Age of Acquisition Effects in TİD

Age of acquisition, sign language, morphosyntax, discourse, TİD

I have investigated how the age of acquisition shapes grammatical representation and interpretation in sign languages, with a particular focus on complex morphosyntactic structures. Because most deaf children do not have access to a natural sign language from birth, my research seeks to identify which components of grammar are resilient to delayed exposure and which are age-sensitive, to inform linguistically grounded assessment and intervention practices. Drawing on production and comprehension studies in Turkish Sign Language, I show that while delayed exposure does not affect core morphological encoding in classifier constructions, it systematically impacts argument expression, perspective-taking, and discourse-level strategies such as zero-anaphora resolution.

(Sevgi, 2019) (Sevgi & Gökgöz, 2023) (Sevgi & Gökgöz, 2024)

References

2024

  1. Age of Acquisition Effects in Zero-Anaphora Comprehension in Turkish Sign Language
    Hande Sevgi and Kadir Gökgöz
    In Proceedings of the Boston University Conference on Language Development, 2024

2023

  1. Classifiers, Argument Expression, and Age of Acquisition Effects in Turkish Sign Language
    Hande Sevgi and Kadir Gökgöz
    Sign Language & Linguistics, 2023

2019

  1. The Impact of Age of Acquisition on Structure: A Study on Alignment in Turkish Sign Language
    Hande Sevgi
    Boğaziçi University, 2019