Universais linguísticos aplicáveis às línguas de sinais: discussão sobre as categorias lexicais nome e verbo

• Autor(a) principal: Chaibue, Karime
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFG
• dARK ID: ark:/38995/0013000008804
• Texto Completo: http://repositorio.bc.ufg.br/tede/handle/tede/3792
• topic: Libras; Universais linguísticos; Nome; Verbo; Línguas de Sinais; Linguistics universals; Noun; Verb; Sign Languages; LINGUISTICA, LETRAS E ARTES::LINGUISTICA

The present work consists of a descriptive analysis of the Brazilian sign language (Libras) under the theoretical perspectives of functional, cognitive and typological linguistics, along with a discussion on a linguistic universal that has been considered by Greenberg (1966) as an absolute – a feature shared by all languages around the world – namely, that “all the languages make a distinction between Noun and Verb” (GREENBERG, 1966). The main goal of the research is to confront the analysis of libras with the existing typological findings on this so-called absolute universal, in order to investigate the degree to which such universal can be easily applicable to sign languages (SL) as well, or whether the SL data can interfere with the “absolute universal” status of the distinction between the lexical categories Noun and Verb. The research is a qualitative report on a case study based on linguistic data. The participants of the research were five deaf adults fluent in Libras, from different parts of Brazil. The database for the research consisted of free narratives in Libras on varied themes, recorded in video, plus a sociolinguistic questionnaire. The theoretical framework adopted for the analysis includes cognitive, functional and typological studies on the categories Noun and Verb in oral languages (OL), such as Givón (2001), Schachter and Shopen (2007), Langacker (1997,2008), Praça (2007); and in SL, mainly, Quadros and Karnopp (2004), Salles et al. (2007), Zeshan (2002), Pizzio (2011), Lima (2012). The analysis of the data has demonstrated an inconsistency with regard to the parameter Movement as the distinctive element for the establishment of Noun and Verb as lexical categories in Libras. It has also shown that certain criteria considered distinctive for such categories in OL are not necessarily adequate for an analysis of SL data, and that such inadequacy may be related to the specificities of each language modality. The present work hopes to contribute for a broader understanding on the cognitive and functional factors involved in the categorization of Nouns and Verbs in the languages of the world, both Oral and Signed.