Iconological Semantics

Abstract

We argue that sign language requires a radical extension of formal semantics. It has long been accepted that sign language employs the same logical machinery as spoken language (occasionally making its abstract components overt), and simultaneously makes extensive use of iconicity. But the articulation between these two modules has only been discussed piecemeal. To capture it, we propose an ‘iconological semantics’ that combines standard logical semantics with a pictorial semantics in the Greenberg/Abusch tradition. We start by reanalyzing from this perspective earlier data on iconic loci, which are simultaneously variables and simplified depictions of their denotations. We then analyze new data on ASL classifier predicates, constructions that are lexically specified as being iconic. Their behavior argues for a very expressive system, possibly one in which the object language contains viewpoint variables. These can be left free or they may depend on quantifiers, and distinct viewpoint variables can co-occur in a given sentence; this gives rise to an extraordinary interaction between depictions and logical operators. We then sketch an adaptation of pictorial semantics to the dynamic 3D representations used in sign language. Finally, we suggest that iconological semantics might also illuminate the interaction between logical operators and pro-speech gestures in spoken language. In the end, the standard view of language as a discrete compositional system must be revised: it also has a tightly integrated depictive component, and ‘textbook semantics’ should be revised to capture this fact.