Structural iconicity in silent gesture

This study examines structural iconicity in silent gesture by way of the representation and perception of transitive and intransitive events in silent gesture. Specifically, this study focuses on the Iconicity of Quantity and the Iconicity of Complexity, or the strong cross-linguistic tendency for transitive events to be conceptually and structurally more complex than intransitive ones, and for this property to be represented explicitly in verbal morphology where available. Through silent gesture elicitation and perception studies and follow-up handshape analyses, it is demonstrated that non-signers produce and interpret silent gestures in harmony with these iconicity principles. To support our analysis, we identify and recast previous work on event representations in silent gesture and sign language as manifestations of structural iconicity principles.