Carol Padden & Mark Aronoff: UCSD, Stonybrook U

We report here on work we have carried out with colleagues Wendy Sandler and Irit Meir on an emerging sign
language, Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL). ABSL developed de novo in a small closed community
of Bedouins which is now in its third generation of signers. In this talk, we show how a new human language
is assembled over a relatively short period of time. In this language, the body emerges as a primary signifier,
figuring prominently in the form of verbs, particularly in grammatical notion of subject. Broadly, we find that the
iconicity of the body and space around the body interacts with emerging grammatical structures, including
word order and morphology, resulting in a complex story about the deployment of physical, human resources
in the service of natural language grammars.