Türk İşaret Dili'nde gösterme işaretleri

This thesis examines the grammatical diversity of pointing signs in Turkish Sign Language (Türk İşaret Dili - TİD), identified through syntactic, morpho-phonological and prosodic evidence. As phonological cues can be subtle and challenging to detect with impressionistic methods, we also use Pose Estimation, a computer vision technique, to transform these cues into numeric ranges upon which hypotheses can be built. The distributional properties of pointing signs are meticulously analyzed using ELAN, allowing us to clearly differentiate primary categories, namely Locatives, Pronouns, Demonstratives, and Clitics. My categorization shows that spatial information, particularly horizontal (x) and vertical (y) axes, play a key morpho-phonological role in distinguishing between classes. The grammatical functions of pointing signs are explained through spatial features and syntactic properties. I argue that the phonologically strong Locative class utilizes the signing space to its fullest extent, while phonologically weaker and more functional classes, like Demonstratives, rely less on spatial parameters. Our approach integrates distributional evidence, advanced computer vision techniques and implications on grammaticalization to offer a detailed perspective on the roles of pointing in TİD.