대한언어학회 전자저널

Jo, Jinwoo. (2025). Universal 20 and antisymmetry: The nominal-internal

order in Korean Sign Language. The Linguistic Association of Korea Journal, 33(2), 75-99. In this paper, I attempt to evaluate previous analyses of word order of demonstrative, numeral, adjective, and noun, through an informal questionnaire survey for native signers of Korean Sign Language. The previous analyses make different predictions about the acceptability of five nominal-internal orders, and the survey has asked the participants to provide judgments of the sentences containing noun phrases with the five orders. The results of the survey suggest that an analysis of nominal-internal order does not require the view that phrases have the specifier-head-complement branching order, and that movements producing unmarked nominal-internal orders target a constituent containing N as well as occur only to the left. The results also indicate that noun phrases in signed languages are hierarchically structured even though they show variable word order. The conclusion in the paper once again demonstrates the possibility that investigation of signed languages may help to refine our understanding of linguistic universals.