title: Hey!
abstract: Zinacantec Family Homesign (Z) is a new sign language emerging spontaneously over the past three decades in a single family in a remote Mayan Indian village. Three deaf siblings, their Tzotzil-speaking age-mates, and now their children, who have had contact with no other deaf people, represent the first generation of Z signers. I postulate an augmented grammaticalization path, beginning with the adoption of a Tzotzil cospeech holophrastic gesture-meaning "come!"-into Z, and then its apparent stylization as an attention-getting sign, followed by grammatical regimentation and pragmatic generalization as an utterance initial change of speaker or turn marker.
authors: Anthropology Department, University of California San Diego.
authors: John B
authors: JB
authors: Haviland
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D005191:Family Characteristics; D005260:Female; D005868:Gestures; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D008037:Linguistics; D008297:Male; D008800:Mexico; D008875:Middle Aged; D010375:Pedigree; D019986:Persons with Hearing Disabilities; D012813:Sign Language; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Adjacency pair; Emerging grammar; Gesture; Grammaticalization; Home sign; Pragmatics; Sign language; Turn-taking