Mouthings and mouth gestures are omnipresent in Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT). Mouthings in NGT commonly have their origin in spoken Dutch. We conducted a corpus study to explore how frequent mouthings in fact are in NGT, whether there is variation within and between signs in mouthings, and how frequent temporal reduction occurs in mouthings. Answers to these questions can help us classify mouthings as being specified in the sign lexicon or as being instances of code-blending. We investigated a sample of 20 frequently occurring signs. We found that each sign in the sample co-occurs frequently with a mouthing, usually that of a specific Dutch lexical item. On the other hand, signs show variation in the way they co-occur with mouthings and mouth gestures. By using a relatively large amount of natural data, we succeeded in gaining more insight into the way mouth actions are utilized in sign languages

Examples are HAIR with the mouthing blond ('blond') for 'blond hair', or ARRIVE with the mouthing thuis ('home') for 'arrive at home'. Third, mouthings can specify the sign they accompany by indicating time and/or person. An example is TO-COME with the mouthing kwam ('came'), to specify the sign for past tense, singular (all examples from Schermer, 1990: 125-127). The majority of mouthings, however, fall in the 'redundant' categories. Schermer notes that the fact that a redundant mouthing does not seem to fulfil a specific function in the language, does not rule out that the articulatory movements and the lip/mouth pictures are not necessary for the deaf signer. That is why the term 'redundant' should not be interpreted as 'superfluous' (Schermer, 1990: 137) Studies on other sign languages suggested comparable functionalities (cf.

Mouthings and mouth gestures are omnipresent in Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT). Mouthings in NGT are mouth actions that have their origin in spoken Dutch, and are usually time aligned with the signs they co-occur with. Frequently, however, they spread over one or more adjacent signs, so that one mouthing co-occurs with multiple manual signs. We conducted a corpus study to explore how frequently this occurs in NGT and whether there is any sociolinguistic variation in the use of spreading. Further, we looked at the circumstances under which spreading occurs. Answers to these questions may give us insight into the prosodic structure of sign languages. We investigated a sample of the Corpus NGT containing 5929 mouthings by 46 participants. We found that spreading over an adjacent sign is independent of social factors. Further, mouthings that spread are longer than non-spreading mouthings, whether measured in syllables or in milliseconds. By using a relatively large amount of natural data, we succeeded in gaining more insight into the way mouth actions are utilised in sign language

Abstract. Warehousing, traditionally, is concerned only with the storage and distribution of products or work-in-process (WIP). However, the role of warehouses has evolved to also provide manufacturing, assembly, and other valueadded services. In that sense, warehouses and their operations play an important role in sustainable supply chain. However, sustainability improvement in warehousing has not been receiving much attention. This paper describes the motivations to develop sustainability standards for warehousing and introduces an effort recently started by industry to develop these standards. The paper is a starting point to define uniform sustainability metrics, measurements, and guidelines for the warehouse industry. It discusses future development directions and existing works that can form the basis for expanding the warehousing sustainability standards. Although there are no specific metrics and guidelines for warehousing operations in the existing works, we discuss they may be the basis for further development of such warehousing sustainability standards.

Code-blends in sign languages consist of simultaneously articulated manual signs and spoken language words. These "mouthings" (typically silent articulations) have been observed for many different sign languages. The present study aims to investigate the extent of such bimodal code-mixing in sign languages by investigating the frequency of mouthings produced by deaf users of Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT), their co-occurrence with pointing signs, and whether any differences can be explained by sociolinguistic variables such as regional origin and age of the signer. We investigated over 10,000 mouth actions from 70 signers, and found that the mouth and the hands are equally active during signing. Moreover, around 80 % of all mouth actions are mouthings, while the remaining 20 % are unrelated to Dutch. We found frequency differences between individual signers and a small effect for level of education, but not for other sociolinguistic variables. Our results provide genuine evidence that mouthings form an inextricable component of signed interaction. Rather than displaying effects of competition between languages or spoken language suppression, NGT signers demonstrate the potential of the visual modality to conjoin parallel information streams.