A Grammar of Turkish Sign Language (TİD)

TİD uses non-manual (squint in relative clauses) or manual strategies (fingerspelling and mainly entity classifiers) to identify the foregrounded and backgrounded information (See also [Pragmatics - Chapter 2]). Foregrounding information refers to highlighting the most salient piece of discourse. The less-salient stretch of discourse, which does not make the discourse advance, is considered backgrounded. In simple terms, a foregrounding strategy tells the addressee that “this is a new information and I will most probably say more about it” (introduction) or “I have talked about this information some time before and now I bring back the topic again” (reintroduction). Conversely, a backgrounding strategy tells the addressee that “This is an information that I have given you earlier, please keep this information in mind for a while since I might say something about it” (maintenance).

Generally, foregrounded and salient information is expressed by relatively long units (e.g. noun phrases) whereas backgrounded information is typically expressed by shorter units such as pronominals, classifiers, role shift, or not expressed at all. The latter forms generally denote previously mentioned referents or referents that are already known, perceived or attended by both the signer and the addressee (e.g. an object in the room where the conversation takes place).

One typical backgrounding strategy is holding the non-dominant hand of a sign while the dominant hand keeps on signing. In the example below, the demonstrative pronoun in the non-dominant hand is kept active during the whole utterance, backgrounding the person information who is introduced earlier in the narrative [Lexicon - Section 1.2.3].

 

 

h1:     ix something mistake exist

h2:                             ix_________

‘That (person) made a mistake’

 

When talking about temporally advancing events (narratives), relative clauses are occasionally used for foregrounding, that is, introducing a referent into discourse. The last line in the example below is such an utterance where a relative clause is used for introducing the referent ‘the girl’.

 

“A woman and her son live in a house in a village.

The son wants to get married.

However, the mother is a very bad person.

She has complained about the girlfriends that he has had so far.

The girl, who is from a village far away, loves the boy.”

 

                                sq

[girl far village in]  boy_a ix_a love

The girl, who was from a village far away, loved the boy.    

(Kubus 2016: 209)

 

As another strategy of foregrounding, relative clauses in narratives are usually used for reintroducing a referent that has been mentioned before:

 

“(...) There were three women, who had known each other for years. One woman was married. Another woman married soon after. The other woman was still single. (...).

The first (woman), who was already married, met the single woman.”        

 

            __re

       ____________h-n         h-n

       ________________sq  ‘o’  ____sq

(h1)[ıx marry finish      ix_i] single_j CL:'meet'_(i,j)

(h2)fırst

'The first (woman), who was already married, met the single woman.'

(adapted from Kubus 2016: 192)

 

Occasionally, relative clauses fulfill backgrounding function when it gives extra background information about an already mentioned referent:

 

                     _h-n                                                                _h-n

germany ix in      one young person e-v-e-n-t good watch

 

____________________________re       _h-n

[ix_i hearing one friend_i film _igive₁]        ix₁ change sign film ₁tell₂

“I heard a good and thrilling story about a young boy in Germany. I changed the story, which a hearing friend told me, and will tell the story to you all.”      

(Kubus 2016: 264)