Hande Sevgi

I am a linguist working on sign language morphology and event modification from cross-linguistic and cross-modal perspectives. I hold a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Harvard University. My research examines how events are encoded across sign languages, spoken languages, and gesture, and what this reveals about the structure of human language.

A central goal of my work is to understand how modality shapes linguistic representation and interpretation. By bringing together evidence from experimental semantics, syntax, and multimodal communication, I examine how event components are expressed, constrained, and interpreted across different linguistic systems. Sign languages play a crucial role in this research, as they offer a unique perspective on the interaction between iconicity, compositionality, and grammatical structure.

My dissertation, advised by Kathryn Davidson and guided by Jonathan Bobaljik and Kathryn Franich, investigates how events are encoded in sign language classifiers, spoken language adverbials, and co-speech gesture, with particular attention to manner modification and its interaction with negation, focus, and information structure. I argue that manner forms a distinct semantic class whose behavior cannot be reduced to modality-specific effects or iconicity alone. Through a series of experimental studies, I show that manner expressions pattern systematically across modalities, while also revealing modality-sensitive constraints on interpretation.

At Harvard, I was affiliated with the Meaning and Modality Lab, where I also served as lab manager.

Before joining Harvard, I completed my M.A. in Linguistics at Boğaziçi University, where my thesis examined age of acquisition effects in Turkish Sign Language (TİD), focusing on complex structures such as classifiers and coordination. This work continues to inform my interest in the relationship between grammatical structure, acquisition, and modality.