Non-Manual Markers in Croatian Sign Language – a Look at the Current State

The aim of this paper is to present a review of the nonmanual markers (NMMs) found in various studies of Croatian Sign Langauge (HZJ), as well as to compare them to other sign languages. We will address different functions of NMMs in HZJ with a focus on their functions atlinguistic levels. At the phonological level, NMMs will be discussed with respect to head and body movements, mouth actions, and facial expressions. At the morphological level, NMMs will be discussed in relation to their function for verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and pronouns. At the syntactic level, NMMs will be discussed with respect to their functionality as markers of such things as negation, agreement, interrogatives, and conditionals, while NMMs that appear with topic and focus will be discussed in the section on pragmatics. Finally, we provide table summary for NMMs from this paper with their associated functions, as well as suggestions for further research.
Keywords: Croatian Sign Language, linguistics, non-manual markers
Grazer Linguistische Studien 93 (Frühjahr 2021); S. 137–159