Pronouns [LEXICON 3.7] and determiners [LEXICON 3.6] are one of the main means to refer back to already introduced discourse referents in previous utterances. In LSC, pronouns, determiners and agreement verbs are directed towards locations in space and the consistency in the direction towards space previously associated with referents contributes to building up connected and cohesive discourse and to ensuring reference tracking [PRAGMATICS 2]. This is shown in the following example, where two discourse referents (a woman and a man) are established in two spatial locations at the beginning. The discourse continues and afterwards an agreement verb like look localised in each spatial location suffices to refer back to each discourse referent.
dh: restaurant woman ixa[ipsi_down] […] 3alook3b
ndh: man ixb[contra_down] […] 3alook3b
‘At a restaurant, there is a woman and there is a man […]. They look at each other.’
Classifier handshapes [MORPHOLOGY 5] denoting entities also add to the overall cohesion of the discourse. The three major groups of predicate classifiers contributing to discourse cohesion are (whole) entity classifiers [MORPHOLOGY 5.1.1], bodypart classifiers [MORPHOLOGY 5.1.2], and handle classifiers [MORPHOLOGY 5.1.3]. The former two are used to represent (body parts of) referents that move or are located somewhere, while the latter represent objects that are being moved or handled. Classifier handshapes are anaphorically connected to a previously introduced antecedent. The following excerpt is an instance of the discourse referent for rabbit referred back to by two handshape classifiers denoting the whole entity: the 2-handshape and the Z-handshape.
coincide day heat strong sun rabbit feel start tired
rs:rabbit rs:rabbit
cl(2): ‘entity-moving’ search see tree small cl(Z): ‘entity-moving’cl(Z): ‘lie-down’.
‘It was a very hot and sunny day. The rabbit was running and he lay down next to a small tree.’
(© John Benjamins 2018. Reprinted with permission from Barberà & Quer, 2018: 265)
In addition to lexical signs that provide the discourse with logical unity, signers also produce discourse markers with the non-dominant hand that guide the discourse as it proceeds and serve as conceptual landmarks. This kind of discourse marker is called ‘buoys’ [PRAGMATICS 2.2.3]. List buoys are used for making associations with up to five (or ten in some cases) entities and serve to enumerate these discourse referents. They differ from numerals in two ways. Firstly, list buoys are normally produced by the non-dominant hand. Secondly, the fingers are oriented to the side rather than vertically upward, as happens most commonly in numerals for one to five across sign languages studied to date. The associations between discourse referents and the fingers are generally made by contacting the tip of the appropriate digit and describing or commenting about the corresponding referent. The comment can either follow or precede the contact with the digit. Signers can even hold the non-dominant hand while singing the comment with the dominant hand. List buoys in LSC are be used to make associations with ordered sets of discourse referents.
List buoy with 5 digits
Another manual strategy consists in using fragment buoys, that is, when a sign is held in a meaningful way, usually in the non-dominant hand. Frequent contexts in LSC where fragment buoys occur are contexts of role shift, although this is not the only context. While the dominant hand expresses the thoughts/speech reproduced, the non-dominant hand may keep the handshape associated with the sign representing the character to which the role shift is reproduced. This cohesive device makes it possible to the addressee to keep track of the discourse referent. As shown in the following example, the antecedent is introduced with the lexical signs “mother duck” and right after that the limb classifier is expressed. While the non-dominant hand holds this limb classifier, the dominant hand reproduces the thoughts or words of that referent. This limb classifier expressed with the non-dominant hand is held until the end of the intonational phrase.
dh: Duck mother cl(Z): ‘limb-3 legs’
ndh: cl(Z): ‘limb-3 legs’
dh: Stop. Beautiful not yes, but…
ndh: cl(Z): ‘limb-3 legs’__________
‘The mother duck said: “Stop! It is true that it is not beautiful, but…”.
(© Gemma Barberà 2007. Reprinted with permission from Barberà, 2007: 59)
Another strategy providing discourse cohesion consists in switching hands (from dominant to non-dominant) in order to articulate the sign with the hand on the side nearest the established spatial location. This is known as dominance reversal. Dominance reversals are found to be a productive strategy contributing to discourse cohesion in LSC.