Co-speech gestures have traditionally been treated as an ‘extralinguistic’ phenomenon, not implicated in theories of grammar (e.g. Peter Hagoort and Jos van Berkum 2007). In this talk, I discuss cross-linguistic findings on the coordination of speech and co-speech gesture that reveal clear evidence of language-specific timing patterns, a hallmark of grammatical control (Pierrehumbert 1980; Keating 1984). Looking at data from Medʉmba, Babanki, and two varieties of English,  I demonstrate that a) gestures reveal language-specific patterns of prosodic prominence, and b) co-speech gestures, like oral articulatory gestures, show language-specific patterns in the gestural landmarks selected for coordination (c.f. Browman & Goldstein 1986; Gafos 2002; Shaw et al. 2021). I then propose a framework for integrating co-speech gestures into the analysis of prosodic grammar.

On Friday, September 26th, 2025, we had the pleasure of welcoming Professor Sotaro Kita for the inauguration of the ISGS Catalonia Hub.

He delivered a brilliant lecture on how gestures facilitate cognitive processes and on how gesture, generated at the interface between action and language, shapes the way we think and speak.

Watch the recording!