We are happy to announce a talk by Dorothy Ahn (Rutgers University) in the Semantics Colloquium.
The talk will take place online. If you want to participate via zoom, please register via email to s.walter@em.uni-frankfurt.de.
Title: Pointing in spoken and signed languages
Date: February 3
Time: 4 pm – 6 pm ct
Abstract:
Pointing is a gesture that occurs early in development and continues to be used with language in both spoken and signed languages. The different distributional and interpretational properties of pointing in the two modalities of language raise the question of whether there is one or many kinds of pointing found across languages and developmental stages. In this talk, I propose a unified analysis of pointing, where it is analyzed as a locational restriction. I argue that the differences observed in the two modalities of language can be derived from assuming a general restriction against cross-modal composition and discuss its implications on the use of pointing and deictic reference.