Processing of quantifier scales in deaf and hearing users of German Sign Language (DGS) – preliminary results from a truth-value-judgement-task

Poster Session E - Monday, March 31, 2025, 2:30 – 4:30 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Elena Georgia Mpadanes¹, Agnes Villwock¹; ¹Rochester Institute of Technology

Scalar implicatures (SI) are made when statements like “some guests have arrived” are interpreted as a negation of “all guests have arrived”. While SI processing has been extensively studied in hearing monolinguals (see Politzer-Ahles, 2020), little research has examined the role of language acquisition and sensory experience in sign language users. A prior study on deaf bimodal bilinguals of ASL and English suggests that English-ASL bilinguals process SI similarly to monolingual English speakers (Davidson, 2014). This ongoing study investigates how deaf and hearing users of German Sign Language (DGS) process SI in written German. So far, participants include (i) 18 deaf L1 signers of DGS & German, (ii) 19 hearing L1 signers of DGS & German, (iii) 21 hearing L2 learners of DGS, and (iv) 20 hearing non-signers (controls). A truth-value judgment task assesses accuracy and response time across 224 trials, where participants judge the truthfulness of German sentences containing einige/alle (“some/all”; presented word-by-word with 500 ms each) in context of a preceding picture. During the behavioral task, we record the EEG. Preliminary findings exhibit significant differences in response times between signers and non-signers (p < .01), suggesting that language experience influences the timing of SI processing. While all groups derive SI from quantifier scales, rejection rates for underinformative trials vary depending on language background. Both deaf and hearing DGS users make scalar inferences, aligning with Davidson (2014). This indicates that SI processing is shaped by both sensory and linguistic experience, supporting the universality of conversational principles across modalities.

Topic Area: LANGUAGE: Semantic