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- Volume 3, Issue, 2000
Sign Language & Linguistics - Volume 3, Issue 1, 2000
Volume 3, Issue 1, 2000
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Exploitation of morphological possibilities in signed languages: Comparison of American Sign Language with English
Author(s): Theodore B. Fernald and Donna Jo Napolipp.: 3–58 (56)More LessAmerican Sign Language shares with spoken languages derivational and inflectional morphological processes, including compounding, reduplication, incorporation, and, arguably, templates. Like spoken languages, ASL also has an extensive nonderivational, noninflectional morphology involving phonological alternation although this is typically more limited. Additionally, ASL frequently associates meaning with individual phonological parameters. This association is atypical of spoken languages. We account for these phenomena by positing “ion-morphs,” which are phonologically incomplete lexical items that bond with other compatible ion-morphs. These ion-morphs draw lexical items into “families” of related signs. In contrast, ASL makes little, if any, use of concatenative affixation, a morphological mechanism common among spoken languages. We propose that this difference is the result of the comparative slowness of movement of the manual articulators as compared to the speech articulators, as well as the perceptual robustness of the manual articulators to the visual system. The slowness of the manual articulators disfavors concatenative affixation. The perceptual robustness of the manual articulators allows ASL to exploit morphological potential that spoken language can use only at considerable cost.
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Rhythmic structures in French Sign Language (LSF) nursery rhymes
Author(s): Marion Blondel and Christopher Millerpp.: 59–77 (19)More LessResearch over the past three decades has brought attention to various ways in which linguistic structures are exploited to build poetic form in sign languages. These include recurring patterns of phonological elements (similar to rhyme, alliteration or assonance) that play a role in the structure of verses and strophes, as well as uses of metaphor and modifications of the form of signs that contribute to an overall fluidity of movement distinct from non-poetic signed discourse. In this paper we concentrate our attention on the role of rhythmic structure and the ways in which it interacts with syntactic structure to build poetic form. Our data consist of nursery rhymes, either original LSF creations or adaptations from French nursery rhymes, which were composed by Deaf adults and children. This type of poetry, as a genre of oral literature, is essentially performance-related and is highly variable in form. Despite the difference in modality (oral vs. gestural), LSF and French nursery rhymes show similar characteristics (repetition of phonological units, non-significant gesture, similar subject matter etc.), and rhythmic structure is central to their overall structure. This paper isolates rhythmic templates in LSF nursery rhymes via the analysis of accentual prosody (speed, intensity and manner of movement) and compares the nursery rhymes with an equivalent corpus of non-poetic performances. This research is relevant to the question of the universality of infant rhythmic structure and the importance of nursery rhymes in first language acquisition.
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Aspects of BSL poetry: A social and linguistic analysis of the poetry of Dorothy Miles
Author(s): Rachel Sutton-Spencepp.: 79–100 (22)More LessThe British Sign Language poetry of Dorothy Miles is a major contribution to the canon of BSL poetry. This paper considers her work as an example of “oral poetry”, in the tradition of other oral (i.e. unwritten poetry). Following definitions of oral poetry primarily from Finnegan (1977), I explore the degree to which Miles’ BSL work may be considered “oral” from the perspective of composition, transmission and performance, and linguistic structure. Although there are ways in which BSL poetry does share similarities with other spoken language “oral” poetry, the unique relationship between sign language and spoken language creates situations in which the BSL poetry is unlike either oral or written poetry.
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Morphology in American Sign Language
Author(s): Nancy Frishberg and Bonnie Goughpp.: 103–131 (29)More LessWorking paper — 1973
Volumes & issues
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Volume 27 (2024)
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Volume 26 (2023)
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Volume 25 (2022)
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Volume 24 (2021)
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Volume 23 (2020)
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Volume 22 (2019)
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Volume 21 (2018)
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Volume 20 (2017)
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Volume 19 (2016)
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Volume 18 (2015)
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Volume 17 (2014)
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Volume 16 (2013)
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Volume 15 (2012)
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Volume 14 (2011)
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Volume 13 (2010)
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Volume 12 (2009)
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Volume 11 (2008)
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Volume 10 (2007)
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Volume 9 (2006)
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Volume 8 (2005)
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Volume 7 (2004)
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Volume 6 (2003)
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Volume 5 (2002)
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Volume 4 (2001)
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Volume 3 (2000)
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Volume 2 (1999)
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Volume 1 (1998)
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Rethinking constructed action
Author(s): Kearsy Cormier, Sandra Smith and Zed Sevcikova-Sehyr
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The ASL lexicon
Author(s): Carol A. Padden
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