List of tables
List of abbreviations
Sign Languages
Other abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Positionality

1 UNPACKING THE FIRST YEARS OF SIGN LANGUAGE EMERGENCE IN BISSAU
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Choosing the topic of the thesis
1.3 Overview of the thesis’s research
1.3.1 Research motivation
1.3.1.1 The deaf community of Guinea-Bissau and its sign language (Chapter 2)
1.3.1.2 Routes of gesture integration into LGG (Chapter 3)
1.3.1.3 The expansion of the LGG lexicon (Chapter 4)
1.3.2 Research questions
1.3.3 Methodological approaches
1.4 Ethical considerations

2 THE DEAF COMMUNITY OF GUINEA-BISSAU AND ITS SIGN LANGUAGE
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Sign language emergence: places, community size, and timeframe
2.2.1 Places of interaction between deaf people fostering sign language emergence
2.2.1.1 School-based sign languages
2.2.1.2 Locally-based sign languages
2.2.1.3 Locally-based sign languages in West Africa
2.2.1.4 Contexts of sign language contact
2.2.2 Community size
2.2.2.1 Why does community size matter?
2.2.2.2 Who to include when counting signers?
2.2.3 Studying diachronic change
2.2.3.1 Agreeing on a time window for the emergence status
2.2.3.2 Determining the first generations of signers
2.3 Previous fieldwork and methodologies used in Guinea-Bissau
2.3.1 The informal LGG dictionary, printed in 2005
2.3.2 The first formal dictionary, collected in 2006 and published in 2008
2.3.3 The second formal dictionary, collected and published in 2017
2.3.4 Additional materials about LGG and the Guinean deaf community
2.3.5 Doctoral projects about LGG
2.4 Ethnographic methods
2.4.1 Participant observation on site
2.4.2 Interviews and informal conversations
2.4.3 Documentary sources
2.5 Sociolinguistic description of the deaf community of Guinea-Bissau
2.5.1 Deaf people in society
2.5.1.1 Economy
2.5.1.2 Everyday life
2.5.1.3 Population
2.5.1.4 Social roles
2.5.1.5 Physical abuse
2.5.1.6 Deafness
2.5.1.7 Deaf population
2.5.2 Deaf school(s) as the privileged sharing space(s)
2.5.2.1 School Bengala Branca, a.k.a. BLIND SCHOOL
2.5.2.2 National School for the Deaf (ENS)
2.5.2.3 Mariposa school, a.k.a. BUTTERFLY
2.5.2.4 Other schools in the country
2.5.2.5 Teachers’ training
2.5.2.6 Educational approaches
2.5.3 Meeting spaces of a growing deaf community
2.5.3.1 Deaf meetings before the establishment of the school
2.5.3.2 Deaf association (AS-GB)
2.5.3.3 Protests
2.5.3.4 Meeting spaces
2.5.3.5 Football
2.5.3.6 Deaf Youth Centre (CJS)
2.5.3.7 Social media networks
2.5.3.8 Deaf families
2.5.3.9 Deaf outsiders
2.5.4 Contact languages
2.5.4.1 Gesture use
2.5.4.2 Contact with LGP
2.5.4.3 Contact with foreign sign languages
2.5.4.4 Contact with spoken languages
2.5.5 Contexts of sign language use
2.5.5.1 Variation
2.5.5.2 Information sharing
2.5.5.3 Literary signed forms
2.5.5.4 Interpretation
2.5.5.5 Language naming
2.6 Portraying LGG

3 ROUTES OF GESTURE INTEGRATION INTO LGG
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Background
3.2.1 Gesture conventionalisation
3.2.1.1 The conventionalisation of different types of gestures
3.2.1.2 Gesture clusters of related forms and meanings
3.2.2 Gesture-to-sign incorporation
3.2.2.1 Adjustments of form in the conventionalisation of manual items
3.2.2.2 Semantic change over time
3.3 Methodology
3.3.1 Research questions
3.3.2 Collection of gestures in Bissau
3.3.2.1 Participants
3.3.2.2 Elicitation lists
3.3.2.3 Encoding method
3.3.2.4 Elicitation sessions
3.3.3 Data analyses
3.3.3.1 Gesture responses
3.3.3.2 Observations by deaf participants
3.3.3.3 Gesture-sign comparison
3.3.3.4 Form analysis
3.3.3.5 Semantic analysis
3.4 Bissau gestures to LGG signs: form adjustments
3.4.1 Observations about gesture use by deaf observers
3.4.1.1 Observations about the original motivation of gestures
3.4.1.2 Observations about gesture-sign differences in form
3.4.2 A few notes on gesture-sign differences from formal data comparison
3.5 Bissau gestures to LGG signs: integration routes
3.5.1 Direct integration of gestures into LGG: one-to-one relations
3.5.2 Integration of gesture variants into LGG: few-to-few relations
3.5.3 Integration of gesture networks into LGG: many-to-many relations
3.5.3.1 ‘Beg’ – ‘please’ – ‘thank you’– ‘sorry’ – ‘all good?’
3.5.3.2 ‘Married’– ‘boy/girlfriend’ – ‘friend’ – ‘together’ – ‘same’
3.5.3.3 ‘Kill’ – ‘die’ – ‘witchcraft’ – ‘crook’ – ‘steal’ – ‘escape’
3.5.4 Summary of results: the three integration routes of gestures as LGG signs
3.6 Discussion

4 THE EXPANSION OF THE LGG LEXICON
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Background on lexical expansion
4.3 Methodology
4.3.1 Research questions
4.3.2 Data sources
4.3.2.1 LGG dictionaries
4.3.2.2 New data
4.3.3 Data analysis
4.3.3.1 Lexical expansion through derivation and compounding
4.4 Lexical expansion of semantic fields: kinship and colour terms
4.4.1 Background
4.4.1.1 Implicational hierarchies in kinship terms
4.4.1.2 Implicational hierarchies in colour terms
4.4.2 Lexical expansion of kinship and colour terms in LGG
4.4.2.1 Kinship terms in LGG
4.4.2.2 Colour terms in LGG
4.5 Lexical expansion of sign families through compounding and derivation
4.5.1 Background
4.5.1.1 Compounding
4.5.1.2 Morphological derivation in signs
4.5.2 Lexical expansion of sign families in LGG
4.5.2.1 Signs SICK , FEVER and WORK for hypernymy
4.5.2.2 Sign families of thumb(s) up, palm(s) up, and GO- AWAY
4.5.2.3 Sign family of the height specifier
4.5.2.4 Sign families of meaningful body locations: CHIEF, CRAZY, FRIEND, and TALK
4.5.2.5 Sign families of specific handshapes: cutting tool and claw(s)
4.5.3 Creating new signs to replace signs-from-gestures in sensitive concepts
4.6 Lexical expansion through grammaticalisation: the case of ‘hit’
4.6.1 Background
4.6.1.1 Grammaticalisation of gestures-to-signs
4.6.1.2 Grammaticalisation of ‘hit’
4.6.2 Lexical expansion of HIT in LGG by grammaticalising it as a comparative marker and an emphatic
4.6.2.1 Primary meaning
4.6.2.2 Semantic extension
4.6.2.3 Grammatical functions
4.7 Summary of results: the expansion of semantic fields, sign families and grammatical functions in LGG
4.7.1 Lexical expansion of kinship and colour terms in LGG
4.7.2 Lexical expansion of sign families in LGG
4.7.3 Lexical expansion of ‘hit’ in LGG through grammaticalisation
4.8 Discussion
4.8.1 Lexical expansion of kinship and colour terms in LGG
4.8.2 Lexical expansion of sign families in LGG
4.8.3 Lexical expansion of ‘hit’ in LGG through grammaticalisation

5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Main contributions: deaf history
5.3 Main contributions: gesture studies (and their relation to sign linguistics)
5.3.1 Innovative methods: using small groups and relying on deaf people
5.3.2 Semantic-based routes of gesture-to-sign integration
5.3.3 Gesture as a starting capital in semantic hierarchies
5.4 Main contributions: sign linguistics
5.4.1 Gendered signing
5.4.2 Early expansion of sign families
5.4.3 Grammaticalisation of ‘hit’
5.5 Future directions
5.6 Concluding remarks

APPENDIX 1: Chronology of school-based sign languages

APPENDIX 2: LGG vitality score

REFERENCES

Summary
Samenvatting
Resumo
Resumu