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Article published In:
Sign Language & Linguistics
Vol. 26:2 (2023) ► pp.276–322
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Units of sub-sign meaning in NGT

A toolbox for sub-sign meaning in a lexical database

ORCID logo | Independent researcher
| Independent researcher
ORCID logo | Radboud University Nijmegen

This paper provides an overview of all the meaningful sub-sign form units (form-meaning units; FMUs) in lexical signs in Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT). We investigated the potential meaning of all form features that were previously established in analyses of NGT form by analyzing their distribution in lexical signs. The data set consisted of 500 NGT signs in the lexical database Global Signbank, and a set of 163 elicited newly-formed lexical signs. All features in these data sets appear to bear meaning (at least once). No completely arbitrary features were found, and some features appeared to be always associated to a specific meaning. This toolkit and the set of FMUs in NGT provides a possible basis for cross-linguistic study and for a more fine-grained approach in various research disciplines, for instance psycholinguistics and acquisition, and it may thus advance the theoretical and applied study of sign languages.

Keywords: morphology, form-meaning unit, FMU, Sign Language of the Netherlands, lexical database
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Method
    • 2.1Datasets
      • 2.1.1The sample from Global Signbank
      • 2.1.2The set of newly formed signs
    • 2.2Description of sign form
    • 2.3Analysis of meaning
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Meaningful form features
    • 3.2Motivation type at the feature level
      • 3.2.1Iconic motivation: Explanation and illustrations
      • 3.2.2Types of iconic motivation
      • 3.2.3Metaphoric motivation at the feature level
    • 3.3Meaning and motivation of FMU combinations; FMU clusters
      • 3.3.1FMU clusters
      • 3.3.2FMU clusters: Entity vs. handling classifiers
    • 3.4Same form, different meaning; different form, same meaning
      • 3.4.1Homonymy
      • 3.4.2Synonymy
  • 4.Implementation in a database
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 23 October 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sll.20009.van
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