Abstract While it is now accepted that sign languages should inform and constrain theories of ‘Universal Grammar’, their role in ‘Universal Semantics’ has been under-studied. We argue that they have a crucial role to play in the foundations of semantics, for two reasons. First, in some cases sign languages provide overt evidence on crucial aspects of the Logical Form of sentences, ones that are only inferred indirectly in spoken language. For instance, sign language ‘loci’ are positions in signing space that can arguably realize logical variables, and the fact that they are overt makes it possible to revisit foundational debates about the syntactic reality of variables, about mechanisms of temporal and modal anaphora, and about the existence of dynamic binding. Another example pertains to mechanisms of ‘context shift’, which were postulated on the basis of indirect evidence in spoken language, but which are arguably overt in sign language. Second, along one dimension sign languages are strictly more expressive than spoken languages because iconic phenomena can be found at their logical core. This applies to loci themselves, which may simultaneously function as logical variables and as schematic pictures of what they denote (context shift comes with some iconic requirements as well). As a result, the semantic system of spoken languages can in some respects be seen as a simplified version of the richer semantics found in sign languages. Two conclusions could be drawn from this observation. One is that the full extent of Universal Semantics can only be studied in sign languages. An alternative possibility is that spoken languages have comparable expressive mechanisms, but only when co-speech gestures are taken into account (as recently argued by Goldin-Meadow and Brentari). Either way, sign languages have a crucial role to play in investigations of the foundations of semantics.

中文翻译：

---

可见的含义：手语和语义学的基础

摘要虽然现在已经认识到手语应该为“通用语法”的理论提供指导和约束，但人们对其手语在“通用语义学”中的作用进行了研究。我们认为，它们在语义学的基础中起着至关重要的作用，这有两个原因。首先，在某些情况下，手语为句子的逻辑形式的关键方面提供了明显的证据，这些句子只能通过口头语言间接推断出来。例如，手语“ loci”是可以在空间上实现逻辑变量的位置，并且它们的明显事实使我们有可能重新审视有关变量的句法现实，时间和情态回指机制以及关于动态绑定的存在。另一个例子是关于“上下文转移”的机制，这些都是根据间接证据以口头语言提出的，但可以说是手语的明显证据。第二，从一维角度看，符号语言比语音语言具有更高的表达力，因为标志性现象可以发现在其逻辑核心。这适用于基因座本身，这些基因座可以同时用作逻辑变量和它们所表示的示意图（上下文转换也带有一些标志性要求）。结果，口语的语义系统在某些方面可以看作是手语中较丰富的语义的简化版本。从这一观察可以得出两个结论。一个是，通用语义学的全部范围只能用手语研究。另一种可能性是，口头语言具有可比的表达机制，但仅当考虑到共同语音手势时才可使用（正如Goldin-Meadow和Brentari最近所言）。无论哪种方式，手语在语义基础研究中都起着至关重要的作用。