title: The emergence of embedded structure: insights from Kafr Qasem Sign Language.
abstract: This paper introduces data from Kafr Qasem Sign Language (KQSL), an as-yet undescribed sign language, and identifies the earliest indications of embedding in this young language. Using semantic and prosodic criteria, we identify predicates that form a constituent with a noun, functionally modifying it. We analyze these structures as instances of embedded predicates, exhibiting what can be regarded as very early stages in the development of subordinate constructions, and argue that these structures may bear directly on questions about the development of embedding and subordination in language in general. Deutscher (2009) argues persuasively that nominalization of a verb is the first step-and the crucial step-toward syntactic embedding. It has also been suggested that prosodic marking may precede syntactic marking of embedding (Mithun, 2009). However, the relevant data from the stage at which embedding first emerges have not previously been available. KQSL might be the missing piece of the puzzle: a language in which a noun can be modified by an additional predicate, forming a proposition within a proposition, sustained entirely by prosodic means.
authors.affiliation: Department of Linguistics, New York University New York, NY, USA.
authors.forename: Itamar
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kastner
authors.affiliation: Department of Hebrew Language and Department of Communication Disorders, University of Haifa Haifa, Israel.
authors.forename: Irit
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Meir
authors.affiliation: Department of English Language and Literature, University of Haifa Haifa, Israel.
authors.forename: Wendy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Sandler
authors.affiliation: Department of English Language and Literature, University of Haifa Haifa, Israel.
authors.forename: Svetlana
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dachkovsky
keywords: embedding; nominalization; prosody; sign language; syntax