Argues that a 1997 study of WH-movement in American Sign Language (ASL) proposing leftward syntactic movement uses incorrect interpretations of the data and can not account for the facts of the language. A previously-proposed position that ASL WH-phrases move rightward, and that universal grammar must allow the option of rightward movement, is…

Argues that WH-Movement in American Sign Language (ASL) is a leftward specifier of CP. Also argues that the occurrence of rightward WH-elements derives from independently motivated syntactic and discourse factors leading to the appearance of WH-elements in a sentence- or discourse-final positions--not by rightward WH-movement. This analysis…

Conventional sign language used by a community of signers over generations was compared with gestures invented by a deaf child over a period of years and with gestures invented by nonsigning hearing individuals on the spot. Findings suggest that an individual can introduce standards of well-formedness, but construction of standards requires…

Explores the predictors of early mastery versus error in children's acquisition of American Sign Language. Hypothesizes that the most frequent values for a particular parameter in prelinguistic gesture will be the most frequent in early signs and the most likely sources of substitution when children make errors. (Author/VWL)