Judy Kegl

The Licensing of Null Arguments in American Sign Language

The distribution of null arguments across languages has been accounted for in terms of two distinct strategies: licensing by agreement and licensing by topic. Lillo-Martin (1986, 1991) claims that American Sign Language (ASL) exploits both strategies for licensing null arguments, depending on the morphological characteristics of the verb. Here we show that this is incorrect. Once the nonmanual correlates of agreement features (comparable to the nonmanual expressions of other syntactic features) in ASL are recognized, it becomes apparent that null arguments in this language are systematically licensed by an expression of syntactic agreement.

Realizations of syntactic agreement in American sign language : Similarities between the clause and the noun phrase

ASL syntax makes essential use of specific non-manual expressions of syntactic features (e.g., +neg, +wh) that co-occur with manual signs. These markings occur obligatorily with manual material contained in the node of origin and optionally extend over the c-command domain of that node, thus providing important evidence for hierarchical structure. In this article, we show that agreement features, both within the clause and the noun phrase, also have non-manual correlates that exhibit the predicted distribution. Interestingly, transitive IPs and possessive DPs pattern together in their manifestation of agreement marking, while intransitive IPs pattern with non-possessive DPs.

Toward Extending the Educational Interpreter Performance Assessment to Cued Speech

The Educational Interpreter Performance Assessment (EIPA) is as an important research tool for examining the quality of interpreters who use American Sign Language or a sign system in classroom settings, but it is not currently applicable to educational interpreters who use Cued Speech (CS). In order to determine the feasibility of extending the EIPA to include CS, a pilot EIPA test was developed and administered to 24 educational CS interpreters. Fifteen of the interpreters’ performances were evaluated two to three times in order to assess reliability. Results show that the instrument has good construct validity and test–retest reliability. Although more interrater reliability data are needed, intrarater reliability was quite high (0.9), suggesting that the pilot test can be rated as reliably as signing versions of the EIPA. Notably, only 48% of interpreters who formally participated in pilot testing performed at a level that could be considered minimally acceptable. In light of similar performance levels previously reported for interpreters who sign (e.g., Schick, Williams, & Kupermintz, 2006), these results suggest that interpreting services for deaf and hard-of hearing students, regardless of the communication option used, are often inadequate and could seriously hinder access to the classroom environment.