Handshape complexity as a precursor to phonology: Variation, emergence, and acquisition

Abstract

In this paper two dimensions of handshape complexity are analyzed as potential building blocks of phonological contrast-joint complexity and finger group complexity. We ask whether sign language patterns are elaborations of those seen in the gestures produced by hearing people without speech (pantomime) or a more radical re-organization of them. Data from adults and children are analyzed to address issues of cross-linguistic variation, emergence, and acquisition.Study 1 addresses these issues in adult signers and gesturers from the United States, Italy, China, and Nicaragua. Study 2 addresses these issues in child and adult groups (signers and gesturers) from the United States, Italy, and Nicaragua. We argue that handshape undergoes a fairly radical reorganization, including loss and reorganization of iconicity and feature redistribution, as phonologization takes place in both of these dimensions. Moreover, while the patterns investigated here are not evidence of duality of patterning, we conclude that they are indeed phonological, and that they appear earlier than related morphosyntactic patterns that use the same types of handshape.

Language Emergence

“…Despite the phonological–morphological alignment, the two levels of representation do not appear at the same time in development, either in acquisition or in emergence (Brentari et al 2013, 2015a, 2016; Coppola & Brentari 2014). Children acquiring ASL or LIS as a first language show the phonological pattern of handshape complexity depicted in Figure 5 for object and handling handshapes by age 4 (Brentari et al 2015a, 2016), but the morphological agentive/nonagentive distinction is not mastered until age 7–8 in ASL (Schick 1987, Brentari et al 2013).…”

“…Children acquiring ASL or LIS as a first language show the phonological pattern of handshape complexity depicted in Figure 5 for object and handling handshapes by age 4 (Brentari et al 2015a, 2016), but the morphological agentive/nonagentive distinction is not mastered until age 7–8 in ASL (Schick 1987, Brentari et al 2013). The results from a longitudinal study of one child homesigner in Nicaragua show the same pattern (i.e., phonology before morphology): Handshape complexity (a phonological pattern) emerged over a 5-year span (age 7–12), but at age 12 the agentive/nonagentive opposition (a morphological pattern) had not yet appeared (Coppola & Brentari 2014).…”

“…We interpret the emergence of systematic patterns in handshape complexity in NSL as one of the first indications of phonological organization (Brentari et al 2012a, 2016) even though the system does not exhibit duality of patterning (Hockett 1960); the morphological and phonological groupings simply align with one another. These findings accord well with Ladd’s (2014) recent argument that duality of patterning need not be an acid test for a phonological system.…”

“…Interestingly, hearing speakers in the United States and Italy who were communicating with silent gesture (i.e., they were asked to gesture without talking) did not display this pattern, suggesting that the pattern is not inevitable in the manual modality but rather grows out of linguistic structure, not the hand. In addition, Brentari et al (2016) demonstrated that, across four sign languages, including NSL Cohort 2, the principle of symmetry is at work in the distribution of complexity for both finger and joint features. Both gesturers and signers produce complex handshapes when both joint and finger features are taken into consideration, but only signers balance this complexity across the types of handshapes in a symmetrical way—joint complexity is higher in handling handshapes, whereas finger complexity is higher in object handshapes for signers.…”

What is a gesture? A lesson from comparative gesture research

“…The fourth level is phonological. There are differences between signers and silent gesturers with respect to the internal structure of handshape (Brentari et al 2016). Signers balance the complexity of their handshapes between joint complexity and finger complexity, showing a double dissociation between handling handshapes (high joint complexity-low selected finger complexity) and object handshapes (low joint complexity-high finger complexity).…”