A Grammar of Turkish Sign Language (TİD)

Entity classifiers (or whole entity classifiers/semantic classifiers) may refer to inanimate or animate objects and they are iconically or partially iconically motivated by the shape of the entities. Some examples of whole entity classifier handshapes that are common in TİD are the Flat-Handshape (for objects with smooth flat surfaces, e.g. a sheet of paper or a book), the Cup-Handshape (for long and/or thick cylindrical objects, e.g. a cup or a tree), and the 1-Handshape (for long, thin objects, e.g. a pen or a person):

 

                           

 

CL(x):‘turn_the_notebook’                  CL(<):‘trunk’                                       CL(B):‘come_across’

 

Entity classifiers can occur in verbs that express a motion of a referent, the localization of this referent in space, or its existence in space, and they are combined with the motion component of the verb. They may be used for describing various entities in a static situation in TİD: upright human or animal figures, car, truck and plane figures, book and notebook figures, glass and cup figures, armchair figures, round middle-size fruit figures. 

 

             In the figure below, the signer uses two instantiations of the 1-Handshape after she signs two and man. What the 1-Handshape represents is the body of the referent, which, in this context, indicates two men in an upright position. The orientation of the fingers represents the men’s physical orientation towards each other. The fact that the classifier handshapes are still, indicates that the men are not moving. Moreover, the positions of the classifiers in the signing space gives an indication of the proximity of the two men from the perspective of the signer. 

 

 

two                 man         CL(B):‘man_stand’

‘Two men are standing face to face.’    

  (r.f. Dikyuva et al., 2017:160)

 

Entity classifiers not only depict static entities, but they can also be used for expressing dynamic states of human and animal figures. The signer in the figure below uses the same 1-Handshape as in the previous figure (after she signs two and man). The position of the classifiers, the orientation of the hands with respect to each other are the same as the ones in the previous figure. However, the classifiers are moving towards each other in the following utterance, meaning both referents are involved in a movement and they are approaching each other.

 

 

                      

 

(man two)CL(B):‘man_stand’    CL(B):‘man_stand’      CL(B):‘man_stand’

‘Two men are approaching each other.’

(r.f. Arık 2013: 6)

 

The following figure exemplifies yet another case where the same classifier is used. This time, the two referents are moving in the same direction, placed one after the other, instead of moving towards each other. The difference in the direction of the movement and the orientation of the hands results in the meaning ‘a man is following another man’. 

 

 

           

 

man two CL(B):‘man_move’      CL(B):‘man_move’

‘A man is following another man.’            

  (r.f. Arık 2013: 6)

 

The 1-Handshape as shown in the previous figures is mostly used to refer to human beings. The plural information of the referents is maintained through using the relevant number of fingers to depict the number of human entities, e.g. 3-Handshape on the proximal hand and V-Handshape on the distal hand would mean ‘three men are following (another) two men’.

 

There is a subtype of entity classifiers in TİD which is referred to as honorific classifiers. They share the same characteristics with entity classifiers in terms of the relationship between the handshape and the referent. However, honorific expressions might be used to refer to people of higher status or they indicate politeness, formality, social distance and respect. There is an honorific person classifier which is distinguished from the neutral person classifier in TİD in terms of its handshape as shown in the following figure. 

 

     

 

Neutral and honorific person classifiers  

  (r.f. Zeshan, 2002:265)

 

Entity classifiers in TİD are not used only for human beings but also for animals, vehicles and geometrical objects. 

 

 

 

 

 

  mınıbus                              CL(x):‘vehicle_come’     CL(x):‘vehicle_stop’

  (r.f. Kubuş, 2008: 96 )

 

Furthermore, instruments in TİD could be expressed by entity classifiers through representing the shape of the object or by handle classifiers which show the manipulation of the instrument by the hand. Below is an example of two instruments expressed by the same entity classifier. 

 

 

 

 

          

mıxer haır_dryer 

(r.f. Özkul, 2013:72)

 

The following table lists the entity classifier handshapes and their examples.

 

 

The list of the entity classifier handshapes and their examples (r.f. and adapted from Kubus 2008)