The phonology of sign languages

Fenlon, Jordan, Kearsy Cormier, Robert Adam & Bencie Woll. under review. Issues in determining phonological structure of sign languages in usage-based lexicons: The case of BSL SignBank. (submitted 11 October 2016). Check for updates before citing. Abstract: Sign languages have a sublexical level of organisation in which a fixed number of contrastive units combine to form all the signs that make up the core native lexicon of a sign language. Most accounts of sign language phonology have identified these units using a parameter-based approach that acknowledged handshape, location, movement and orientation as significant parameters and/or a featural approach. These aspire to account for all the possible phonological contrasts within a given (or multiple) sign language(s). However, much of this work has been based on signs from relatively small datasets which are not organised on the basis of lexical contrast. Here, we outline an ongoing attempt to identify the minimal features required for an adequate phonological description of a sign language lexicon within a corpus-based lemmatised lexical database of British Sign Language (BSL), issues that arise in doing so, and implications of these issues for phonological theory.

2000

This chapter addresses two issues that concern sign language phonology. The first issue is how iconicity influences phonology in SLs. The second arises often in the minds of linguists working on verbal languages: To what extent are the levels of structure and the dimensions of variation the same in signed and verbal languages?

linguistics.uconn.edu

Lingua, 1996

The signs of sign language consist phonetically of hand configurations, locations on the body or in space, and movements. Some models claim that dynamic movements and static locations are the sequential segments of sign language, and even that movements are analogous to vowels. Others claim that movements are redundant, or in any ease should not be represented as fully-fledged sequential segments, The present study measures movements agains~ stringent phonological and morphological criteria for featurehood and classhood, in light of the current controversy over their status. Data from American Sign Language and from Israeli Sign Language support the claims made here, among them, that there is a set of phonologically contrastive features of movement which is phonetically coherent, and that these features constitute a class that is referred to in a blocking constraint on Multiple inflection and other processes. It is shown that the distinction between sequences of dynamic movements mid static elements in signs is exp]oited in templatic morphology in both sign languages. While this analysis supports the claim that movements are phonologically significant at the underlying level, it suggests that their linear position need not be lexically specified. i. The controversy From the earliest days of sign language linguistics, it has been accepted that there arc threc categories of phonological features: hand configuration, location, and ~' I am very grateful ~o Harry van der Hulsl and to anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this paper. Thanks as well to paflic:.pants for their questions and comments at the following conferences where earlier versLon:+ of this paper were presented: the Workshop on Sign Language Phonology and

2015

Sign languages offer a unique and informative perspective on the question of the origin of phonological and phonetic features. Here I review research showing that signs are comprised of distinctive features which can be discretely listed and which are organized hierarchically. In these ways sign language feature systems are comparable to those of spoken language. However, the inventory of features and aspects of their organization, while similar across sign languages, are completely unlike those of spoken languages, calling into question claims about innateness of features for either modality. Studies of a young village sign language, Al-Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language (ABSL), demonstrate that phonological structuring is not in evidence at the outset, but rather self-organizes gradually (Sandler et al 2011). However, our new research shows that signature phonetic features of ABSL already can be detected when ABSL signers use signs from Israeli Sign Language. This ABSL ‘accent’ points t...

Transactions of the Philological Society, 2010

2001

Journal of Phonetics, 2006

In this chapter we will propose that the set of phonological features needed for sign languages is much smaller than what is usually proposed or assumed. Even though it has been recognized (since Stokoe's seminal work) that phonological features must capture only those properties of signs that are distinctive in the language, all subsequent models for sign language phonology typically encode a lot of phonetic detail that, on closer study, isn't really distinctive (in a phonological sense). In this chapter, we argue that the non-distinctive nature of these phonetic properties is due to two sources: (a) phonetic predictability (to be accounted for in terms of phonetic implementation rules) and (b) iconicity (to be accounted for in terms of lexical pre-specification). The two routes in (a) and (b) allow us to 'clean up' the phonology which, as a result, can be shown to be quite restricted and non-random, i.e. in accordance with structural principles that appear to play a crucial role in spoken language phonology as well. A case study involving the notion place of articulation is provided. Our claims are based on a study of signs from Sign Language of the Netherlands (SLN), and, in particular on a database (SignPhon) that contains over 3000 signs, provided with a detailed phonetic/ phonological encoding.

2005

Sign Language Studies, 1974

The American Sign Language of the deaf (ASL) has a level of structure which is analogous to phonology. The natural basis for both lexical description and analysis of variation is the articulatory dynamics of the hands and body. 'I have chosen to avoid the term cherology, found in Stokoe (1960) and Stokoe, Casterline, and Croneberg (1965) for two reasons: (a) to avoid confusion between Stokoe's structural analysis and the present study, which is in a generative phonological framework, (b) to avoid using a new term where a familiar one seem both adequate and appropriate.

2008

The research program developed by Peter MacNeilage seeks to derive aspects of phonological organization from fundamental physical properties of the speech system, and from there to arrive at reasonable hypotheses about the evolution of speech. Speech is the dominant medium for the transmission of natural human language, and characterizing its organization is clearly very important for our understanding of language as a whole. Speech is not the only medium available to humans, however, and a comprehensive theory of the nature and evolution of language has much to gain by investigating the form of language in the other natural language modality: sign language, the focus of this chapter. Like spoken languages, sign languages have syllables, the unit that will form the basis for comparison here. As a prosodic unit of organization within the word, sign language syllables bear certain significant similarities to those of spoken language. Such similarities help to shed light on universal properties of linguistic organization, regardless of modality. Yet the form and organization of syllables in the two modalities are quite different, and I will argue that these differences are equally illuminating. The similarities show that spoken and signed languages reflect the same cognitive system in a nontrivial sense. But the differences confirm that certain key aspects of phonological structure must indeed be derived from the physical transmission system, resulting in phonological systems that are in some ways distinct.

Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 1986

Mouth Actions in Sign Languages

sandlersignlab.haifa.ac.il

The research program developed by Peter MacNeilage seeks to derive aspects of phonological organization from fundamental physical properties of the speech system, and from there to arrive at reasonable hypotheses about the evolution of speech. Speech is the dominant medium for the transmission of natural human language, and characterizing its organization is clearly very important for our understanding of language as a whole. Speech is not the only medium available to humans, however, and a comprehensive theory of the nature and evolution of language has much to gain by investigating the form of language in the other natural language modality: sign language, the focus of this chapter. Like spoken languages, sign languages have syllables, the unit that will form the basis for comparison here. As a prosodic unit of organization within the word, sign language syllables bear certain significant similarities to those of spoken language. Such similarities help to shed light on universal properties of linguistic organization, regardless of modality. Yet the form and organization of syllables in the two modalities are quite different, and I will argue that these differences are equally illuminating. The similarities show that spoken and signed languages reflect the same cognitive system in a nontrivial sense. But the differences confirm that certain key aspects of phonological structure must indeed be derived from the physical transmission system, resulting in phonological systems that are in some ways distinct.