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  1.  97
    Iconic variables.Philippe Schlenker, Jonathan Lamberton & Mirko Santoro - 2013 - Linguistics and Philosophy 36 (2):91-149.
    We argue that some sign language loci (i.e. positions in signing space that realize discourse referents) are both formal variables and simplified representations of what they denote; in other words, they are simultaneously logical symbols and pictorial representations. We develop a 'formal semantics with iconicity' that accounts for their dual life; the key idea ('formal iconicity') is that some geometric properties of signs must be preserved by the interpretation function. We analyze in these terms three kinds of iconic effects in (...)
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  2.  42
    Iconic plurality.Philippe Schlenker & Jonathan Lamberton - 2019 - Linguistics and Philosophy 42 (1):45-108.
    ASL can express plurals by repeating a noun, in an unpunctuated fashion, in different parts of signing space. We argue that this construction may come with a rich iconic component: the geometric arrangement of the repetitions provides information about the arrangement of the denoted plurality; in addition, the number and speed of the repetitions provide information about the size of the denoted plurality. Interestingly, the shape of the repetitions may introduce a new singular discourse referent when a vertex can be (...)
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  3.  33
    Meaningful Blurs: the sources of repetition-based plurals in ASL.Philippe Schlenker & Jonathan Lamberton - 2021 - Linguistics and Philosophy 45 (2):201-264.
    In several sign languages, plurals can be realized with unpunctuated or punctuated repetitions of a noun, with different semantic implications; similar repetition-based plurals have been described in some homesigns and silent gestures. Unpunctuated repetitions often get approximate ‘at least’ readings while punctuated repetitions typically correspond to ‘exactly’ readings. The prevalence of these mechanisms could be thought to be a case in which Universal Grammar does not just specify the abstract properties of grammatical elements, but also their phonological realization, at least (...)
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  4.  13
    Iconological Semantics.Philippe Schlenker & Jonathan Lamberton - 2024 - Linguistics and Philosophy 47 (5):779-838.
    We argue that sign language requires a radical extension of formal semantics. It has long been accepted that sign language employs the same logical machinery as spoken language (occasionally making its abstract components overt), and simultaneously makes extensive use of iconicity. But the articulation between these two modules has only been discussed piecemeal. To capture it, we propose an ‘iconological semantics’ that combines standard logical semantics with a pictorial semantics in the Greenberg/Abusch tradition. We start by reanalyzing from this perspective (...)
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  5.  24
    Iconic Syntax: sign language classifier predicates and gesture sequences.Philippe Schlenker, Marion Bonnet, Jonathan Lamberton, Jason Lamberton, Emmanuel Chemla, Mirko Santoro & Carlo Geraci - 2024 - Linguistics and Philosophy 47 (1):77-147.
    We argue that the pictorial nature of certain constructions in signs and in gestures explains surprising properties of their syntax. In several sign languages, the standard word order (e.g. SVO) gets turned into SOV (with preverbal arguments) when the predicate is a classifier, a distinguished construction with highly iconic properties (e.g. Pavlič, 2016). In silent gestures, participants also prefer an SOV order in extensional constructions, irrespective of the word order of the language they speak (Goldin-Meadow et al., 2008). But in (...)
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