In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

IMPLICATIONAL VARIATION IN AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE: NEGATIVE INCORPORATION' James C. Woodward,Jr. 1.0 Introduction. There is a diglossic continuum between American Sign Language (ASL) and Standard English in the U.S. deaf community (Stokoe 1969-70, 1973; Moores 1972; Woodward 1972, 1973; Friedman 1973). This differs from the classic diglossic situation described by Ferguson (1959), because the H variety (Standard English) and the L variety (ASL) are two separate languages, but it is a situation that shares much of the attitudinal and social characteristics of typical diglossic situations. Variationsts Bailey (1971), Fasold (1972), Bickerton (1972), and DeCamp (1972) have shown that traditional linguistic theory is inadequate to explain language variation, especially in continuum situations. Models of variation theory developed by these (socio)linguists can explain such variation. This paper reports on variation in the Negative Incorporation Rule of ASL. Three studies of variable use of this ASL syntactical rule are examined utilizing variation theory. These studies offer a crucial testing ground for the descriptive and explanatory power of variation theory, since these studies are on visual language phenomena that linguists have not normally observed. The first study (DC) reported in Woodward (1973a) analyzed data on three ASL rules from 141 informants living in the Washington, D.C., Frederick, Maryland, and New York City areas who varied according to four social measures. These variables identified the informants as deaf, with deaf parents, as having learned signs before the age of six, and attended some college. The second (MW) study (Woodward 1973b), tested the same three variable rules using 36 informants from Montana and Washington state, who were chosen on the basis of three social variables: deaf parents, signing before six, and college. The third (IRI) study, the inter-rule implication study (Woodward 1973c), took the data from the DC study and attempted to find implicational relations among the three ASL rules. Woodward S V N V 8 know me Negative Incorporation then yields Id. S V know Neg A final pruning rule gives le. know Neg Later rules give a surface structure symbolization to the lexical units and rewrite Neg as twisting outward movement of the dez from the tab of KNOW. (These terms for the working hand's configuration and the distinctive sign location are from Stokoe, 1960; Stokoe et al, 19 6 5; caps. show signs as common glosses.) Z Sign Language Studies 5 2.0 Negative Incorporation. American Sign Language has several verbs that may be negated by a bound, outward twisting movement of the moving hand(s) from the place where the sign is made. The derivational history of one example of Negative Incorporation is described below. 1. B1 [ GT not me know 'I don't know'. The underlying structure of 1 is represented in la. [Only essential structures are listed in trees in this paper. la probably needs an underlying object later deleted. However, as this object is not essential to the tree in question, it is not included.] la. S V S V N Neg know me Predicate lowering results in lb. lb. S V N V V I I Neg know me A pruning rule allows deletion of the highest S, yielding Ic. Woodward 3.0 The DC Study. 3.1 Negative IncorporationImplication. Not all ASL verbs undergo Negative Incorporation. Five verbs that do undergo this transformation were used in the DC study: KNOW WANT GOOD LIKE HAVE a T []LL # [BX X Ca CaT 1 Before this study was begun, it was noticed that not everyone who signs or who claims to use ASL uses Negative Incorporation with all these verbs. There was considerable variation. However this variation was found to be implicational. The ordering for the implication is: HAVE, LIKE, WANT, KNOW, GOOD. Based on this implicational ordering we have the six possible implicationally ordered lects shown in Table 1, even though mathematically there are 32 (2s) possible lectal arrangements. Lect HAVE LIKE WANT KNOW GOOD 1 + + + + + 2 - + + + + 3 - + + + 4 - + + 5 -+ 6 Table 1. Presence ofNegative Incorporationin Six ImplicationalLects. For such an implicational scale to be valid, at least 85% (Guttman 1944) and preferably 89-90% (Bailey personal communication) of the responses must fit the implication shown in Table 1.With...

pdf