EXPRESSING MANNER, LOCATION, AND ORIENTATION IN MANNER-ONLY MOTION EVENTS IN TURKISH SIGN LANGUAGE

The path and manner of objects in motion events have been studied in many languages. Previous research has focused on whether both path and manner are expressed in the main verb and whether manner can be omitted due to saliency, narrative style, or available linguistic constructions of a particular language. However, it is unknown to what extent language users express manner when it is salient and marked. Aiming to fill this gap, the present study asked how Turkish Sign Language (TID) signers express location, orientation, and manner in a basic motion event including manner but not path. Eight TID signers participated in an experiment and described what they saw in 34 brief videos to an addressee. Results showed a significant difference between expressions of location, orientation, and manner or leaving them ambiguous. While TID signers encoded manners of motion obligatorily, they gave the locations of the objects more than their orientations. Thus, when manner is salient, it must be encoded regardless of language family or modality.