A Grammar of Turkish Sign Language (TİD)

The most frequent non-manual marker squint usually spreads over the scope of the relative clause. However, this spread is not obligatory. In some rare cases, the spread is not full. A relativizer is present in most of those cases where the squint is not fully present. In short, the relative clause is marked either by a relativizer, a squint or the combination of these.

When present, raised eyebrows also tend to spread over the entire RC and rarely over an external head noun. Head shake needs to combine with another non-manual marker to be present in a relative clause. The position of this non-manual marker is not systematic.

Head nod tends to occur at the end of the RCs, marking the end of a prosodic Intonational Phrase [Phonology - 2.2.3.] as an edge marker [Phonology - 2] with its shorter duration compared to squint and raised eyebrows which are domain markers [Phonology - 2], marking the entire scope of the relative clause. Below we show an example where the edge marker head nod and the domain marker squint are present together.

                                                                                                 hn

                                        _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _                             sq

after morning in [man adore all f-i-g-u-r-e same(loc)_a] CL:'gather'(loc)_a

'Afterwards, in the morning, the people gathered at the same (place) that they used to adore the cult figures.'

(Kubus 2016: 330)