Chaining Reciprocal in Russian Sign Language

The paper examines classifier constructions to express chaining reciprocals in Russian Sign Language. Typological studies of reciprocity show that the chaining reciprocal can be mediated by markers of prototypical reciprocal meaning or by special markers. As a visual modality language, Russian Sign Language has unique and iconic means of expressing reciprocal meaning. Studies on reciprocity in sign language show that classifier constructions are used to describe chaining situations. Classifiers are morphologically complex signs that some researchers consider to be a mixture of signs and gestures. It is, therefore, to be expected that the chaining reciprocal semantics in sign languages can be described in a more iconic and complex way than in spoken languages. The results of this study, which was carried out using corpus data and elicited data, show that three types of classifier constructions are used in Russian sign language for spatial chaining situations: They represent the process of forming a chain of objects, the presence of the chain and the movement of the chain. 19% of the sentences contain two types of classifier constructions that always occur in a specific order. These three classifier constructions can be applied to at least 15 classifier handshapes. Not all parameters of these classifier constructions are equally mandatory and important. The mandatory elements of these constructions are the position and function of the dominant and non-dominant hand and the movement of the trajectory from the beginning to the end of the chain. In addition, the wholeness of the discontinuity of the chain can be expressed by reduplication. The secondary movement and orientation are very iconic and depend on the characteristics of the situation. The use of these parameters to describe the characteristics of objects and their placement and movement varies greatly between informants, which can be explained by the fact that these parameters are closer to the gesture than to the linguistic element of the classification construction.

Russian sign language, reciprocal, reciprocal concatenation, classifiers, classifier constructions, dominant hand, non-dominant hand, reduplication, hand configuration, movement, orientation