Spoken and Sign Language Emergence: A Comparison

Abstract

A comparison of emerging signed languages and creole languages provides evidence that, when language is emerging, it prioritizes marking the novelty of information; is readily recursive; favors the manner of action (aspect) over the time of action (tense); develops inflection readily only in a visual, as opposed to aural, mode; and develops derivational opacity only as the result of drift over long periods of time.

Keywords

• creole
• pidgin
• word order
• embedding
• aspect
• inflection