Debra Aarons

Clausal Structure and a Tier for Grammatical Marking in American Sign Language

Grammatical information in ASL can systematically be marked on the face. Such nonmanual marking extends over the c-command domain of the trigger, and therefore provides information about the hierarchical organization of the language. Consistent with evidence available from the distribution of non-manual markings—as illustrated with respect to wh-marking and negation—a basic clausal structure for ASL is proposed. Furthermore, we suggest, contrary to generally accepted claims about ASL, that both Tense and Agreement are structurally present in all ASL main clauses. This analysis allows for a uniform account of the licensing of null subjects in ASL. Evidence in favor of this analysis, and against a dual licensing mechanism (as proposed in Kegl, 1985, and Lillo-Martin, 1986, 1991b), is presented.

Classifier Predicates and the Creation of Multiple Perspectives in South African Sign Language

This article examines some of the options that South African Sign Language offers for the representation of multiple perspectives on an event. The authors focus on picture descriptions that use classifier predicates. They show that signers use constructed action in conjunction with classifier predicates to create simultaneous multiple perspectives on an event. Signers also use classifier predicates and constructed action sequentially to shift perspectives back and forth within an utterance. The authors conclude that the modality of space allows users of a sign language to apply several active articulators simultaneously to communicate multiple perspectives on an event; the differences in the representational repertoire of the articulators allow perspective changes to follow one another rapidly.

Following Orders: Playing Fast and Loose with Language and Letters*

By examining the nature of English cryptic crossword puzzle clues and their solutions, this article considers a peculiar interaction between some linguistic phenomena occurring in oral language and some elements of written language not normally regarded as linguistic units. Cryptic clues are analysed in relation to the mechanisms used in linguistic jokes, and they are shown to resemble, extend and augment these, based on the different rules of combination for spoken and written language elements. Cryptic crosswords are shown to use linguistic as well as puzzle-solving rules in the service of language play. In so doing, they illuminate the human tendency to play with objects and to transform them as needed.

Obscenity, dirtiness and licence in Jewish comedy

We examine the notion of obscenity in relation to constructions of Jewish sexuality in stand-up. Since Lenny Bruce, stand-up has been defined by extreme licence. Acknowledging that stand-up is reliant on the construction of performer identity, we examine the routines of Belle Barth and Pearl Williams, female Jewish contemporaries of Bruce, in contrast to Bruce, and show that Bruce used his construction of Jewish identity as a scourge to beat a wider, more general audience, whereas Barth and Williams used theirs as a way to ridicule and deflate themselves and their mainly Jewish audiences. All accused of obscenity, these comedians referred to themselves as ‘dirty’ rather than obscene, implying a contrast between dirtiness and obscenity. Exploiting this distinction, they pushed the latitudes of comic licence. Although they all attacked hypocrisy, their targets and goals were different. Some 60 years later, Bruce is generally acknowledged as the father of modern stand-up – he is immortalized and beatified – whereas Belle Barth and Pearl Williams are forgotten. We argue, however, that their personae persisted in Bruces female inheritors: Joan Rivers, and Sarah Silverman. We examine selected material from Rivers and Silverman, tracing public and domestic uses of ‘dirt’ as a means of attack in Jewish comedy. Their performances stringently interrogated social mores while simultaneously questioning and comically deflating obscenity. We conclude that, as with their forerunners, in their intensely Jewish construction of self, obscenity is licensed as simply dirtiness.

Public conscience of ‘the chosen people’: Sarah Silverman in the Wake of Lenny Bruce

ABSTRACT We locate the comedian Sarah Silvermans career trajectory within the rich tradition of Jewish public intellectuals in America, particularly those who have used comedy as their vehicle. We show that Silverman is in many ways the most current inheritor of the mantle of Lenny Bruce, not only in the sharpness of her observations and the unerring pitch of her comedy but also because of her perfect timing in the political zeitgeist. We argue that Silvermans stand-up comedy is not simply a form of social criticism, which is the purpose of all satire – but that like Lenny Bruces – it takes on the function of political activism. Silverman, however, unlike Bruce, manages to use the comedic voice of a liberal outsider to speak to a wider, more mainstream audience, mobilizing constituencies to the cause of making a more progressive polity.