Abstract

Drawing on semi-spontaneous conversational data from the Balinese Homesign Corpus ( Satyawati et al. 2021 ), this exploratory, descriptive study examines the negation forms used by seven adult homesigners from four villages in the north of Bali. The two most frequently used manual negators are a palm-forward handwave, neg:b (51.5%) and a palm-sidewards handshake, neg:a (37.8%). However, neg:b is consistently combined with a headshake by all seven homesigners, a pattern also attested in the two sign languages closest to Balinese homesigning geographically: Kata Kolok and BISINDO. Examples are found where neg:a cliticises to its host, which has not to our knowledge been attested for homesigning in the literature. Two other manual negators are found, including a side-to-side selected index finger ( neg:ix ) that primarily expresses negative imperative (3%). Tongue protrusion is infrequent but seems to be primarily associated with negative existence and evaluative meanings, while open mouth appears to carry affective meaning.