B09 - Prominence in action

B09 - Prominence in action: The competition for argument-marking in German Sign Language (DGS)

This project investigates evidence for morphosyntactic prominence of arguments in German Sign Language (DGS), and the relationship between morphosyntactic prominence with prominence-lending semantic features like animacy and agentivity. By investigating the visual modality of a signed language, the project contributes to our understanding of the universality and variability of prominence relations across languages.

Team

Prof. Dr. Pamela Perniss
Project Leader B09
**Office:** Klosterstraße 79b, room 11
**E-Mail:** pperniss(at)uni-koeln.de
**Phone:** (+49) 221 470-76342

Alejandro D. Fojo Denis
Doctoral Student B09
**Office:** SFB, Luxemburger Str. 299, room 3.03
**E-Mail:** afojoden(at)uni-koeln.de
**Phone:** (+49) 221 470-89920

Student Assistants

Alexander Berg | aberg13(at)uni-koeln.de

Lukas Reinke | lreinke4(at)uni-koeln.de

Publications

2025

Souza Santos, Thiago de, Antonia Dietrich, Peggy Steinbach & Pamela Perniss. 2025. Differential Object Marking in DGS (German Sign Language): A prominence-based account of the use of PAM based on naturalistic data. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 10(1).

2024

Mertz, Justine, Lena Pagel, Pamela Perniss, Giuseppina Turco & Doris Mücke. 2024. Coarticulation in sign language: A kinematic study on French Sign Language (LSF) using Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA). In Proceedings of the 13th International Seminar on Speech Production (ISSP), 13-17 May, 2024, 51–54. Autrans en Vercors, France.