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. 2012 Mar 1;6(3):162-182.
doi: 10.1002/lnc3.326. Epub 2012 Mar 2.

THE PHONOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION OF SIGN LANGUAGES

Wendy Sandler  1
Affiliations

THE PHONOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION OF SIGN LANGUAGES

Wendy Sandler. Lang Linguist Compass. .

Abstract

Visually perceivable and movable parts of the body - the hands, facial features, head, and upper body - are the articulators of sign language. It is through these articulators that that words are formed, constrained, and contrasted with one another, and that prosody is conveyed. This article provides an overview of the way in which phonology is organized in the alternative modality of sign language.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Minimal pairs in Israeli Sign Language distinguished by handshape (DANGEROUS and INTERESTING, distinguished by different selected finger groups), location (SCOLD signed near the head and SEND signed near the torso), and movement (ESCAPE with straight movement and BETRAY with arc movement).
Figure 1
Figure 1
Minimal pairs in Israeli Sign Language distinguished by handshape (DANGEROUS and INTERESTING, distinguished by different selected finger groups), location (SCOLD signed near the head and SEND signed near the torso), and movement (ESCAPE with straight movement and BETRAY with arc movement).
Figure 2
Figure 2
All fingers selected in extended, closed, curved, and bent positions.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Unmarked handshapes, with index or adjacent fingers selected and extended or closed in shape; marked handshapes with nonadjacent fingers selected or with curved or crossed shape; and shapes that are unattested in phoneme inventories.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Unmarked handshapes, with index or adjacent fingers selected and extended or closed in shape; marked handshapes with nonadjacent fingers selected or with curved or crossed shape; and shapes that are unattested in phoneme inventories.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Hierarchical relations among Hand Configuration feature classes (adapted from Sandler 1989)
Figure 5
Figure 5
ASL signs distinguished only by the second sequential setting.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Examples of verb agreement in ASL. Illustrations reprinted with permission from Carol Padden.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Reduced ISL compound: THINK^STOP, ‘surprised, taken aback’.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Reduced ISL compound: THINK^STOP, ‘surprised, taken aback’.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Schematic representation of compound reduction: Deletion of locations and assimilation of hand configuration in THINK^STOP, ‘surprised, taken aback’ (adapted from Sandler 1987, 1989). Doubled handshapes on STOP and on the compound sign indicate that the sign is two-handed and symmetrical.
Figure 9
Figure 9
The uninflected ASL sign LOOK-AT and LOOK-AT inflected for Durational aspect. Reprinted with permission from Ursula Bellugi.
Figure 10
Figure 10
Sequentiality and simultaneity of structure in a sign with four morphemes, meaning, ‘She/he looked at him/her for a while’.
Figure 11
Figure 11
Head/body posture and facial intonation changes at intonational phrase boundary in ISL. ‘The little dog I found last week ran away’, [DOG SMALL INDEXi] P BEFORE-WEEK I FIND INDEXi] P ] I ∥ [[ESCAPE] P ] I.
Figure 12a,b
Figure 12a,b
ISL grammatical facial expressions. Raised brows indicate continuation or dependency; squint is a signal to retrieve shared information.
Figure 13
Figure 13
a Symmetrical two-handed signs STAND, WEAKLING, TRAFFIC, in Sign Language of the Netherlands. Reprinted with permission from Onno Crasborn. b Two-handed signs in which the nondominant hand is a static place of articulation, EVIDENCE, ILL, PHONOLOGY, in SLN. Reprinted with permission from Onno Crasborn.
Figure 13
Figure 13
a Symmetrical two-handed signs STAND, WEAKLING, TRAFFIC, in Sign Language of the Netherlands. Reprinted with permission from Onno Crasborn. b Two-handed signs in which the nondominant hand is a static place of articulation, EVIDENCE, ILL, PHONOLOGY, in SLN. Reprinted with permission from Onno Crasborn.
Figure 14
Figure 14
Classifier construction in which each hand encodes a morpheme: VEHICLE, and LONG-THIN-OBJECT. ‘A car runs into a telephone pole.’ Reprinted with permission from Ted Supalla.
Figure 15
Figure 15
Nondominant hand spread in a phonological phrase. The sign BAKE is specified for the nondominant hand, but the sign CAKE is one-handed. The nondominant hand stays in the signal till the end of the phonological phrase.
Figure 16
Figure 16
Two variants for the sign DOG in Al Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language, at different places of articulation.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Ann Jean. PhD dissertation. University of Arizona; Tucson: 1993. A linguistic investigation of the relationship between physiology and handshape.
    1. Ann Jean. A functional explanation of Taiwan Sign Language handshape frequency. Language and Linguistics. 2005;6:217–246.
    1. Aronoff Mark, Meir Irit, Sandler Wendy. The paradox of sign language morphology. Language. 2005;81:301–344. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Aronoff Mark, Meir Irit, Padden Carol, Sandler Wendy. Classifier constructions and morphology in two sign languages. In: Emmorey Karen., editor. Perspectives on classifier constructions in sign languages. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates; Mahwah, NJ: 2003. pp. 53–85.
    1. Baker-Shenk Charlotte. A microanalysis of the nonmanual components of questions in American Sign Language. University of California Press; Berkley: 1983.

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