nd h i -

e r a rc h i c a l c o m b i n a t i o n r e f le c t t h e n a t u r e o f h u m a n t h o u g h t . I n

o t h e r w o r d s , w h e n a s k e d t o d e s c r i b e a s c e n e , h u m a n s m i g h t

t h i nk o f the s c e ne i n t e r m s o f d i s c r e t e e n t i ti e s a r r a nge d i n h i e r -

a r c h i c a l c ombi na t i on a nd , a s a r e s u l t , wou l d be f o r c e d t o de -

s c r i be t ha t s c e ne i n t h i s f o r m a nd t h i s f o r m on ly .

We t h i nk t h i s pos s i b i l i t y un l i ke l y s i mp l y be c a us e we know

f r o m t h e g e s t u r es t h a t p e o p l e s p o n t a n e o u s l y p r o d u c e a l o n g w i th

t h e i r s p o k e n n a r r a t i v e s t h a t h u m a n t h o u g h t n e e d n o t b e s e g -

m e n t e d a n d h i e r a r c h ic a l ly a r r a n g e d ( M c N e i l l , 1 9 9 2 ) . A s d e -

s c r i be d e ar li er , t he ge s t u r e s t ha t a du l t s a nd c h i l d r e n s pon t a n e -ous l y p r od uc e a l ong wi t h t he i r s pe e c h e xp r e s s i de a s bu t e xp r e s s

t h e m i n a d i f f e r e n t f o r m f r o m s p e e c h - - a n u n s e g m e n t e d f o r m

i n wh i c h a s i ng le ge s t u r e c a n c on ve y a n e n t i r e , g l oba l p r opos i -

t i on . Fo r e xa mpl e , c ons i de r how a s pe a ke r mi gh t de s c r i be t he

s pa t i a l re l a t i ons h i p o f Sc o t l a n d t o I r e l a nd i n w or ds a nd i n ge s-

t u r e . Th e ve r ba l de s c r i p t i on w i l l c on t a i n a s e r i e s o f wor d s s yn -

t a c t i c a l l y o r ga n i z e d a nd i s l i ke l y t o me n t i on e a c h l a ndma s s i n

i ts own ph r a s e o r c l a us e . I n c o n t r a s t , t he ge s t u r e i s li ke l y t o be

a s ing le , g l oba l d i s p l a y o f t wo s pa c e s i n a c e r t a i n r e l a t i ons h i p ,

c a p t u r i n g i n n o n s e g m e n t e d f o r m t h e i n f o r m a t i o n t h a t i s i n

s p e e c h a n d p o s s i bl y g o i n g b e y o n d s p e e c h i n s h o w i n g t h e r e la t iv e

pos i t i ons i n s pa c e . I nde e d , i t i s be c a us e s pon t a ne ous ge s t u r e

t a k e s o n a v e r y d i ff e r en t f o r m f r o m s p e e c h t h a t M c N e i U ( 1 9 9 2 )

p r o p o s e d i t a s a u n i q u e w i n d o w t h r o u g h w h i c h t h e t h o u g h t s o f

a s pe a ke r c a n be obs e r ve d ( s e e a l s o Go l d i n - M e a dow , A l i ba li , &

C h u r c h , 1 9 9 3 ) .

T h u s , h u m a n s c a n a n d d o t h i n k a b o u t a s c e n e a s a g l o b a l

w h o l e , a s r e f le c t e d in t h e s p o n t a n e o u s g e s tu r e s t h a t a c c o m p a n y

t h e i r s p ee c h . T h e s t r u c t u r e o f t h o u g h t c a n n o t , t h e n , b e s o le l y

r e s p o n si b l e f o r t h e s e g m e n t e d a n d c o m b i n a t o r i a l s t r u c t u r e s e e n

i n t he ge s t u r e s o f t he he a r i ng a d u l t s i n t he ge s t u r e c ond i t i on o r

i n t h e g e s t u r e s o f th e d e a f c h il d r e n i n G o l d i n - M e a d o w ' s s t u d ie s .

The Drive TowardSegmentation: Establishing Reference

T h e t a s k t h a t f a c e d th e a d u l t s i n b o t h c o n d i t io n s o f o u r e x -

p e r i m e n t w a s t o d e s c r ib e a s i m p l e s c e n e t o a n o t h e r p e r s o n . T h e

f i r s t s t e p i n s uc h a t a s k i s t o ma ke i t c l e a r wha t t he s c e ne i s

a bou t ; t ha t i s, t o e s t a b l is h r e f e r e nc e . T h i s s t e p wa s e a s y t o a c -

c ompl i s h i n t he ge s t u r e + s pe e c h c ond i t i on ; pa r t i c i pa n t s u s e d

s pe e c h t o f oc us a t t e n t i on on t he o b j e c t s i n t he s c e ne , e i t he r by

i n t r o d u c i n g t h e o b j e c t s i n s e p a r a te c l a u s e s ( " T h e r e ' s a t o y g ir lw i t h a c i r c le s t a n d i n g n e x t t o h e r ; s h e j u m p s i n t o i t " ) o r b y

r e f e rr i n g t o t h e o b j e c t s w i t h s e p a r a t e n o u n s ( " A t o y g i rl j u m p s

i n t o a c i r c l e " ) . A g e s t u re m i g h t a c c o m p a n y t h e s p e e c h ( e .g . , th e

p a r t i c i p a n t m i g h t j u m p h i s h a n d , l o o s e ly h el d , f r o m o n e p o i n t

t o a n o t h e r a s h e s ay s, " a t o y g i rl j u m p s i n t o a c i r c l e " ) . N o t e t h a t

t h e g e s t ur e c a n c o n v e y m i m e t i c a s p e c t s o f th e s c e n e t h a t a r e n o t

c o n v e y e d i n s p e e c h ( e . g ., h o w h i g h t h e g i rl j u m p e d , h o w s o f t ly

s he l a nde d , e t c .) . The i n f o r m a t i on c onv e ye d by ge s t u r e is i n t e r -

p r e t a b l e t o t he l i s t e ne r p r i ma r i l y be c a us e t he ge s t u r e i s f r a me d

by t he s pe e c h t ha t i t a c c ompa n i e s ; t ha t i s , s pe e c h s upp l i e s a

s o c ia l ly c o n s t it u t e d f o r m o f t h e s a m e o r r e l a te d c o n t e n t t h a t i s

p r ov i de d i n i ma g i s t i c f o r m b y t he ge s tu r e .

I m a g i n e n o w h o w t h e s a m e p a r t i c i p a n t m i g h t e s ta b l is h r e f er -

e n c e i n t h e g e s tu r e c o n d i t i o n . H e c o u l d p r o d u c e t h e s a m e g e s-t u r e t h a t h e p r o d u c e d i n t h e g e s t u r e + s p e e c h c o n d i t i o n - -

j u m p i n g h i s l o os e ly h e ld h a n d f r o m o n e p o i n t t o a n o t h e r - - b u t

s uc h a ge s t u r e , no l onge r f r a me d b y s pe e c h , wou l d no t i nd i c a t e

w h o i s d o i n g t h e j u m p i n g , n o r w o u l d i t in d i c a t e t h e e n d p o i n t

o f th e j u m p . T o m e e t t h e s e r e q u i r e m e n t s , p a r t i c i p a n t s i n t h e

g e s t ur e c o n d i t i o n c o u l d a l te r t h e g e s t u re s t h e y p r o d u c e d i n t h e

g e s t ur e + s p e e c h c o n d i t io n i n o n e ( o r b o t h ) o f tw o w a y s : ( a )

T h e y c o u l d p r o d u c e a s e r ie s o f g e st u r es t o r e f er t o t h e s c e n e

( e .g . , th e y m i g h t f o r m c u r l s o n t h e i r o w n h e a d s t o i n d i c a t e t h e

g ir l, ho l d a C- s ha pe d ha nd t o i nd i c a t e t he c i rc l e , a nd t he n p r o -

d u c e t h e " j u m p " g e s t u r e ). ( b ) T h e y c o u l d a d d e l e m e n t s t o t h e

ge s t u r e i t s e l f t ha t s e r ve t o i de n t i f y t he ob j e c t s ( e .g . , a n i nve r t e d -

V h a n d s h a p e i n d i c a ti n g t h e l eg s o f t h e g ir l m i g h t b e " j u m p e d "

i n t o a C- s ha pe d ha nd i nd i c a t i ng t he c i r c l e ) . I n t e r e s ti ng l y , bo t h

o f the s e s t r a t e g i e s ha ve be e n i de n t i f i e d i n a s t udy s i m i l a r t o ou r

o w n ( D u f o u r , 1 9 9 2 ) i n w h i c h h e a r i n g a d u l t s w e r e a s k e d t o u s e

ge s t u r e r a t he r t h a n s pe e c h t o c onv e y a s t o r y . 6

T h u s , t h e r e q u i r e m e n t t h a t r e f e r e n c e b e e s t a b li s h e d a p p e a r s

6 Du four did not include in his study a condition in w hich the partic-ipant was asked to tell the story in speech with no mention made o fgesture; as a result , the design of his study did n ot permit him to deter-m ine whether participants' gestures differed with and withou t speech.




to lead natura lly to a process of segmenting he scene, breaking

it up so that each elem ent is identified. Note that the process

of establishing reference through symbolic means is inheren tly

social--the goal is not just to reconstruct the scene in one's

own mind b ut to reconstr uct it in the min d of another. Freyd

(1983) suggested that the very act of sharing information

across min ds will force that in forma tion to take a discrete and

segmented form. Freyd argued that even if knowledge is truly

represented in a cont inuou s form, in the process of sharing

that knowledge with another indi vidual, the knowledge must

go through a discrete filter, and, as a result, its representation

ends up looking discrete.

The Drive Toward Combination." Relating Referents to

One Another

Once a scene has been segmented into elements, the elements

need to be bro ught together into a whole in order for the scene

to be adequa tely described. If left uncom bine d, the gestures do

serve to refer to the elem ents in the scene but they do not conv ey

how those elements func tion together within the scene. To do

so, the gestures for the eleme nts need to be brou ght together insuch a way that the rela tionship among them is clear. One strat-

egy for accomplishing this goal is to conj oin the gestures for the

elements in a scene into a single gesture string and to posit ion

each gesture within that string according to the role played by

the el ement the gesture represents. This is, in fact, the strategy

followed by p articip ants in the gesture condi tion, who tended to

produce gestures for the elemen ts in a scene within a single ges-

ture string (i.e., without breaking the flow of movement be-

tween the gestures). Moreover, partic ipant s in this condition

positioned the gestures within the string in a systematic fashion:

The gesture for the stationary object preceded the gesture for

the movi ng object, which, in turn, preceded the gesture for the

action. This par ticul ar order, in fact, follows an intuiti vely nat-

ural progression in terms of laying out the scene for the lis-

ten erm it first sets the scene for the listener (with the stationa ry

object), then introduces the focus or topic of the scene (the

moving object), and finally comments on that topic (the

actio n). Interestingly, this parti cular order is one that is rou-

tinely found in ASL for scenes of this type (T. Supalla, personal

communicati on, January 20, 1994) and is reminiscent of an

order found i n a gesture system developed by a woman who was

the only deaf person in a hearing Amerindi an reservation (Yau,

1985). The order thus appears to be one that is naturally ex-

ploited in manual communication systems- -in conventional

sign languages handed down from generation to generation as

well as in sp ontaneous gesture systems created by individ uals.

In summary, the communicative requirement to make clearhow the elements in a scene relate to one another appears to

lead naturally to the process of systematic combination. In this

regard, it is imp ort ant to recall that, in the gesture + speech

condition, participants did produce gestures for the elements.

Indeed, a look at Figure 1 shows that p artici pants conveyed el-

ements in this c ondition almost as freque ntly as in the gesture

condition (although the i ntent may have been to convey a global

rather than a segmented meaning).7 The crucial difference is

that, in the gesture + speech condition, gestures referring to

elements were each produc ed as a separate uni t (i.e., there was

a break in the flow of movem ent between the gestures), whereas

in the gesture condition the gestures were conjoined within a

single string (with no break in the movement). Thus, the

difference between the two conditi ons was not pr imari ly a

matter of referring to the elements but of referring to them as

elements within a proposition. In the gesture condition, this task

is assumed enti rely by gesture but, in the gesture + speech con-

dition, the task of recombining elements to relate them to one

anothe r is natura lly taken over by speech.

We now gain insight into how silence "liberates" grammati-

cal properties in the manual modality. Segmented and combi-

natorial representation is the form that symbolic huma n com-

munica tion must take. Speech performs these required func-

tions in normal discourse, with gesture forming an integrated

system with that speech and conveying information in a global

and mimeti c form. The need for segmented and combinatorial

representation is not created by speech but rather by the de-

mands of symbolic hum an c ommunicat ion. When speech is re-

moved, the need for segmented and c ombinatorial representa-

tion remains, and the requirement is filled, for both the deaf

children in Goldin-Meadow's studies and the adults in our

study, by gesture. Thus, when gesture alone carries the full bur-den of communication, it no longer has the global and largely

mimetic form that it is constrained to assume when it forms

an integrated system with sp eech- -it must now take over the

7 The fact that participants generated gestures for elements within a

scene almost as often in the gesture + speech condition as in the ges-

ture condition suggests that segmentation may occur in gesture even

when it does not carry the full burden of communication. However,

it is important to point out that segmentation is not independent of

combinat ion. It is only when two gestures are combined within the

bounds of a single string that there is good evidence that these gestures

function as a unit, with each gesture reflecting a piece of the proposi-

ti on -t ha t is, that the gestures truly represent segmented dements

within a proposition. For example, a gesture coded as representing arolling movement could either stand for the semantic element "roll-ing" or for the whole "ball-rolling" proposition. Imagine that a speaker

produces this rolling gesture concatenated with another gesture resem-

bling the shape of the ball. Because the two gestures form a unit and

contrast with one another within that unit, we assume that each ges-

ture represents a piece of the proposition, with the rolling gesture rep-resenting the act ("roll") and the ball gesture representing the moving

object ("bal l") . In contrast, if the rolling gesture is produced on its

own and not concatenated with any others, the gesture could easily beassumed to stand for "ball rolling" as a whole.

Because the gestures in the gesture + speech condition were almost

always produced on their own (i.e., not combined and therefore not

contrasted with other gestures), there was no reason to assume that

these gestures were segmented elements. Rather than semantic pieces of

a scene, the gestures in the gesture + speech condition appear to besnapshots of full propositions taken from different angles--the angle of

the object, the angle of the action, and so forth--presented along withspeech. As snapshots of the whole, the gestures in the gesture + speech

condition did not need to be combined with other gestures to conveythe proposition--each gesture did so on its own. Thus, although in thegesture condition there was reason (specifically, he frequent concatena-

tion of gestures into strings) to assume that each gesture referred to a

particular element and that segmentation had taken place, there was noreason to make this assumption in the gesture + speech condition, and

indeed some reason not to make it i n this condition (the lack of concat-

enation despite gestures apparently referring to parts of the scene).




essential role and assume the segmented and combinatorial

form required for symbolic human communication. By break-

ing the bond between gesture and speech, silence frees gesture

from the constraints imposed by being part of an integrated

system with speech--only to force gesture into the constraints

imposed by carrying the full burden o f communication, that is,

the constraints of a languagelike system.

Grammatical Properties Beyond Segmentation and

Combination

In ternal Cons is tency: Going Beyond Segm entat ion an d

Com binat ion to Form a L inguis t ic Sys te m

The adults in the gesture condition produced gestures that

had the properties of segmentation and combination in com-

mon with the gestures produced by the deaf children in Goldin-

Meadow's studies. However, the gestures that the adults pro-

duced did not share all of the languagelike properties found in

the deaf children's gesture systems. In particular, the adults ' ges-

tures were not systematically organized into a system o f internal

contrasts, whereas the deaf children's gestures were. Thus, un-like the deaf children, the adults displayed hierarchical but not

necessarily consistent use of constituents in their gestures, Sin-

gleton, Morford, and Goldin-Meadow (1993) gave the VMP

test to one of the deaf children in Goldin-Meadow's sample.

The child described each scene in the test using his own gesture

system, and his gestures were compared with those produced

by the 16 hearing adults in the gesture condition in this study

and with gestures produced by 8 hearing children. Singleton et

al. found that, when incorporating hand shape information into

their action gestures, the hearing adults and children rarely used

the same hand shape to represent an object each time it oc-

curred on the test, whereas the deaf child frequently did. In

other words, there was consistency across hand shapes in this

deaf child's gestures (as well as in the gestures o f each of the 3

other deaf children shown to have morphological structure in

their spontaneous communications; Goldin-Meadow et al.,

1995), but not in the gestures of each hearing adult or child.

Thus, there was evidence for a system of contrasts in the deaf

children's gestures but not in the gestures o f the hearing adults

and children.

Singleton et al. (1993) suggested that the hand shape differ-

ences between the deaf child and the hearing gesturers reflect a

fundamental difference in the way participants generated ges-

tures. When the hearing gesturers generated a gesture, their goal

was to produce a hand shape that adequately represented the

object, and their choice of hand shapes appeared to be con-

strained only by their imaginations and the physical limitationsimposed by the hands themselves. For example, one of the

child-hearing gesturers produced a different hand shape each of

the five times she represented an airplane on the test. Each hand

shape captured an idiosyncratic proper ty (often the differently

shaped wings) of he airplane pictured in that event: (a) thumb,

index, and middle fingers extended; (b) two palms forming a V;

(c) two palms crossed in an X; (d) thumb and pinky extended;

and (e) O-hand used to represent the way the airplane, made of

paper, might have been thrown (the airplane was not actually

thrown in the event). In contrast, when the deaf children gener-

ated a gesture, their choice of hand shapes was guided not only

by how well a hand shape captured the features of an object, but

also by how well that hand shape fit into the set of hand shapes

allowed in their individual gesture systems. The deaf child who

took the VMP test used two different hand shapes on the five

airplane segmentswa flat-palm hand shape and a thumb-and-

pinky-extended hand shape --both of which formed part of this

child's morphological system and could be used to represent

airplanes in that system (Singleton et al., 1993).

Thus, the gestures that the adults produced in the gesture

condition were organized only in relation to their referents; that

is, the form o f the gesture was constrained by the object or ac-

tion it was used to represent. In contrast, the deaf children 's

gestures, in addition to being constrained by form-to-referent

relationships, were also organized in relation to one another;

that is, the form of the gesture was constrained not only by what

it represented but also by how it contrasted with the other ges-

ture forms in the system--form-to-form relationships. The

deaf children's gestures can therefore be said to have the crucial

aspect of linguistic systems that de Saussure (1916/1959)

called linguistic "value"--an aspect that appears to be lacking

in the adults' gestures. According to de Saussure, a language isa system in which all the elements fit together and in which the

value of any one element depends on the simultaneous existence

of all of the others. The fact that linguistic value is a character-

istic of the deaf children's gesture systems but not the adults'

gesture systems suggests that the deaf children--bnt not the

hearing adults--had begun to consider their gestures as a

"problem space" (Karmiloff-Smith, 1979) in their own right.

Condi t ions Fos ter ing a Sy s tem of Contras t s

Why might the deaf children go beyond form-to-referent re-

lations to establish form-to-form relations in their gesture sys-

tems, whereas the adults failed to do so? One possibility is that

the child gesturers were children and therefore more gifted atlanguage creation than the adults (as a critical period hypothe-

sis--cf. Lenneberg, 1967--might predict). Another possibility

is that the deaf children developed their gesture systems over a

period of years, whereas the adults generated their gestures "on

the spot" (see Singleton et al., 1993, for further discussion of

this point ). Indeed, there is evidence that the deaf children first

created gestures with an eye to how well the gesture captured

aspects of the intended referent. Only later in development did

the children provide evidence that they created their gestures,

not only to be good representations, but also to contrast mean-

ingfully with the other gestures in their systems (Goldin-

Meadow & Mylander, 1990b; Goldin-Meadow et al., 1995). a

Thus, it may be necessary first to create a set of gestures that areadequate representations of objects and actions. The next step,

which presumably requires time and experience with the ges-

tures, may be to pull back and consider the set of gestures as a

problem space, isolating the components that recur across the

s It is important to point out that throughout his developmental pe-riod, the deaf children tended to use the same gesture to represent agiven referent; that is, their gestures formed a stable lexicon hroughoutthe period during which these other developmental changeswere occur-ring (see Goldin-Meadow, Butcher, Mylander, & Dodge, 1994).



G R A M M A T I C A L E X P R ES S IO N I N T H E M A N U A L M O D A L I T Y 5 1

g e s t u r es a n d o r g a n i z i n g t h e s e t a r o u n d t h o s e r e c u r r i n g c o m p o -

n e n t s . I t i s t h i s s e c o n d s t e p t h a t r e s u l t s i n t h e d e S a u s s u r i a n

p r o p e r t y o f l in g u i s t ic v a lu e a n d t h a t t h e a d u l t p a r t i c i p a n t s i n

o u r s t u d y h a d n o t y e t ta k e n .

I s th e r e e v i d e n c e t h a t t h e d e a f c h i l d r e n c o n s i d e r e d t h e i r o w n

g e s t u r e s a s a p r o b l e m s p a c e i n i t s o w n r i g h t ? A l t h o u g h i t i s

d i f fi c u lt t o o b t a i n d i r e c t e v i d e n c e , t h e r e a r e i n d i c a t i o n s t h a t t h e

d e a f c h i l d r e n w e r e c o g n i z a n t o f t h e i r g e s t u re s a s a s y m b o l i c s y s-

t e m . F o r e x a m p l e , o n e o f t h e d e a f c h i l d r e n u s e d g e s t u r e t o r e f e r

t o h i s o w n g es t u re s . T o re q u e s t a D o n a l d D u c k t o y t h a t t h e e x -

p e r i m e n t e r h e l d b e h i n d h e r b a c k , t h e c h i l d p u r s e d h i s l i p s t o

i m i t a t e D o n a l d D u c k ' s b i l l a n d t h e n p o i n t e d a t h i s o w n g e s t u re ,

t h e p u r s e d l i p s ( G o l d i n - M e a d o w , 1 9 9 3 ) . T h u s , t h e c h i l d w a s

a b l e t o u s e t h e p o i n t i n g g e s t u r e m e t a l i n g u i s t i c a l l y , s u g g e s t i n g

t h a t h e c o u l d d i s t a n c e h i m s e l f f r o m h i s o w n g e s t u r e s a n d t r e a t

t h e m a s o b j e c t s t o b e r e f le c t e d on a n d r e f e r r e d t o . A s a s e c o n d

e x a m p l e , t h i s c h i l d w a s o b s e r v e d t o " c o r r e c t " t h e g e s t u r e s h is

h e a r i n g s is t e r p r o d u c e d w h e n s h e t o o k t h e V M P t e s t ( S i n g l e t o n

e t a l. , 1 9 9 3 ) . W h e n t h e s i s t e r u s e d a h a n d s h a p e t h a t , i n t h e

d e a f c h i l d ' s s y s t e m , w a s n o t a n a c c e p t a b l e r e p r e s e n t a t i o n f o r t h e

o b j e c t i n a p a r t i c u l a r v i g n e t t e , th e d e a f c h i l d f ir s t m o c k e d h i s

s i s te r 's h a n d s h a p e c h o i c e a n d t h e n s h o w e d h e r t h e h a n d s h a p et h a t d i d c o n f o r m t o h i s s y s te m . T h e c h i l d t h u s h a d a w e l l -d e v e l -

o p e d a n d a r t i c u l a t e d s e n s e o f w h a t c o u n t s a s a n a c c e p t a b l e ge s -

t u r e i n h i s s y s t em . H e n o t o n l y p r o d u c e d g e s t u r e s t h a t a d h e r e d

t o h i s s t a n d a r d s , b u t h e a l s o i m p o s e d h i s s t a n d a r d s o n t h e g e s-

t u r e s o f a n o t h e r. T h e d i s t a n c e t h a t t h i s d e a f c h il d a c h i e v e d f r o m

h i s g e st u r e s y st e m m a y n o t b e p o s s i b l e i n t h e s h o r t - t e r m c r e -

a t i o n s i t u a t io n t h a t t h e a d u l t s i n o u r s t u d y e x p e r i e n c e d . M o r e -

o v e r, i t m a y b e j u s t t h i s t y p e o f d i s t a n c e t h a t i s e s s e n t ia l f o r a

s p e a k e r t o i n t r o d u c e t h e i m p o r t a n t d e S a u s s u r i a n c h a r a c t e r i s t i c

o f l i n g u is t i c v a l u e i n t o a c o m m u n i c a t i o n s y s t e m .

Gra mm at ical Proper ties and the Co ndi t ions o f Lang uage

CreationI n s u m m a r y , t h e e m e r g e n ce o f s e g m e n t a ti o n a n d c o m b i n a -

t i o n i n t h e e x p e r i m e n t a l p a r a d i g m t h a t w e u s e d i n o u r s t u d y

h i g h l ig h t s t h e r e s i l i e n c e o f t h e s e g r a m m a t i c a l p r o p e r t i e s i n s y m -

b o l i c h u m a n c o m m u n i c a t i o n . 9 W i t h n o t i m e f o r r ef l e c ti o n , t h e

a d u l t s i n o u r s t u d y c o n s t r u c t e d a s e t o f g e s tu r e s c h a r a c t e r i z e d

b y s e g m e n t a t i o n a n d c o m b i n a t i o n . H o w e v er , o u r s i m p l e e x p e r -

i m e n t a l p a r a d i g m w a s n o t s u f f ic i en t t o s u p p o r t t h e e m e r g e n c e

o f o t h e r g r a m m a t i c a l p r o p e r t i e s th o u g h t e q u a l l y c e n t ra l t o h u -

m a n l a n g u a g e - - i n p a r t i c u l a r , a s y s t e m o f c o n t r as t s . T h e s e f i n d -

i n g s s ug g e st t h a t i t m a y b e p o s s i b l e to c l a ss i fy g r a m m a t i c a l

p r o p e r t i e s a c c o r d in g t o t h e t y p e s o f c o n d i t io n s t h a t s u p p o r t

t h e i r c r e a ti o n . B y a l t e r i n g a s p e c ts o f o u r e x p e r i m e n t a l p a r a -

d i g m , w e m a y b e a b l e t o e x p l o r e t h e e f f ec t s o f v a r i o u s c i r c u m -s t a n c es o n t h e e m e r g e n c e o f g r a m m a t i c a l p r o p e r t i e s .

F o r e x a m p l e , u s i n g t h e e x p e r i m e n t a l p a r a d i g m a s i s, w e d is -

c o v e r e d t h a t a s y s t e m o f c o n t r a s t s i n w h i c h t h e f o r m o f a s y m b o l

i s c o n s t r a i n e d b y i t s r e l a t i o n s h i p t o o t h e r s y m b o l s i n t h e s y s t e m

( a s w e l l a s b y i t s r e la t i o n s h i p t o i t s i n t e n d e d r e f e r e n t ) i s n o t a n

i m m e d i a t e c o n s e q ue n c e o f s y m b o l i c a l ly c o m m u n i c a t i n g i n fo r -

m a t i o n t o a n o t h e r h u m a n . T h e d a t a o n t h e d e a f c h i ld r e n s u g g es t

t h a t c o n t i n u e d e x p e r i e n c e w i t h a s e t o f g e s t u r e s m a y b e r e q u i r e d

f o r a s y s t e m o f c o n t r a s t s t o e m e r g e i n t h o s e g e s t u r e s . H o w e v e r ,

i t i s a l s o p o s s i b le t h a t e v e n w i t h c o n t i n u e d e x p e r i e n c e w i t h t h e i r

o w n g e s t u r e s , a d u l t s m a y n o t b e a b l e t o d e v e l o p a s y s t e m o f

c o n t r a s t s w i t h i n t h o s e g e s t u re s . I n o t h e r w o r d s , i t m a y b e t h a t

t h e c r e a t o r m u s t b e a c h i l d i n o r d e r f o r a s y s t e m o f c o n t r a s t s to

e m e rg e . O u r e x p e r i m e n t a l p a r a d i g m c a n b e a d a p t e d t o a d d r e s s

t h i s is s u e. A d u l t s a n d c h i l d r e n m a y b e a s k e d t o r e p e a t t h e p r o -

c e d u r e i n t h e g e s t u r e c o n d i t i o n o v e r a n e x t e n d e d p e r i o d , t h u s

a l l o w i n g e a c h c r e a t o r t h e t i m e t h a t a p p e a r s t o b e n e c e s s a r y ( b u t

m a y n o t b e s u f f i c i e n t ) t o d e v e l o p a s y s t e m o f c o n t r a s t s .

A l t e r n at i v el y , i t m a y b e t h a t w h a t i s c r u c i a l f or a s y s t e m o f

c o n t r a s t s to e v o l v e i n a s y m b o l i c c o m m u n i c a t i o n s y s t e m h a s

m o r e t o d o w i t h t h e r e c i p i e n t t h a n t h e c r e a t or . B e c a u s e th e

a d u l t s i n o u r e x p e r i m e n t r e c e iv e d n o f e e d b a c k f r o m t h e i r r e c i p -

i e n t ( w h o w a s t h e e x p e r i m e n t e r ) a s t o h o w w e l l t h e y c o m m u n i -

c a t e d t h e c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s o f e a c h v i g n e t t e , t h e g r a m m a t i c a l

p r o p e r t i e s th a t a p p e a r e d i n t h e i r g e s t u re s h a d t o r e f l e c t t h e c r e -

a t o r s ' i n t u i ti v e s e n se o f w h a t t h e i r r e c i p i e n t w o u l d f i n d c o m p r e -

h e n s i b l e - n o t w h a t t h e r e c i p ie n t a c tu a l l y u n d e r st o o d . T o e x -

p l o r e t h e r o l e o f t h e r e c i p i e n t , b o t h g e s t u r e r a n d r e c e i v e r m u s t

b e p a r t i c i p a n t s in t h e s tu d y . O u r e x p e r i m e n t a l p a r a d i g m c a n b e

m o d i f i e d t o i n c l u d e a n a i v e r e c ip i e n t , a n d t h e n a t u r e ( e .g . , c h i l d

v s . a d u l t ) o r n u m b e r ( e . g ., o n e v s. m a n y ) o f r e c i p ie n t s c a n b e

s y s t e m a t i c a l l y v a r i e d . F o r e x a m p l e , a n a d u l t a s k e d t o c o m m u -n i c a t e w i t h t h e s a m e r e c i p i e n t m i g h t , o v e r t i m e , g e n e r a t e a s e t

o f a r b i t r a r y s y m b o l s ; t h e s e s y m b o l s m a y o r m a y n o t f o r m a s y s -

t e m o f c o n tr a s t s. I n c o n t r a s t , a n a d u l t a s k e d t o c o m m u n i c a t e

w i t h a v a r i e t y o f r e c ip i e n t s m i g h t , o v e r t h e s a m e p e r i o d , g e n e r -

a t e a r e l a ti v e l y i c o n i c s e t o f g e s tu r e s b u t o n e t h a t b e c o m e s s y s -

t e m a t i z e d i n r e s p o n s e t o t h e v a r i a b i l i t y a m o n g r e c e i v er s .

A l o n g t h e s e li n e s , i t i s i m p o r t a n t t o n o t e t h a t , a l t h o u g h b o t h

t h e d e a f c h i ld r e n i n G o l d i n - M e a d o w ' s s t u d y a n d t h e a d u l t s i n o u r

s t u d y u s e d t h e i r g e s tu r e s to c o m m u n i c a t e w i t h o t h e r s, n e i t h e r o f

t h e s e g e s t u r e s y s t e m s c a n b e c o n s i d e r e d a s h a r e d s y s t e m . B o t h

t h e h e a r i n g a d u l t s a n d t h e d e a f c h i l d re n produced g e s t u r e s t h a t

w e r e r e c e i v e d b y o t h er s , b u t n e i t h e r t h e a d u l t s n o r t h e d e a f c h il -

d r e n received h e i r o w n g e s t u r e s a s i n p u t . T h e h e a r i n g a d u l t s r e -

c e i ve d n o g e s t u ra l i n p u t w h e n t h e y p a r t i c i p a t e d i n t h e e x p e r i-

m e n t . T h e d e a f c h i ld r e n s a w t h e s p o n t a n e o u s g e s t u r e s o f t h e i r

h e a r i n g p a r e n t s ; h o we v er , t h e p a r e n t s ' g e s t u r e s w e r e s t r u c t u r e d

l i ke a ll g es t u re s t h a t a c c o m p a n y s p e e c h h t h e y w e r e g l o b al a n d

m i m e t i c , r a r e l y c o m b i n e d w i t h o n e a n o t h e r a n d s h o w in g n o e v i -

d e n c e o f in t e r n a l c o m p o n e n t s ( G o l d i n - M e a d o w & M y l an d e r,

1 9 84 , 1 9 9 0 b ) . T h u s , t h e g e s t u r e s t h e d e a f c h i l d r e n r e c e i v e d a s

i n p u t w e r e d i s t in c t f r o m t h e g e s t u r es t h e y t h e m s e l v e s p r o d u c e d

a s o u tp u t . " C o m m u n i c a t i o n , " a s w e h av e u s e d t h e t e rm , i m p l i e s

o n l y t h a t t h e g e s t u r e r i n t e n d s h i s m e s s a g e t o b e r e c e i v e d b y a n -

o t h e r. I t i s , h o w e v er , i n t e r e s t i n g t o a s k w h e t h e r a c o m m u n i c a t i o n

s y s t em t h a t i s b o t h p r o d u c e d a n d r e c e i v e d w i l l t a k e o n g r a m m a t -

i c a l p r o p e r t i e s t h a t a r e d i s t i n c t f ro m t h e p r o p e r t i e s f o u n d i n a

s y s t em t h a t i s o n l y p r o d u c e d a n d n o t r e c e i ve d . O u r e x p e r i m e n t a lp a r a d i g m c a n a g a i n b e a d a p t e d t o e x p l o r e th i s i ss u e . Tw o a d u l t s

m a y b e a s k e d t o a l t e rn a t e i n p r o d u c i n g a n d r e c e iv i n g g e s t u ra l

d e s c r i p t i o n s i n t h e g e s t u r e c o n d i t i o n , a c o n d i t i o n t h a t c o u l d w e l l

e v o l v e t o w a r d a s y s t e m t h a t i s t r u l y s h a r e d , a n d o n e t h a t m a y

d i f f e r s u b s t a n t i a l l y f r o m a s y s t e m u s e d o n l y i n p r o d u c t i o n .

9 Casey and Kluend er ( in press) recently argued that segmentat ion

and combina t ion may have been in te rmedia te morphosyn tac t i c fo rms

in the evolut ion of language; i f so, these gramm atical propert ies would

be resi l ient in an evolut ionary as well as a developmental sense.




A s a f i n a l e x a m p l e , i t i s w o r t h n o t i n g t h a t o u r s t u d y i s a

s i n g le g e n e r a t i o n d e e p . P a s s in g a c o n v e n t i o n a l c o m m u n i c a t i o n

s y s t e m d o w n f r o m g e n e r a t i o n t o g e n e r a t i o n t e n d s t o a l t e r t h e

s t r u c t u r e o f t h a t s y s t e m , c r e a t i n g l a n g u a g e c h a n g e o v e r h i s t o r -

i c a l t i m e . T h i s i s s u e c a n b e e x p l o r e d o v e r a s h o r t e r p e r i o d b y

a g a in a d a p t i n g o u r e x p e r i m e n t a l p a r a d i g m a l o ng a d i f f e re n t

d i m e n s i o n . A f t e r tw o a d u l t s h a v e d e v e l o p e d a g e s t u r e s y s t e m ,

t h e y m a y b e a s k e d t o s h a r e t h a t s y s t e m w i t h a t h i r d p e r s o n ( a n

a d u l t o r p e r h a p s a c h i l d ) w h o i s n e w t o t h e t a s k . T h e t h i r d

p e r s o n , e x p e r i e n c i n g t h e s y s t e m f o r t h e f i r st t i m e , m a y i n t r o -

d u c e c h a n g e s i n t o t h e s y s t e m , c h a n g e s t h a t m a y c o m e a b o u t

o n l y w h e n a n o v i c e v ie w s t h e s y s t e m a s a w h o l e ( c f . K e g l , 1 9 9 4;

S i n g l e t o n & N e w p o r t , 1 9 9 2 ) .

T h u s , o u r e x p e r i m e n t a l p a r a d i g m m a y b e a d a p t e d t o p r o b e

l a n g u a g e c re a t i o n o v e r th e s h o r t - t e r m , p r o v i d i n g u s w i t h a t e c h -

n i q u e t o e x p l o r e t h e e f f ec t s o f v a r i o u s e n v i r o n m e n t s o n t h e

s t r u c t u r e o f s y m b o l i c h u m a n c o m m u n i c a t i o n . N o t e , h o w ev e r,

t h a t o u r g e s t u r e - c r e a ti o n p a r a d i g m , a l t h o u g h u s e f u l f o r e x p l o r -

i n g a s p e c ts o f l a n g u ag e c r e a t i o n , d o e s n o t s i m u l a t e t h e c o n d i -

t i o n s t h a t e x i s t e d w h e n l a n g u a g e w a s c r e a t e d f o r t h e f ir s t t i m e .

N e v e r th e l es s , o u r f i n d i n g s p r o v i d e u s w i t h g r o u n d s f o r s p e c u l a -

t i o n a b o u t l a n g u a g e e v o l u t i o n , a n d w e t u r n t o t h i s t o p i c in t h ef ina l sec t ion .

Gesture and Linguistic Evolution

S i g n e d l an g u a g e s ( a s w e l l a s o u r o w n g e s t u r e c o n d i t i o n ) m a k e

i t c l e a r t h a t t h e m a n u a l m o d a l i t y c a n a s s u m e a s e g m e n t e d a n d

c o m b i n a t o r i a l fo r m . W h y t h e n d i d l a n g u a g e b e c o m e t h e p r o v -

i n c e o f t h e o r a l m o d a l i t y ? W h y i s s p e e c h t h e m o s t c o m m o n

f o r m o f l in g u i s ti c b e h a v i o r i n h u m a n c u l t u r e s w h e n i t c o u l d j u s t

a s e a s i ly h a v e b e e n s i g n ? W e s p e c u l a t e t h a t h a v i n g s e g m e n t e d

s t r u c t u r e i n t h e o r a l m o d a l i t y a s w e c u r r e n t l y d o l e a ve s t h e m a n -

u a l m o d a l i t y f r e e t o c o - o c c u r w i t h s p e e c h a n d t o c a p t u r e t h e

m i m e t i c a s p ec t s o f c o m m u n i c a t i o n along with s p e e c h . T h u s ,

o u r c u r r e n t a r r a n g e m e n t a l l o w s u s t o r e t a i n , a l o n g w i t h a s e g -

m e n t e d r e p r e s e n t a t i o n a n d i n a s in g l e s t r e a m o f c o m m u n i c a -

t i o n , t h e i m a g i s t i c a s p e c t s o f th e m i m e t i c t h a t a r e s o v i t a l to

c o m m u n i c a t i o n ( c f. M c N e i l l, 1 9 92 ) .~ ° N o t e t h a t t h e a l t e r n a t iv e

a r r a n g e m e n t - - i n w h i c h t h e m a n u a l m o d a l i tY w o u l d se r v e l a n -

g u a g e li k e fu n c t i o n s a n d t h e o r a l m o d a l i t y w o u l d s e r ve t h e m i -

m e t i c f u n c t i o n s - - h a s t h e d i s a d v a n t a g e o f f o rc i n g t h e o r a l m o -

d a l i t y t o b e u n n a t u r a l l y i m a g i s t i c i n f o r m ( a l t h o u g h s e e H a i -

m a n , 1 98 5 , f o r e v i d e n c e t h a t t h e o r a l m o d a l i t y d o e s e x h i b i t

s o m e i c o n i c p r o p e r t i e s ) . A s a n e x a m p l e , H u t t e n l o c h e r ( 1 9 7 3 ,

1 9 7 6 ) p o i n t e d o u t t h a t a v e r b a l d e s c r i p t i o n o f t h e s h a p e o f t h e

E a s t C o a s t o f t h e U n i t e d S t a t e s i s li k e l y n o t o n l y t o b e v e r y c u m -

b e r s o m e , b u t a l s o t o le a v e o u t i m p o r t a n t i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t t h e

c o a s t l i n e - - i n f o r m a t i o n t h a t w e s u g g e s t c o u l d e a s i l y b e c a p -t u r e d i n a m i m e t i c g e s t u r e t r a c i n g th e o u t l i n e o f t h e c o a st . B e -

c a u s e g e s tu r e a l lo w s o n e t o r e p r e s e n t a n i m a g e a s a w h o l e

w i t h o u t b r e a k i n g i t i n t o p a r t s , g e s t u r e o f f e rs a b e t t e r v e h i c l e f o r

e n c o d i n g i m a g i s t ic i n f o r m a t i o n t h a n d o e s s p e e c h ( G o l d i n -

M e a d o w e t a l . , 1 9 9 3 ). T h e m a n u a l m o d a l i t y is t h e r e f o r e t h e

n a t u r a l c h o i c e t o e n c o d e m i m e t i c i n f o r m a t i o n , l e a v in g i n f o r-

m a t i o n t h a t i s b e t t e r c a p t u r e d i n a d i s c r e te a n d s e g m e n t e d f o r m

t o t h e o r a l m o d a l i t y . U n d e r t h i s s c e n a r i o , s p e e c h b e c a m e t h e

p r e d o m i n a n t m e d i u m o f h u m a n l a ng u a ge n o t b e c a u s e it i s s o

w e l l s u i t e d t o t h e l i n e a r a n d s e g m e n t e d r e q u i r e m e n t s o f s y m -

b o l ic h u m a n c o m m u n i c a t i o n ( t h e m a n u a l m o d a l i t y is eq u a l ly

s u i t e d t o t h e j o b ) , b u t r a t h e r b e c a u s e i t i s n o t p a r t i c u l a r l y g o o d

a t c a p t u r in g t h e i m a g i s ti c c o m p o n e n t s o f h u m a n c o m m u n i c a -

t i o n ( a t a s k a t w h i c h t h e m a n u a l m o d a l i t y e xc e ls ). 11

I n s u m m a r y , w h e n b o t h t h e m a n u a l a n d o r a l m o d a l i t i e s a r e

a c c e s si b l e, c o m m u n i c a t i o n t y p i c a l l y i n v o l v e s t h e h a n d a s w e l l

a s t h e m o u t h ( t h i s i s s o e v en i n t h e c o n g e n i t a l l y b l i n d , w h o h a v e

n o m o d e l f o r g e s t u ri n g ; Iv e r s o n & G o l d i n - M e a d o w , 1 9 9 5 ) . G e s -

t u r e a n d s p e e c h f o r m a n i n t e g r a t e d s y s t e m , w i t h s p e e c h a s s u m -

i n g a s e g m e n t e d a n d c o m b i n a t o r i a l f o r m a n d g e s t u r e a s s u m i n g

a g l o b a l a n d m i m e t i c f o r m . T h e q u e s t i o n w e a s k e d i n t h i s s t u d y

w a s w h a t h a p p e n s w h e n s p e e c h i s r e m o v e d . W i l l g e s t u re c o n -

t i n u e t o a s s u m e t h e g l o b a l a n d m i m e t i c f o r m t h a t i t ty p i c a l l y

a s s u m e s w h e n p r o d u c e d a l o n g w i t h s p e e c h , o r w i l l i t ta k e o v e r

t h e s e g m e n t e d a n d c o m b i n a t o r i a l f o r m t h a t i s t y p i c a l l y t h e

p r o v i n c e o f s p e e ch ? W e f o u n d t h a t g e s t u re d o e s n o t r e m a i n

g l o b a l a n d m i m e t i c b u t r a t h e r i m m e d i a t e l y s w i tc h e s i t s f o r m .

G e s t u r e a s s u m e s t h e s e g m e n t e d a n d c o m b i n a t o r i a l f o r m o f

s p e e c h , a l th o u g h i t d o e s n o t t a k e o n a l l o f t h e g r a m m a t i c a l p r o p -

e r t i e s f o u n d i n s p e e c h , n o r e v e n a l l o f t h e g r a m m a t i c a l p r o p e r -

t i e s f o u n d i n g e s t u r e s y s t e m s d e v e l o p e d ov e r a p e r i o d o f y e a r s b y

d e a f c h i l d r e n w h o u s e g e s t u r e a s t h e i r s o le m e a n s o f c o m m u n i -c a t i o n ( c f. G o l d i n - M e a d o w & M y l a n d er , 1 9 9 0 a ) .

O u r f i n d i n g s s u g g e s t t h a t a s e g m e n t e d a n d c o m b i n a t o r i a l

f o r m i s e s s en t i al to s y m b o l i c h u m a n c o m m u n i c a t i o n , s o es -

s e n t i a l t h a t , i f p r e v e n t e d f r o m c o m i n g o u t o f th e m o u t h , i t w i l l

c h a r a c t e r iz e w h a t c o m e s o u t o f th e h a n d s . W e s p e c u l a t e t h a t

t h e p r o p e r t i e s o f s eg m e n t a t i o n a n d c o m b i n a t i o n a r i s e i n e v it a -

b ly , n o t f r o m h o w h u m a n s t h i n k , b u t f r o m t h e t a sk o f s y m b o l -

i c a ll y c o m m u n i c a t i n g t h e i r t h o u g h ts t o o t h e r s - - t h e n e e d t o

e s t a b l i s h r e f e re n c e a n d r e l a t e t h o s e r e f e r e n t s t o o n e a n o t h e r . I t

i s n o t t h e c o m m u n i c a t i v e t a s k a l o n e t h a t f o s t e r s t h e s e p r o p e r -

t ie s , b e c a u s e s e g m e n t a t io n a n d c o m b i n a t i o n d o n o t a p p e a r i n

c o m m u n i c a t i o n s y s t e m s u s e d b y o t h e r a n i m a l s . R a t h e r , s e g -

m e n t a t i o n a n d c o m b i n a t i o n a p p e a r t o b e i n e v i ta b l e c o n s e-

1o One might argue that the imagistic aspects o f the m imetic are not

so v i t a l to symbol ic human com munica t ion on the g rounds tha t we do

comm unicate when gesturing is not possible (e .g., on th e telephon e).

However, as far as we know, no one has at tem pted to evaluate whethercom mu nicatio n in such situations is as effective as face-to-face comm u-

nicat ion ( indeed, many speakers f ind themselves gesturing on the tele-

phone, presum ably feel ing a need to augm ent their ta lk in some perhapsmim etic way; cf. Rime, 1982). M oreover, there is much w ork suggesting

that the gestures pro duce d along with speech d o indeed serve an essen-

t ial role in com municat ion (Goldin-Meadow, Wein, & Chang, 1992;

Kendon, 1994; McNeill, Cassell, & McCullough, 1994).

~ This speculat ion about the im portan ce of maintaining a vehicle for

mi me tic represen tation along with speech raises an interesting questionwith respect to s ign language. In s ign, i t is the man ual m odali ty that

assumes the segmented and co mb inatorial form essential to hum an lan-

guage. Can th e m anual m odali ty at the same t ime also be used for globaland mimetic expression? In other words, do signers gesture along with

their s igns and, i f not , how is the global and mim etic function f i lled?

One p ossibi l i ty s that sounds or mou th movements m ight assume themimetic function for signers. Although such movements have fre-

quently be en observed in fluent signers, as far as we know, no w ork has

been conducted to investigate whether these behaviors (or any others,for that m atter) serve for s ign the m imetic function tha t gesture serves

for speech.




quences of the hum an m ind grappling with the task of shared

symbolic communic ation.

We end by emphasizing that, although the imagistic informa-

tion that gesture is constrained to convey when it accompanies

speech is an impo rtant part of huma n commu nicat ion (cf.,

McNeill, 1992), it can be compr omise d when gesture is called

on to ca rry the full burden of commu nication. When gesture is

the only moda lity available, it is no longer purely driven by im-

agery but instead assumes the segmented and combinatorial

form required for symbolic human communication. Thus,

when the bo nd between gesture and speech is broken, gesture is

liberated--no longer bound by the constraints imposed on it

in the integrated system it shares with speech. However, this

freedom is short-lived as, once li berated, gesture is constraine d

again--f orced to take on the forms imposed by carrying the full

burden of symbolic hum an com munication.

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Received Febru ary 13, 1994

Revision received October 6, 1994

Accepted Apri l 5, 1995 •

Ne w Editor Appointed

The Publicat ions and CommunicationsBoard of the American Psychological Association announces

the appointment of Kev in R. Murphy, PhD, as editor of the J o u r n a l o f A p p l i e d P s y c h o l o g y for a six-year term beginning n 1997.

As of March 1, 1996, submi t manuscripts to Kevin R. Murphy, PhD, Department of Psychology,

Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1876.

Documents

Mc Neill, d & Al -Catalogo- 5-2196 (0339) Impresion Pendiente