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Iconic thumbs, pinkies and pointers
The grammaticalization of animate-entity handshapes in Japan sign language
- Author(s): William J. Herlofsky
- Source: Insistent Images , pp 37-53
- Publication Date March 2007
Sign language research has shown that all sign languages have verbs of motion in which the movement expressed by the verb is combined with an animateentity handshape. These handshapes iconically represent certain salient characteristics of their referents, and are therefore referred to as ‘classifiers’. The objective of this paper is to describe and illustrate the nature of iconic handshapes (especially the thumb, pinky, and pointer) of classifier-like constructions in Japan Sign Language (JSL), and show how their functions and patterns of grammaticalization are in some ways similar to and in other ways different from those identified for classifiers in spoken languages
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