The eighth meeting of the FEAST (“Formal and Experimental Advances in Sign language Theory”) colloquium will take place ONLINE on June 23-25, 2020. FEAST is a regular forum to discuss formal approaches to sign language grammar (in particular in the generative tradition), experimental approaches to sign languages, and their interaction.

This VIRTUAL EDITION is co-organized by CNRS, the University of Paris, the Institut Jean-Nicod and Paris 8 University. The languages of the conference are English and ASL/IS. Interpretation between these languages will be provided.

There is no registration fee, but registration at the following link is necessary to attend the conference:

https://cognitionens.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bDzRsSt2yXP0vgV

All the talks and poster presentations are asynchronous: the videos will be put online on the website on Monday, June, 22nd but there is a recommended watching schedule. The question/answer sessions of talks will be held live, using Zoom, after each slot assigned to the talks in the recommended watching schedule, as indicated in the program.

SPECIAL EVENT

On Wednesday, 24th at 6 pm (Paris time) we will have the premiere of ‘We were there… we are here’, a SIGN-HUB documentary movie based on interviews and life testimonies of elderly Deaf people from France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and Turkey. The interviews were conducted and filmed by Deaf teams in the framework of the research project “The Sign Hub: Preserving, Researching and Fostering the Linguistic, Historical and Cultural Heritage of European Deaf Signing Communities with an Integral Resource” funded by the European Commission within the Horizon 2020 programme (http://www.sign-hub.eu/).

PROGRAM

Tuesday 23rd (Paris time):

2 pm: Age of acquisition matters. Effects of age of first sign language exposure in role-shift processing in three different sign languages (LIS, LSC and LSF) – Beatrice Giustolisi, Valentina Aristodemo, Giorgia Zorzi, Rita Sala, Doriane Gras, Jordina Sánchez Amat and Carlo Cecchetto

2:30 pm: Question/Answer live session on the previous talk

3 pm: Person marking in Catalan Sign Language (LSC) personal pronouns – Raquel Veiga Busto

3:30 pm: Question/Answer live session on the previous talk

4 pm: 1st Poster session lightning talks (3 minutes for each poster):

Typology of sign language compound from phonological perspective- Mirko Santoro

A comparison on nominal structure in Hong Kong Sign Language and Cantonese- Jieqiong Li & Gladys Tang

Filling the gap: A novel test to elicit nominal plurals in Sign Language of the Netherlands- Cindy van Boven

Responding to assertions in German Sign Language (DGS)- Cornelia Loos, Sophie Repp and Markus Steinbach

5 pm: The emergence of natural language quantification- Annemarie Kocab, Kathryn Davidson and Jesse Snedeker

5:30 pm: Question/Answer live session on the previous talk

6 pm: Special event

Wednesday 24th (Paris time):

2 pm: Argument marking in sign language: the role of hand selection- Chiara Branchini

2:30 pm: Question/Answer live session on the previous talk

3 pm: Phonemic Handshape Inventory in Russian Sign Language- Anna Klezovich and Anastasiia Chizhikova,

3:30 pm: Question/Answer live session on the previous talk

4 pm: 2nd Poster session lightning talks (3 minutes for each poster):

Parsing an ASL Corpus with Categorial Grammar- Michael A. Nix and Deryle W. Lonsdale

Differentiating ASL MORE- and BEAT-constructions- Ashley Kentner, Sandra Wood and Ronnie Wilbur

Semantics and lexical properties of adjective signs affect their word order position in American Sign Language- Paula Rubio-Fernández, Anne Wienholz, Simon Kirby and Amy Lieberman

Wh-Questions in Indian Sign Language: Exploring New Challenges- Neha Kulshreshtha

5 pm: Repetition reduction across multiple repetitions in ASL Fingerspelling- Aurora Martinez del Rio and Diane Brentari

5:30 pm: Question/Answer live session on the previous talk

6 pm: Premiere of ‘We were there … we are here’, the SIGN-HUB documentary

Thursday 25th (Paris time):

2 pm: The Causative-Inchoative Alternation in Turkish Sign Language and the Age of Acquisition Effects on Complex Clauses- Demet Kayaba?? and Kadir Gökgöz

2:30 pm: Question/Answer live session on the previous talk

3 pm: The effect of age of acquisition in relative clauses across sign languages- Charlotte Hauser, Giorgia Zorzi, Beatrice Giustolisi, Doriane Gras, Jordina Sánchez, Rita Sala and Carlo Cecchetto

3:30 pm: Question/Answer live session on the previous talk

4 pm: 3rd Poster session lightning talks (3 minutes for each poster):

Tracking effects of age of acquisition and phonology in American Sign Language processing- Anne Wienholz and Amy Lieberman

Assessing syntactic competence in sign languages: the case of wh-questions- Valentina Aristodemo and Charlotte Hauser

To what extent does age of acquisition matter: Evidence from Turkish Sign Language (T?D)- Hande Sevgi and Kadir Gökgöz

Assessing lexical competence in European sign languages- Caterina Donati, Chiara Annucci and Valérie Jendhoubi

5 pm: Structural Phylogenetics and the Reconstruction of Sign Language History- Natasha Abner, Carlo Geraci, Shi Yu, Jessica Lettieri & Anah Salgat

5:30 pm: Question/Answer live session on the previous talk

6 pm: Predictive Typology of Sign Language Instrumental- Emre Hakguder and Diane Brentari

6:30 pm: Question/Answer live session on the previous talk