Conditional Clauses in Sign Language of the Netherlands: A Corpus-Based Study

Conditional clauses are underresearched in sign languages, and the research that has been done has mostly employed elicited data. The current study provides a thorough description of conditional clauses in Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT) based on naturalistic corpus data. Similar to conditionals in other sign languages, conditionals in NGT can be introduced with a manual marker, although it is also possible to only use nonmanual markers such as raised eyebrows, head movement, and head tilt. Different, however, is the striking amount of variation that we found with respect to both manual and nonmanual marking. This might be due to differing methodologies, but we discuss several other potential explanations as well. We further provide evidence that nonmanual markers are less frequent in conditionals with manual markers than without. In addition, we offer an—albeit brief—description of peripheral conditionals in NGT, a conditional type that has not yet been investigated thoroughly for any sign language.