Sign Language & Linguistics - Volume 11, Issue 2, 2008

Handshape change is the change of handshape from one configuration to another. It is a unique and pervasive pattern attested in sign languages. The issue here is how to represent this change of handshape phonologically. Previous studies on handshape change were mostly done on American Sign Language (ASL) and two different ways of representing handshape change have been proposed. Some models (e.g. Liddell 1990; Uyechi 1996) propose that all surface handshapes are represented underlyingly, whereas others (e.g. Brentari 1998; Corina 1993; Sandler 1989) suggest representing only one handshape because the other handshape is predictable. Handshape change attested in monomorphemic signs in Taiwan Sign Language (TSL) will be described and analyzed in this paper. I argue that the TSL data support the latter view. In addition, a restrictive model is preferred if it can describe the data adequately and at the same time does not over-generate.

Sign linguists routinely parse ASL sentences using the category ‘topic’, by which is meant a constituent on the left edge of the main clause, structurally separate from it, and marked by a discrete formal symbolic event, more fully brow raise + backward head tilt + pause, although brow raise is sometimes considered sufficient. This paper provides evidence confirming suspicions that these left-detached constituents need not be marked by brow raise, and suggests that brow raise is better regarded as signaling a type of momentary focus — thus explaining why sign languages tend to employ it as they do — and that it belongs to a larger set of ‘topic-marking’ devices whose iconicity remains active in day-to-day signing.