Projects

This project aims at covering a whole domain of Catalan Sign Language (LSC) grammar that is still poorly understood for the most part or only partially addressed: reference. Under this very broad header we encompass the morphological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic means that LSC has at its disposal in order to mainly talk about individuals, but also about times and worlds, for instance. The four areas of research to be tackled are: (i) the morphosyntax of Determiner Phrases; (ii) the pronominal system; (iii) quantification, and (iv) anaphoric chains in discourse.

Clause combining, i.e. the grammatical mechanisms that integrate clauses into bigger sentential units, has received little attention to date in sign languages (SLs). This project builds and expands on the previous one, ClauseCombiSL1.

Language policies for signing deaf Europeans require reliable reference grammars of their sign languages (SLs), which are generally lacking or of limited validity if they exist. They constitute the basis for teaching and training purposes. In addition, descriptive grammars are essential for the documentation of a European linguistic and cultural heritage which is largely unrecognized to date.