Timelines and Temporal Pointing in Chinese Sign Language
Hao Lin1
, Jeremy Kuhn234
, Huan Sheng1
, Philippe Schlenker2345
To appear in Glossa
Abstract: We argue that Chinese Sign Language (CSL) provides new insights into temporal anaphora, as
well as new puzzles. Partee (1973) showed that temporal talk in English involves abstract anaphoric
mechanisms akin to pronouns, although with a very different form. Schlenker (2013) argued that in
American Sign Language (ASL), one and the same overt pronominal form, the pointing sign, can have
individual and temporal uses, but his data involved the same loci across domains: no formal property
distinguished temporal from individual anaphora. We replicate ASL temporal anaphora data in CSL, but
we also display a new finding: CSL allows for locus establishment and anaphoric pointing on two
specifically temporal timelines, a sagittal one (past is backwards) and a vertical one (past is up). Not only
can temporal anaphora be overt in CSL; it can also be morphologically distinguished from nominal
anaphora (various interesting restrictions on the timelines are also described).
Keywords: temporal anaphora, sign language semantics, timelines, Chinese Sign Language, American
Sign Language
1 Introduction
In traditional tense logic, it was postulated that expressions are only implicitly evaluated
with respect to times: logical variables could denote individuals, not times; and time
dependency was enforced by way of implicit parameters. Against this tradition, Partee
(1973) and a long line of researchers have argued that natural language has time-denoting
variables – albeit ones that are usually invisible, and involve forms (such as tenses, or the
word then) that look nothing like individual-denoting pronouns. Later research made use
of situations rather than just times (e.g. Schwarz 2012; Kratzer 2019), and thus the key
question became whether natural language has time/situation-denoting variables (as
argued by Partee), or whether time/situation dependency is enforced by implicit
parameters (as in tense logic). Situations are more fine-grained than times and thus what
can be done with time variables can in principle be recoded in terms of situation-denoting
variables.6
For terminological simplicity, we will talk about 'temporal variables' and
'temporal pronouns' without pre-judging whether these should be time- or situation-
denoting.
Sign language research has provided overt evidence for the existence of temporal
pronouns by showing that sometimes one and the same anaphoric form, involving
pointing, has individual-denoting and temporal uses. Pointing towards loci (= positions
in signing space) has been argued to be an overt realization of variables (e.g. Lillo-Martin
and Klima 1990; Schlenker 2011; but see Kuhn 2016). Combined with this hypothesis,
1
Institute of Linguistics, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China
2
Institut Jean-Nicod (ENS - EHESS - CNRS), Paris, France
3
Département d'Etudes Cognitives, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France
4
PSL University, Paris, France
5
Department of Linguistics, New York University, New York, USA
6
More precisely: if situations are sufficiently finely individuated, (i) for every moment of time, there are
multiple situations that exist at precisely that time (if we allow situation to exist at just one moment), and
(ii) for every interval of time, there are multiple situations that exists precisely throughout that interval.
2
instances of temporal pointing provide evidence for the existence of temporal variables.7
In ASL (American Sign Language), the pointing sign and its variants (the dual, trial and
plural pronouns) can refer to individuals and times/situations alike: in (1), one antecedent
proposition is signed in locus a, and pointing towards that locus (glossed as IX-a) realizes
an anaphoric form that means then (Schlenker 2013; acceptability appears as a superscript
on a 7-point scale, with 7 = best; we boldface temporal pronouns).8
(1) Context: Every week I play in a lottery.
re__
7
IX-1 a[SOMETIMES WIN]. IX-1 b[SOMETIMES LOSE]. IX-a IX-1 HAPPY.
‘Sometimes I win. Sometimes I lose. Then [= when I win] I am happy.’ (ASL, 7, 204)
In ASL, a sagittal (= backward-forward) temporal line is used to situate certain
lexical forms – e.g. the sign for TOMORROW moves forward, while YESTERDAY moves
backwards, intuitively showing the temporal relation to the present moment (see
Friedman 1975). But we know of no clear cases of pointing to loci on this timeline. In (1)
and similar examples, pointing targets the normal signing space (i.e. the space in front of
the signer, rather than on the sagittal timeline), just like nominal anaphora. In fact, the
pronoun in (1) could conceivably be analyzed as nominal in nature, akin to adverbial uses
of that time in English9
: for lack of pointing towards the timeline, no data showed any
morphological distinction between nominal and temporal pointing. Sinte (2013, 2015)
and Engberg-Pedersen (1993) list up to six temporal lines across sign languages, but only
tangentially discuss anaphoric pointing towards temporal loci (for this reason, we will not
further discuss their findings here).
Investigating LIS (Italian Sign Language), Aristodemo (2017) discussed
numerous cases of pointing towards a diagonal timeline anchored on the non-dominant
arm in front the signer, with an order-preserving ('iconic') mapping (= later is further
towards the dominant side). She also argued that there are important similarities between
time-denoting pointing and degree-denoting pointing in comparatives and related
constructions, and in fact she treated some temporal expressions as degree constructions.
Based on original work on CSL (Chinese Sign Language), we present two main
findings. First, we replicate data from ASL involving temporal pointing in the normal
signing space (in front of the signer). Second, going beyond extant results, we show that
CSL allows for pointing on specifically temporal timelines, including on the 'past' part of
the sagittal one. This leads to surprising cases in which the signer establishes a locus that
is partly behind her on the sagittal timeline, and then has to slightly rotate her body in
order to point towards it – something we haven't seen described for other sign languages.
While these findings form the theoretical core of this article (and establish the
reality of specifically temporal variables), we also contribute to the analysis of the
temporal and anaphoric system of CSL, a highly understudied language within formal
7
Two claims should be distinguished. The weaker claim is that language has the same kind of anaphoric
mechanism (a pronominal one) for individual and for temporal reference. The stronger claim is that this
joint anaphoric mechanism involves variables. Since 'variable-free' treatments can be given for pronouns,
including in sign language (Jacobson 1999, Kuhn 2016, Schlenker 2016), the weaker claim doesn't entail
the stronger one. The stronger claim only follows if individual-denoting anaphora is implemented with
variables.
8
In this transcription, re refers to 'raised eyebrows' over the temporal pronoun IX-a.
9
Even on this deflationary view, however, one must grant that the antecedent locus can be introduced by a
non-nominal expression, since the first person IX-1 in (1) couldn't possibly be responsible for the
establishment of the locus a: it seems to be temporal in nature.
3
linguistics. We show that at least two timelines allow for pointing: besides the sagittal
one, a vertical one does too, with past vs. future corresponding to up vs. down (a
horizontal line involves additional complexities). We also show that overt temporal
anaphora can be realized by a further mechanism involving ordered fingers. Finally, we
note that several of our examples involve an overt reference point that may but need not
be the time of utterance; in such cases, temporal reference involves two loci, and may be
reminiscent of complex tenses such as the pluperfect in English.
2 Elicitation methods and transcription conventions
2.1 Elicitation methods
Elicitation was conducted using the 'playback method', described in Schlenker (2013,
2014) and Kuhn (2016). It involved repeated quantitative acceptability judgments (1-7,
with 7 = best) by two consultants, henceforth Huan and Yingjie10
; guidelines for
assessment appear in SM II [= Supplementary Materials II]. In line with multiple articles
using the same methods, judgments are reported as superscripted numbers before
example sentences, in lieu of standard markers of grammaticality. Videos were assessed
(4 times by each consultant) on different days, with at least a 2-day interval between
consecutive exposures (ordering of the target sentences was varied). We only report
aggregate averages over the two consultants' judgments, unless there was at least a 3point
difference between their individual averages, in which case we report these
individual averages separately (all judgments can be found in SM III [= Supplementary
Materials III]). All new examples below include links to the original videos. Each
sentence is followed by the reference of the relevant video (e.g. CSL IMG_0600), and a
hyperlink to it; the videos can also be found (and identified by their reference) in a
downloadable folder.
2.2 Transcription conventions
Sign language sentences are glossed in capital letters, as is standard. Numbers are used to
distinguish variants of a sign (e.g. DRINK1, DRINK2), and ++ and +++ are used for 2 and
3 iterations respectively. Loci are alphabetized in the temporal order in which they appear
(i.e. a is first, b is second, etc.). EXPRESSIONi (or iEXPRESSION in ASL transcriptions cited
from earlier literature) indicates that a (possibly complex) expression is signed in locus i.
IX-i (for ‘index’) is a pointing sign towards locus i; IX-1 and IX-2 indicate pointing to the
signer and addressee respectively. When the CSL first person pronoun does not involve
pointing, it is glossed as PRO1. Plural pronouns are glossed as IX-arc in ASL, and as IXplural
in CSL. For brevity, when the beginning of a translation remains constant in a
paradigm, we include it in full the first time, and then only use ‘…’; otherwise glosses
appear in full, as they may include minor variations from one example to the next.
We refer to the three axes as ‘sagittal’ (= S), ‘vertical’ (= V) and ‘horizontal’ (=
10
Both Huan and Yingjie were born deaf, are native signers of CSL, have no cochlear implant, and are
active in the Shanghai Deaf community; they are also fluent in written Chinese. Huan comes from a hearing
non-signing family, and was primarily educated in Shanghai Deaf schools (she also spent 3 years at the
Singapore School for the Deaf, where she learned ASL and English). Yingjie comes from a signing Deaf
family and went to Deaf schools in Shanghai. Yingjie appeared in all videos. Contexts appeared in written
Mandarin; they were usually redundant with the beginning of the discourse signed on the video by Yingjie.
4
H), as illustrated in (2), with the time-to-space mapping given in (3); in (3), we add * if
the relevant part of a line is unavailable to establish antecedents, and ? if it is only partly
available, as we discuss below.
(2) Timelines in CSL
Solid lines indicate that a timeline is fully available to establish antecedents; absent timelines are not
available to establish antecedents; dotted lines indicate that timelines are partly available (‘v-’ is
available but primarily used by older signers, therefore we use bold dotted line to mark it).
(3) Time-to-space mappings for different lines
Line Abbreviation Past-denoting loci: –1, –2, –3… Future-denoting loci: +1, +2, +3 …
Sagittal S backward *forward
Vertical V upward downward
Horizontal H ?Rightward or leftward ?Rightward or leftward
We transcribe CSL temporal loci with a subscripted letter corresponding to the
timeline used (S, V, or H) and integers encoding the relative order of loci on this timeline.
We use 0 for the locus denoting the utterance time, negative indices for loci denoting past
moments, and positive indices for future moments – e.g. pointing to the first past locus
on the sagittal timeline is glossed as IXS-1, and pointing to the second future locus on the
vertical timeline as IXV +2. For clarity, we boldface temporal anaphoric forms.
CL transcribes a temporal classifier that serves as a point of reference ('reference
time'), and which may appear at different loci on a timeline, e.g. as CL0 if it indexes the
time of utterance. When two signs are produced simultaneously, as often happens with
CL, we connect them with ^ (the sign produced by the non-dominant hand appears first).
Thus CL0^IX0 transcribes the simultaneous production of CL0 with the non-dominant hand
and IX0 with the dominant hand. Non-manuals are not transcribed unless cited from earlier
literature, in which case re refers to raised eyebrows, and appears at the beginning of a
line that shows the extent of eyebrow raising (as already seen in (1)).
3 Temporal loci in ASL and in LIS
Schlenker (2013) provided instances of temporal anaphora in normal signing space rather
than on dedicated timelines. Examples involved not just normal pointing, as in (1), but
also dual, trial and plural pointing, as in (4), assessed for acceptability on a 7-point scale.
5
In each case, the loci are established in the first clause, and retrieved by an index meaning
‘then’/‘at those times’. (Plural indexing with two loci, as in (4)b, is slightly degraded.)
(4) Context: Every year, the speaker plays in the lottery.
a. 6.5
SOMETIMES IX-1 a[VERY LUCKY]. SOMETIMES b[LITTLE-BIT LUCKY].
re________________________
NO-MATTER THE-TWO-a, b IX-1 HAPPY.
‘Sometimes I am very lucky. Sometimes I am a little lucky. In both cases, I am happy.’
b. 5.8
SOMETIMES IX-1 a[VERY LUCKY]. SOMETIMES b[LITTLE-BIT LUCKY].
re____________________
NO-MATTER IX-arc-a, b IX-1 HAPPY.
‘Sometimes I am very lucky. Sometimes I am a little lucky. In these cases, I am happy.’
c. 6.5
SOMETIMES IX-1a[VERY LUCKY]. SOMETIMES b[MEDIUM LUCKY]. SOMETIMES
re_____________________________
c[LITTLE-BIT cLUCKY]. NO-MATTER THE-THREE-a, b, c IX-1 HAPPY.
‘Sometimes I am very lucky. Sometimes I am somewhat lucky. Sometimes I am a little lucky. In all
three cases I am happy.’
d. 6.7
SOMETIMES IX-1a[VERY LUCKY]. SOMETIMES b[MEDIUM LUCKY]. SOMETIMES
re________________________
c[LITTLE- BIT cLUCKY]. NO-MATTER IX-arc-a, b, c IX-1 HAPPY.
‘Sometimes I am very lucky. Sometimes I am somewhat lucky. Sometimes I am a little lucky. In
these cases I am happy.’ (ASL, 7, 212; Schlenker 2013)
Schlenker (2013) explicitly stated that the analysis could be developed in terms
of time-denoting or in terms of situation-denoting variables, and argued in the end for a
situation-based analysis due to a separate observation: temporal anaphora shares a crucial
property with locative anaphora (as well as modal anaphora) in allowing for 'Locative
Shift', a phenomenon whereby a locus associated with a place can be re-used later to refer
to an individual that has been asserted to be located at that place (see also Schlenker 2018).
Positing that locative, temporal and modal anaphora all involved reference to situations
makes it easier to capture the existence of Locative Shift in all three cases: instead of
association with a place, association with a situation was taken to drive Locative Shift.
As we do not know of relevant facts pertaining to Locative Shift in CSL, this argument
will not be replicated here, and we will correspondingly continue to remain agnostic about
the optimal implementation of temporal anaphora (in terms of time- vs. situation-denoting
variables).
Aristodemo (2017) and Aristodemo and Geraci (2018) describe two cases in LIS
in which pronominal loci are iconically ordered along a line. First, discussing gradable
adjectives, Aristodemo and Geraci (2018) argue that scalar degrees can be established as
spatial loci on a vertical line and be retrieved by pointing pronouns, yielding overt degree
anaphora. Second, Aristodemo (2017, Ch. 4) shows that analogous facts hold for temporal
anaphora and the temporal adverbials BEFORE and AFTER. In LIS, as in ASL, there is a
sagittal temporal line used to situate some lexical items (past is back). The signs BEFORE
and AFTER share this basic form-to-meaning mapping, as seen in but because the adverbs
are signed on the non-dominant forearm, the timeline is skewed diagonally, possibly for
phonetic reasons; as a result, the line is not purely sagittal but partly horizontal.
6
(5) The signs BEFORE and AFTER in LIS (Aristodemo 2017, Ch. 4)
The signs BEFORE and AFTER introduces temporal loci that can be retrieved by pointing to
the relevant locus on the timeline, as is illustrated in (6).11
(6) BOSS STOCK SELL α-AFTER-β, PEOPLE WORK ALL STAMP BUY. IX-α IX-β
DIFFERENCE ONE HOUR.
‘All the workers bought the stamps [at the same time] after the boss sold the stocks. The difference
between this time and that time is one hour.’
4 Temporal anaphora in normal signing space in CSL
We start by replicating our initial ASL examples in CSL: (7) and (8) display instances of
singular and plural pointing respectively, paralleling (1) and (4). Here and throughout, we
tested normal pointing with IX, as well as dual, trial and plural pointing, glossed
respectively as THE-TWO (= TWO moving back and forth between two loci), THE-THREE (=
THREE with a sweeping movement over the three loci), and IX-plural (= IX with an arc or
sweeping movement over the relevant loci).12
All anaphoric forms were acceptable.
For our purposes, the key parts of (7) are the establishment of [LOTTERY WIN]a in
locus a on the signer's right, then the establishment of [LOTTERY FAIL]b in locus b on the
signer's left, and then use a pointing sign IX-a (towards locus a) to realize temporal
anaphora to the cases in which the signer won. Pictures of key signs are enclosed in that
example, left-aligned with the corresponding glosses (e.g. WINa… appears above the
picture of the sign WIN signed in locus a). The realization of target pronouns is circled in
these pictures.
11
As in the case of degree anaphora, Aristodemo (2017) reports that the availability of these anaphoric
forms depends on morphological factors. BEFORE and AFTER both introduce temporal loci, but the word
MOMENT, despite having a superficially iconic form, indicating a period of time on the horizontal axis,
cannot be used to introduce temporal loci.
12
We do not gloss the distinction between arc and sweeping versions of the plural pronoun; we do not know
of semantic consequences of this distinction.
c. BEFORE
d. AFTER
According to our informants, MOMENT PI and MOMENT SAME are in free alternation.
MOMENT PI is made by the sign for MOMENT and a pronominal sign glossed as PI. The sign
MOMENT is a two-handed sign produced in the space in front of the signer. The pronominal
element PI is different from the typical pointing pronoun of LIS (and other sign languages)
and is identical to the relative marker identified in Cecchetto et al. (2006) as prorel and then
d. AFTER
According to our informants, MOMENT PI and MOMENT SAME are in free
MOMENT PI is made by the sign for MOMENT and a pronominal sign glossed as
MOMENT is a two-handed sign produced in the space in front of the signer. The
element PI is different from the typical pointing pronoun of LIS (and other sign
and is identical to the relative marker identified in Cecchetto et al. (2006) as pror
7
(7) 6.9
PRO1 EVERY-WEEK LOTTERY BUY++.
[LOTTERY WIN]a, [LOTTERY FAIL]b. IX-a PRO1 HAPPY. (CSL IMG_0600)
WINa… FAILb… IX-a…
https://youtu.be/nkW6kDZHNz4
‘Every week I buy a lottery ticket. Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose. In the first case, I am happy.’
The examples in (8) work in a similar fashion, but with three rather than two
possible antecedents (in loci a, b and c), and with split antecedents for the dual, trial and
plural pronouns.
(8) a. 6
PRO1 EVERY-DAY LOTTERY BUY++. [LOTTERY WIN BIG]a, [LOTTERY FIVE-YUAN]b, [LOTTERY CENT
NO^HAVE]c. THE-TWOa,b PRO1 HAPPY IX-c DISLIKE. (CSL IMG_0601) https://youtu.be/6X-oXoN66KU
‘Every day I buy a lottery ticket. Sometimes I win big, sometimes I win five yuan, sometimes I get
nothing. In the first two cases, I am happy; in the last case, I am not happy.’
b. 6.4 PRO1 EVERY-WEEK LOTTERY BUY+. [LOTTERY BIG]a, [LOTTERY WIN FIVE-YUAN]b, [LOTTERY
CENT NO^HAVE]c. THE-THREEa,b,c ALL^THREE CONTENT. (CSL IMG_0602) https://youtu.be/GJDjX95wbuk
‘… In all these cases, I am content.’
c.6.9 PRO1 EVERY-WEEK LOTTERY BUY++. [LOTTERY WIN BIG]a, [LOTTERY FIVE-YUAN]b, [LOTTERY
CENT NO^HAVE]c. IX-plurala,b,c PRO1 CONTENT.(CSL IMG_0603) https://youtu.be/MHYJ98-paSE
‘… In all these cases, I am content.’
5 CSL timelines and reference time classifiers
In CSL, three timelines are attested by: (i) the realization of some lexical temporal
elements; (ii) the establishment of temporal loci, and (iii) pointing towards these loci. The
words PAST, YESTERDAY, and RECENT are realized with backwards movement on the sagittal
line, as illustrated in (9)a. On the vertical line, LONG-TIME-AGO and EARLY are realized with
upwards movement, while LATER is realized with downwards movement, as illustrated in
(9)b. We note that some of these temporal adverbs are anchored to the time of utterance
(e.g. PAST) while others may be interpreted relative to another reference time (e.g. LATER).
8
(9) PAST on the sagittal timeline, LATER on the vertical timeline.
a. PAST b. LATER
Lin and Gu (2020) find that different temporal domains are preferably mapped to
different timelines: for past reference, the sagittal line is preferred (= backwards), while
for future reference, the vertical line is preferred (= downwards). Use of the vertical line
for past events (= upwards) is primarily found in older signers. Lin and Gu's CSL data
suggest that the horizontal line might not be intrinsically oriented: even for one and the
same signer, the past is often realized towards the left but also sometimes towards the
right. Therefore, we will not further consider the horizontal timeline, except to make
points about the generality of certain constructions. We thus keep the horizontal line for
future research, for two reasons: unlike the other lines, it is not intrinsically ordered; and
there are several constraints on its use that we do not currently understand.
In many of our examples, movement relative to a reference time classifier is used
to establish temporal antecedents. The time classifier CL may but need not denote the time
of utterance (Lin and Gu 2020). In (10), the non-dominant hand establishes the reference
time with CL while the dominant hand indicates a precedence relation (glossed as BEF)
along any of the three timelines. In (11), CL refers to a time other than the time of utterance,
thus yielding a relative anteriority interpretation.
(10) Temporal precedence expressed with CL on the three timelines
a. CL^BEFS-1 b. CL^BEFV-1 c. CL^BEFH-1
(11) 7
MEET IX-3 CLS-1^S-1BEFS-2 PRO1 MARRY-FINISH DIVORCE.13
‘Before I met him, I had once married and divorced.’ (IMG_1801) https://youtu.be/rVVNUFjHtIM
Notably, with BEF, one and the same sign, denoting anteriority, can be used on
any of the three timelines. Interestingly, as observed by Lin and Gu (2020), no
analogously flexible "after" sign exists: all signs denoting a posteriority relation are
lexically specified with respect to location and movement. For example, LATER in (9)b
necessarily shows vertical movement.
13
In this example, CL can be dropped on the sagittal and on the vertical line but not on the horizontal line.
Sagittal timeline Vertical timeline Horizontal timeline
9
Finally, signs denoting days of the week may be ordered in space along the
timelines, as shown in (12), where TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, and THURSDAY are arranged
along the vertical one. Ordering days of the week in this way seems most felicitous along
the future part of the horizontal timeline and the past part of the vertical timeline (see (16),
(21)).
(12) TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, THURSDAY ordered vertically
In sum, CSL offers three types of temporal antecedents along the timelines: a) the
basic temporal signs, namely PAST, LATER, as in (9); the CL^BEF construction, as in (10);
c) week days, which can be ordered relative to each other on different timelines, as in (12)
for the vertical case.14
6 Sagittal timeline
In this and the next section, we investigate the sagittal and the vertical timelines in turn,
with examples involving lexical antecedents (e.g. PAST, week days) and non-lexical ones
with compounds involving CL. Our contexts involve three time points so as to investigate
standard, dual, trial and plural pointing. Importantly, we do not seek to explain why events
may or may not be mapped to certain parts of certain timelines; we only seek to show that
when this is possible, they can serve as antecedents for anaphoric pointing. In (13), the
three temporal loci 0, S-1 and S-2 are established on the sagittal line. Since past-denoting
indexes are located towards the back, the signer typically rotates her body slightly to
avoid pointing over her shoulder.
14
There are additional constraints we do not get into here, pertaining to ease of articulation and visibility.
For example, one might expect that CLH-1^H-1BEFH-2 can be used to establish anteriority of locus H-2 relative
to locus H-1 on the horizontal timeline. But for a right-handed signer using a 'before is to the left' mapping,
this would involve moving the right hand to the left of the left hand, hence a crossing that might be
dispreferred in natural sign language production.
10
(13) a. 5.8
NOW WORK UNIVERSITY TEACHER, 0PASTS-1 READ PHD, S-1PASTS-2 HOTEL WORK,
NOW… 0PASTS-1… S-1PASTS-2 …
IXS-1 IXS-2 DRINK2 IX0 DRINK1 NOT. (CSL IMG_0666; see also SM I)
IXS-1 IXS-2… IX0…
https://youtu.be/OA5PWIqNb0E
‘I now work as a university teacher; before that, I was a PhD student; before that, I worked in a
hotel. Then (as a PhD student) and then (when I worked in a hotel) I drank. Now I do not drink.’
b. 5.4
NOW PRO1 WORK UNIVERSITY TEACHER, 0PASTS-1 READ PHD, S-1PASTS-2 HOTEL WORK,
THE-TWOS-1, S-2 DRINK1,IX0 DRINK1 NOT. (CSL IMG_0668) https://youtu.be/ldjPPEdlQhA
‘… At those two times (as university teacher and as a PhD student) I drank. Then (when I worked in
a hotel), I did not drink.’
c.6
NOW IX0 WORK UNIVERSITY TEACHER, 0PASTS-1 IX1 READ PHD, S-1PASTS-2 IX2 HOTEL WORK, THETHREE0,s-1,s-2
DRINK2 HAVE.(CSL IMG_0761) https://youtu.be/0XiHpVyou9w
‘… At all three times, I have drunk.’
d. 6.3
NOW IX0 WORK UNIVERSITY TEACHER, 0PASTS-1 IX1READ PHD, S-1PASTS-2 HOTEL WORK IX2 , IXplural0,S-1,
S-2 DRINK2 LIKE. (CSL IMG_0760) https://youtu.be/uLn6JXP3xsg
‘… At all these times, I liked drinking.’
Though generally acceptable, (13)b is slightly degraded, possibly due to an ambiguity:
both consultants noted that the form for THE-TWO can also mean SAME in CSL. Similar
judgments also appear for other uses of the dual pronoun (e.g. (14)b, (16)b, (17)b). In
contrast, plural pointing remains the most acceptable form across examples (e.g (14)d,
(16)d, (17)d). These subtle differences in acceptability of plural forms potentially have
pragmatic or psychological origins; both consultants agreed that plural marking is easier
than normal pointing to articulate and perceive, as the circle or sweeping movement does
not require individuation of the different variables.
In (14) below, the classifier CL is at locus 0, denoting the present, while BEF (coarticulated
with CL) establishes a precedence relation by moving between loci 0 and S-1
and then between S-1 and s-2 on the sagittal axis (the degraded character of these sentences
might be due to the context sentence rather than to temporal anaphora per se; see SM I).
11
(14) a. 5.9
NOW WORK UNIVERSITY TEACHER, CL0^IX0 CL0^0BEFS-1 IXS-1 READ PHD IXS-1,
NOW… CL0^IX0… CL0^0BEFS-1… IXS-1…
CL0^S-1BEFS-2 IXS-2 HOTEL WORK,
CL0^S-1BEFS-2 IXS-2 …
CL0^[IXS-2 IXS-1] DRINK2, CL0^IX0 DRINK1 NOT. (CSL IMG_0686; see also SM I)
CL0^[IXS-2 IXS-1]… CL0^IX0…
https://youtu.be/hCJJz93_U8g
‘I now work as a university teacher; before that, I studied as a PhD student; before that, I worked in
a hotel. Then (as a PhD student) and then (when I worked in a hotel) I drank. Now I do not drink.’
b. 5.3
NOW WORK UNIVERSITY TEACHER, CL0^0BEFS-1 READ PHD, CL0^S-1BEFS-2 IXS-2 HOTEL WORK, CL0^
IX0 CL0^ THE-TWO0,S-1 DRINK1, IX-S-2 DRINK1 NOT. (CSL IMG_0690) https://youtu.be/5JDB64PX9y8
‘… At those two times (as university teacher and as a PhD student) I drank. Then (when I worked in
a hotel), I did not drink.’
c.5.8
NOW CL0^IX0 WORK UNIVERSITY TEACHER, CL0^0BEFS-1 IX1 READ PHD, CL0^S-1BEFS-2 IXS-2 HOTEL
WORK, CL0 ^IX0 THE-THREE0,s-1,s-2 DRINK2 HAVE. (CSL IMG_0762) https://youtu.be/IS8DqMjY5-A
‘… At all three times, I have drunk.’
d. 6.8
NOW CL0^IX0 WORK UNIVERSITY TEACHER, CL0^0BEFS-1 IX1 READ PHD, S-1BEFS-2 IXS-2 HOTEL, IXplural0,
s-1,s-2 DRINK2 HAVE. (CSL IMG_0763) https://youtu.be/nTI8Frjeqp0
‘… At all these times, I have drunk.’
In sum, all types of anaphoric pointing are thus acceptable on the 'past' part of the
sagittal line.
7 Vertical timeline
In (15), the same three periods are described by establishing loci on a vertical timeline.
12
In the first sentence, the classifier CL is again at locus 0, while BEF establishes a
precedence relation by moving on the vertical axis: first between 0 and V-1; then between
V-1 and V-2 (or, sometimes, between 0 and V-2, with no discernible semantic difference).
Temporal pointing is less acceptable than in analogous examples on the sagittal line, but
this is likely due to the context sentence, which is degraded on its own (see SM I).
(15) a. 4.5
NOW WORK UNIVERSITY TEACHER, CL0^0BEFV-1 READ PHD, CL0^0BEFV-2 WORK HOTEL WORK.
NOW… CL0^0BEFV-1… CL0^0BEFV-2…
[IXV-2 IXV-1] DRINK1, CL0^IX0 DRINK1 NOT.
[IXV-2 IXV-1]… CL0^IX0…
(CSL IMG_0677; see also SM I)
https://youtu.be/KQ-tvK-WR6w
‘I now work as a university teacher; before that, I was a PhD student; before that, I worked in a
hotel. Then (as a PhD student) and then (when I worked in a hotel) I drank. Now I do not drink.’
b. 3.3
NOW WORK UNIVERSITY TEACHER, CL0^0BEFV-1 READ PHD, CL0^V–1BEFV-2 HOTEL WORK, CL0^
THE-TWOV-2,V-1 DRINK1, CL0^IX0 DRINK1 NOT. (CSL IMG_0678) https://youtu.be/eCkWkHCFtks
‘… At those two times (as university teacher and as a PhD student) I drank. Then (when I worked in
a hotel), I did not drink.’
c. 4.4
NOW CL0^IX-0WORK UNIVERSITY TEACHER, CL0^0BEFV-1 IX-1 READ PHD, CL0^V–1BEFV-2 HOTEL IX-2,
CL0^IX-0 THE-THREE0,v-1,v-2 LIKE DRINK2. (CSL IMG_0765) https://youtu.be/9JKywcl3P8k
‘… At all three times, I liked to drink.’
d.5.4
NOW CL0^IX-0 WORK UNIVERSITY TEACHER, CL0^0BEFV-1 IX-1 READ PHD, CL0^V–1BEFV-2 WORK
HOTEL, CL0^IX-plural0 , V-1, V-2 LIKE DRINK2. (CSL IMG_0764) https://youtu.be/2S_WSG8icio
‘… At all these times, I liked to drink.’
When week days serve as antecedents, pointing is possible, as in (16), which
involves dual and plural pointing: TUESDAYV-2, WEDNESDAYV-1 and THURSDAY0 are arranged
vertically with the earliest day at the top and the last day at the bottom.
(16) a. 7
TUESDAYV-2 WORK, WEDNESDAYV-1 TOGETHER DRINK, THURSDAY0 PLAY-MAHJONG, IXV-2 PRO1
SO-SO. (CSL IMG_0746) https://youtu.be/ZQmyeiQaomg
‘On Tuesdays, I worked; on Wednesdays, I partied; on Thursdays, I played Mahjong; on Tuesdays, I
felt so-so.’
b. 5.9
TUESDAYV-2 WORK, WEDNESDAYV-1 DRINK-TOGETHER, THURSDAY0 PLAY-MAHJONG, THE-TWO
V-2 ,V-1 PRO1 LIKE, IX0 SO-SO. (CSL IMG_0741) https://youtu.be/OP5QqppU-uk
‘… Both Tuesdays and Wednesdays I enjoyed my life; on Thursday, I felt so-so.’
13
c. 7
TUESDAYV-2 WORK, WEDNESDAYV-1 DRINK-TOGETHER, THURSDAY0 PLAY-MAHJONG, THETHREEV-2,
V-1, 0 PRO1 LIKE. (CSL IMG_0742) https://youtu.be/Reze_ispfrk
‘On Tuesdays, I worked; on Wednesdays, I partied; on Thursdays, I played Mahjong. All those days
I had a good time.’
d. 7
TUESDAYV-2 WORK, WEDNESDAYV-1 DRINK-TOGETHER, THURSDAY0 PLAY-MAHJONG, IX-plural0, V-1,
V-2 PRO1 LIKE. (CSL IMG_0744) https://youtu.be/odj4RqDN2fs
‘… All those days I had a good time.’
We only found one form to establish future antecedents in CSL, namely LATER.
Although it is lexically specified to have vertical motion (and thus cannot be used on the
sagittal timeline), the start and end points of the movement can be modified to established
temporal loci, just as for BEF. In (17), LATER establishes a posteriority relation by moving
between 0 and v+1, and then between v+1 and v+2. The resulting discourses with pointing
pronouns were judged as somewhat more acceptable than examples with BEF on the
vertical axis, with judgments similar to those with BEF on the sagittal axis.
(17) a.6.5
NOW HOTEL WORK, 0LATERV+1 READ PHD, V+1LATERV+2 UNIVERSITY TEACHER WORK, IX0, V+1
DRINK1, IXV+2 DRINK1 NOT. (CSL IMG_0694) https://youtu.be/E5cCqlwKkuQ
‘Now I work in hotel, later I will become a PhD student, and after that I will become a university
teacher. Now and then [as a Phd student], I drink, then [as a university teacher], I won’t drink.’
b.4.6
NOW HOTEL WORK, 0LATERV+1 READ PHD, V+1LATERV+2 WORK UNIVERSITY TEACHER, IX0 THETWO0,V+1
DRINK1, IXV+2 DRINK2 NOT. (CSL IMG_0699) https://youtu.be/mawggLPZLjY
‘… Both now and when I become a PhD student, I drink, then [as a university teacher], I won’t
drink.’
c. 5.9
NOW HOTEL WORK, 0LATERV+1 READ PHD, V+1LATERV+2 HOTEL WORK, THE-THREE0, V+1, V+2
DRINK2 LIKE. (CSL IMG_0771) https://youtu.be/dj13XX1YsVw
‘… At all three time, I will enjoy drinking.’
d.6.4
NOW HOTEL WORK, 0LATERV+1 READ PHD, V+1LATERV+2 READ WORK UNIVERSITY TEACHER, IXplural0,
V+1, V+2 DRINK2 LIKE. (CSL IMG_0770) https://youtu.be/6b4ZeoVWE_4
‘…At all these time, I will enjoy drinking.’
8 Ordered fingers
Besides timelines, one of our consultants can establish temporal anaphora using ordered
fingers on a vertical plane, as illustrated in (18).
(18) Ordered fingers: a. THREEE^IXF5, THREE^F5BEFF4, THREE^IXF4 b. FIVE^IXF2
The non-dominant hand signs a numeral (= THREE in (19), (20), FIVE in (21)b), which
serves as an anchor for pointing signs. The fingers can stand for any past, present or future
moments as long as they are appropriately ordered: the thumb corresponds to the earliest
time, the little finger to the latest time (Lin and Gu, to appear). Notationally, we gloss
14
finger loci in order, from the thumb (F1) to the pinky (F5), as illustrated in (19) (past
anaphora) and (20) (future anaphora). All examples are accepted (to various degrees) by
Yingjie. They are rejected by Huan, but she does not accept the sentence even without
pointing in the first place, which suggests that temporal anaphora per se is not the source
of the problem (see SM I). Why the two main consultants have such different judgments
is currently open.15
(19) a. NOW WORK UNIVERSITY TEACHER, THREE^F5BEFF4 READ PHD THREE^F4BEFF3 THREE^IXF3 WORK
HOTEL, IXF3 IXF4 DRINK, IXF5 DRINK NOT. [Huan=1.8, Yingjie=6.8] (CSL IMG_0725; see also SM I)
https://youtu.be/LpRnP36E7G4
‘I now work as a university teacher; before(being a teacher), I was a PhD student; before (being a
student), I worked in a hotel. Then (when I worked in a hotel) and then (as a PhD student) I drank.
Now I do not drink.’
b. NOW WORK TEACHER THREE^IXF5, THREE^[F5BEFF4IXF4] READ PHD THREE^F4BEFF3 HOTEL WORK,
THE-TWOF3, F4 DRINK, IXF5 DRINK NOT. [Huan=2, Yingjie=7] (CSL IMG_0726) https://youtu.be/T1fPJPmzZ70
‘…At those two times (when I worked in a hotel and as a PhD student) I drank. Now I do not drink.’
c. NOW WORK UNIVERSITY TEACHER THREE^IXF5, THREE^F5BEFF4 READ PHD THREE^F4BEFF3 HOTEL
WORK, IX-pluralF3,F4,F5, DRINK LIKE [Huan=2.3, Yingjie=5.8] ( CSL IMG_0788) https://youtu.be/ul0URRdzyj0
‘…At all these times, I like drunk.’
(20) a. PRO1 NOW WORK HOTEL THREE^IXF3, THREE^[ F3AFTF4 IXF4] READ PHD, THREE^[F4AFTF5 IXF5] WORK
UNIVERSITY TEACHER, THREE^(IXF4, IXF5) DRINK1, IXF3 DRINK1 NOT. [Huan=1.8, Yingjie=6.8] (CSL
IMG_0721; see also SM I) https://youtu.be/T15UU2Denag
‘Now I work in hotel, I will become a PhD student, and after it I will become a university teacher.
Then (as a PhD student) and then (as a university teacher) I will drink. I do not drink now.’
b. NOW PRO1 WORK HOTEL THREE^IXF3, THREE^[ F3AFTF4 IXF4] PHD, THREE^IXF5 WORK TEACHER,
THREE^THE-TWOF4, F5 DRINK1, THREE^IXF3 DRINK1 NOT. [Huan=3.3, Yingjie=5.3] (CSL IMG_0722)
https://youtu.be/EIEViR_3Ukw
‘… At those two times (as a PhD student and as a university teacher) I will drink. I do not drink
now.’
c. NOW WORK HOTEL WORK THREE^IXF3,THREE^[F3AFTF4 IXF4] READ PHD, THREE^[F4AFT] WORK
UNIVERSITY TEACHER, THREE^IX-pluralF3,F4,F5 DRINK LIKE. [Huan=2.0, Yingjie=5.8] (CSL IMG_0789)
https://youtu.be/0Tj3mtjVSho
‘…At all these times, I will enjoy drinking.’
Importantly, with week days as antecedents, both consultants accept ordered
fingers, as seen in (21).
15
Eight months after the initial task, when we asked the consultants to rate the ordered fingers again, Huan's
ratings increased: she rated each of (19)a-c as 4 and each of (20)a-c as 5; Yingjie’s judgment remained
consistent with her previous assessment. As we asked Huan to comment on her rating, she mentioned that
she rarely saw such forms in real life, but on second thought, ‘they are understandable and natural’.
15
(21) Context: a signer is talking about her weekly routine in the past.16
a.7
TUESDAYV-2 WORK, WEDNESDAYV-1 PARTY-TOGETHER, THURSDAY0 PLAY-MAHJONG.
TUESDAYV-2… WEDNESDAYV-1… THURSDAY0…
THE TWO^IXF3^IXF4 GOOD IXF5 BAD.
THE TWO^IXF3^ IXF4… IXF5…
‘On Tuesday, I used to work, on Wednesday, I attended the parties, on Thursday, I played Mahjong.
The days when I worked and when I had party, I was happy; the day when I played Mahjong, I was
not happy. (CSL IMG_0749) https://youtu.be/H3mCXwIEPzk
b. 6.5
PAST PRO1 MONEY MUCH. TUESDAY FIVE^IXF1 PLAY-MAHJONG, WEDNESDAYV-2, FIVE^IXF2 PLAYPOKER,
THURSDAYV-1 FIVE^IXF3 TOGETHER-DRINK, FRIDAY0 FIVE^IXF4 DRIVE VISIT-AROUND. FIVE^IXF2
LOSE^ALWAYS. (CSL IMG_1501) https://youtu.be/6OMB8BzV_PQ
‘I was rich in the past, I played mahjong on Tuesdays, and played poker on Wednesdays, and went
to parties on Thursdays, and drove outside for visit around on Fridays. Then (on Wednesdays) I
always lost money.
In sum, ordered fingers can be used for temporal anaphora with week days for
both consultants, but only one allows ordered fingers to stand for times more generally.
Pointing to fingers is initially reminiscent of English ordinal adverbs: pointing at
the thumb can be used like English first, and pointing at the pinky can be used like English
finally. But unlike English adverbs, these fingers also establish temporal loci, which can
be retrieved by pointing towards them later in the discourse. It should be added that
pointing to fingers takes a slightly different form than pointing to spatial loci: the dual is
formed by pinching together the two relevant fingers on the non-dominant hand; the
plural is formed with a circular motion around all the fingers.17
9 Conclusion
Our results support earlier claims that sign language pronouns (including dual, trial and
plural ones) can realize temporal anaphora, therefore adding to the evidence that natural
16
In this example, the week days are ordered along the vertical line, which then maps to the isomorphous
fingers.
17
We leave it open at this point whether ordered fingers are used in the same way for non-temporal lists;
more work is needed on that front.
16
language has time/situation-denoting variables – sometimes overt ones. But in one crucial
respect we went beyond earlier analyses: these did not argue that sign language has
specifically temporal variables used for anaphora; rather, an all-purpose device, namely
pointing towards loci in normal signing space (in front of the signer), had nominal and
temporal uses alike (in addition to locative and modal ones). By contrast, in CSL, locus
establishment and pointing on the sagittal and vertical lines is a specifically temporal
device.
Several important questions are left for future research. First, can these findings
be extended to the horizontal timeline? Second, what semantic and grammatical
differences are there between the various temporal devices studied in this piece? Third,
why is the sagittal line preferred for past events and the vertical line for future events?
More generally, how should the various constraints on the timelines be explained? Fourth,
why do week days seem to make pointing easier? Fifth, how do examples with doubleindexing
involving CL relate to other mechanisms of temporal reference – and in
particular to pluperfect forms, which have been analyzed with superficially similar
devices (involving two variables) in Stechow (2004) and Schlenker (1999, 2016)?18
Finally, can arguments be found for preferring a treatment in terms of time-denoting
variables or one in terms of situation-denoting variables (a question we have remained
agnostic about)?
18
A broader question is how modal anaphora works in CSL. Schlenker (2013) displayed similar devices
for temporal and modal anaphora, but we only discussed the former in the present piece.
17
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to our two CSL Deaf consultants: Yingjie Ni and Huan Sheng (Huan is also one of the
authors). They gave us the right to make their videos and pictures publicly available. We are also grateful
to Valentina Aristodemo and Charlotte Hauser for helpful references (Valentina Aristodemo also allowed
us to reprint pictures from her dissertation). We are also very grateful to Glossa for a very efficient handling
of this submission and for helpful reviewer comments.
Authors' contributions: Lin initiated the project and elicited the data. Schlenker provided the theoretical
framework for analysis and discussion. Lin, Schlenker, Kuhn and Sheng devised the transcription
conventions, analyzed the data and wrote the paper together. As a native Deaf signer, Sheng doublechecked
with Lin all the materials and proof-read the transcriptions of all the examples in the paper.
Grant acknowledgments:
Hao Lin: The present work was supported by the Ministry of Education in China (MOE) - Project of
Humanities and Social Sciences (No. 20YJC740027) and supported by the Fundamental Research Funds
for the Central Universities (No.2020114052).
Philippe Schlenker and Jeremy Kuhn: This research received funding from the European Research Council
(ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement
No 788077, Orisem, PI: Schlenker). Research was conducted at DEC, Ecole Normale Supérieure - PSL
University. DEC is supported by grant FrontCog ANR-17-EURE-0017.
18
References
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20
Supplementary Materials
Note: The videos linked to the text, and the Excel sheet mentioned below, can also be
found in the downloadable folder associated with this article:
https://osf.io/yzq8v/
Supplementary Materials I. Familiarity test of isolated antecedents and judgement
of context sentences in temporal anaphora
When anaphoric relations discussed in the main text are degraded, this is sometimes
because the antecedent sentence on its own is degraded – in which case the judgments
suggest that the degradation may not derive from temporal anaphora per se. This, in turn,
could be because the antecedent temporal forms are degraded or unfamiliar, or because
the context sentence is degraded for other reasons. Therefore, we performed two
additional tests:
(1) A lexical familiarity test, with the goal of assessing the intrinsic acceptability of
different potential antecedents. Specifically, we isolated three antecedent forms (namely
PAST, CL^S-, CL^V-), mixed them with other signs (more than 200) and asked four Deaf
signers (different from our two main consultants) to (i) rate the familiarity of these signs
(ratings: 1-7) and (ii) provide meanings if they rated them above 4 (this was to ensure that
the target meanings were the relevant ones). If the meaning given by the consultants was
irrelevant, the score is also marked by 1.
(2) We further assessed whether the context sentences alone might be responsible for the
degradation of the whole sentences with temporal anaphora. As an example, we
manipulated (20) (= IMG_0721), and kept ‘PRO1 NOW WORK HOTEL THREE^IXF3,
THREE^[ F3AFTF4 IXF4] READ PHD, THREE^[F4AFTF5 IXF5] WORK UNIVERSITY TEACHER’. We
asked Huan to rate the context sentences alone using the same criteria as in
Supplementary Materials II (Yingjie was unavailable for this task, unfortunately).*
(3) The results of the two tests, displayed below, suggest that:
(i) In two cases, boldfaced, the degradation of the entire discourse might derive from the
lexical unfamiliarity of the antecedent (in one of these cases, the context sentence is
degraded on its own);
(ii) For Huan, the acceptability of the whole sentences is very close to that of the context
sentences;
(iii) With the possible exception of IMG_0666, these results suggest that temporal
anaphora is acceptable as long as the context sentences are.
Example Target
sentence
Antecedent Familiarity
of the
antecedent
form (4
consultants,
different
Context
sentence
(Huan)
Whole sentence
in the text (Huan's
average
judgments)
Whole sentence
in the text (as
reported above,
average of Huan's
and Yingjie's
judgments)
*
Note that both lexical familiarity and acceptability of the context sentence could be informative. The latter
should be handled with care, however: setting up a locus that remains unused in later discourse could by
itself make a sentence less acceptable.
21
from Huan
and
Yingjie)
(12) IMG_0666 PAST 6.5 7 6.25 5.8
(13) IMG_0686 CL^S- 4.5 6 6.75 5.9
(14) IMG_0677 CL^V- 4.5 4 4 4.5
(18) IMG_0725 finger-CL 4 4 4.3
(19) IMG_0721 finger-CL [not tested] 5 1.75 [5 post-hoc
rating, see the fn.
preceding
example (19) in
the main text]
4.3
Supplementary Materials II. Guidelines for assessment on a 7-point scale
1 糟糕的句子，不可能出现的表达. bad sentence, impossible expression
2
不可接受的句子，完全不自然的表
达.
unacceptable sentence, completely unnatural
expression.
3 不太接受，不自然. not very acceptable, not natural.
4 勉强接受，但是不太自然 may be reluctantly accepted, but not very natural.
5 可以接受，比较自然，能出现在表达
acceptable, comparatively natural, may appear in
the expression
6 接受，自然，会出现表达中 acceptable, natural, will appear in the expression,
7 好句子，完全自然 good sentence, and completely natural
Supplementary Materials III. Consultant judgments on the sentences
An Excel file with the full scores appears in the downloadable folder associated with this
article:
https://osf.io/yzq8v/
File No. Huan Yingjie Average
CSL IMG_0600 6.8 7.0 6.9
CSL IMG_0601 7.0 5.0 6.0
CSL IMG_0602 7.0 6.8 6.9
CSL IMG_0603 7.0 5.8 6.4
CSL IMG_0666 6.3 5.3 5.8
CSL IMG_0668 6.8 4.0 5.4
CSL IMG_0761 6.3 5.0 5.6
CSL IMG_0760 7.0 5.5 6.3
CSL IMG_0686 6.8 5.0 5.9
CSL IMG_0690 6.3 4.3 5.3
CSL IMG_0762 7.0 4.5 5.8
CSL IMG_0763 6.8 6.8 6.8
CSL IMG_0677 4.0 5.0 4.5
CSL IMG_0678 2.0 4.5 3.3
22
CSL IMG_0765 3.8 5.0 4.4
CSL IMG_0764 4.0 6.8 5.4
CSL IMG_0746 7.0 7.0 7.0
CSL IMG_0741 6.8 5.0 5.9
CSL IMG_0742 7.0 7.0 7.0
CSL IMG_0744 7.0 7.0 7.0
CSL IMG_0694 6.5 6.5 6.5
CSL IMG_0699 5.0 4.3 4.6
CSL IMG_0771 6.3 5.5 5.9
CSL IMG_0770 6.5 6.3 6.4
CSL IMG_0725 1.8 6.8 4.3
CSL IMG_0726 2.0 7.0 4.5
CSL IMG_0788 2.3 5.8 4.0
CSL IMG_0721 1.8 6.8 4.3
CSL IMG_0722 3.3 5.3 4.3
CSL IMG_0789 2.0 5.8 3.9
CSL IMG_0749 7.0 7.0 7.0
CSL IMG_1501 6.0 7.0 6.5
CSL IMG_1801 7.0 7.0 7.0