The at-issue status of viewpoint gestures: Evidence for gradient at-issueness

Abstract

Recent semantic research on the meaning contribution of speech-accompanying gestures has focused on their at-issue status. Empirical evidence suggests they contribute not-at-issue meaning by default (e.g., Ebert et al., 2020). However, there is growing evidence that the notion of at-issueness is better captured as a gradient one instead of a binary one (Barnes et al., 2022; Tonhauser et al., 2018; see Barnes and Ebert, 2023 for a formal implementation). Research investigating differences in at-issueness between different types of co-speech gestures is missing entirely. This paper presents findings from two experimental rating studies investigating differences in the at-issue status and salience of 'character viewpoint gestures' (CVGs) and 'observer viewpoint gestures' (OVGs). The results of the first experiment suggest that while both viewpoint gesture types contribute not-at-issue meaning by default, CVGs are still more at-issue than OVGs. In the second study, it was investigated whether CVGs are more salient than OVGs. The results tentatively suggest that there are no salience differences between CVGs and OVGs. Overall, the findings provide additional evidence in favor of a gradient approach to at-issueness.