An empirical investigation of expression of multiple entities in Turkish Sign Language (TİD): Considering the effects of modality

This paper explores the expression of multiple entities in Turkish Sign Language (Türk İşaret Dili; TİD), a less well-studied sign language. It aims to provide a comprehensive description of the ways and frequencies in which entity plurality in this language is expressed, both within and outside the noun phrase. We used a corpus that includes both elicited and spontaneous data from native signers. The results reveal that most of the expressions of multiple entities in TİD are iconic, spatial strategies (i.e. localization and spatial plural predicate inflection) none of which, we argue, should be considered as genuine plural marking devices with the main aim of expressing plurality. Instead, the observed devices for localization and predicate inflection allow for a plural interpretation when multiple locations in space are used. Our data do not provide evidence that TİD employs (productive) morphological plural marking (i.e. reduplication) on nouns, in contrast to some other sign languages and many spoken languages. We relate our findings to expression of multiple entities in other signed languages and in spoken languages and discuss these findings in terms of modality effects on expression of multiple entities in human language.

► The visual modality favors spatial, iconic devices for plural expression.
► Plural in TİD, and in other signed languages, is mainly expressed on predicates.
► Multiple spatial locations in linguistic expressions entail a plural interpretation.
► TİD does not employ productive morphological plural marking on the noun.
► Plural is not explicitly marked but entailed in TID and many other sign languages.