In ASL, two-handed signs fall into three major sets. In one set the hands have different shapes and either only the dominant hand moves or the hands move as a unit. Battison’s Dominance Condition was intended to account for the fact that the non-dominant hand typically assumes an unmarked shape when it is stationary. However, we show that the non-dominant hand does this even when the hands move as a unit. In the second set the hands have the same shape and only the dominant hand moves. These signs are unrestricted for handshape. In the third set the hands have the same shape and both move. Battison’s Symmetry Condition was intended to account for restrictions on the parameters of these signs. We argue that four basic types of symmetry transformations occur, with various complications: reflection, rotation, translation, and glide reflection, all of which call for conditions specific to them, and lead to an overriding condition on movement in symmetry transformation signs. The conditions uncovered here might be morpheme structure constraints or, instead, simply follow from physiological limitations of hands in motion.
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Ferrara, Casey & Donna Jo Napoli
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Lepic, Ryan, Carl Börstell, Gal Belsitzman & Wendy Sandler
Malaia, Evie, Joshua D. Borneman & Ronnie B. Wilbur
2018. Information Transfer Capacity of Articulators in American Sign Language. Language and Speech 61:1 ► pp. 97 ff.
Mirus, Gene, Jami Fisher & Donna Jo Napoli
2012. Taboo expressions in American Sign Language. Lingua 122:9 ► pp. 1004 ff.
Napoli, Donna Jo & Casey Ferrara
2021. Correlations Between Handshape and Movement in Sign Languages. Cognitive Science 45:5
Napoli, Donna Jo, Jami Fisher & Gene Mirus
2013. Bleached taboo-term predicates in American Sign Language. Lingua 123 ► pp. 148 ff.
Sacknovitz, A.
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Sutton-Spence, Rachel & Michiko Kaneko
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Sutton-Spence, Rachel & Fernanda de Araújo Machado
2023. Creative Sign Language,
Tkachman, Oksana, Gracellia Purnomo & Bryan Gick
2021. Repetition Preferences in Two-Handed Balanced Signs: Vestigial Locomotor Central Pattern Generators Shape Sign Language Phonetics and Phonology. Frontiers in Communication 5
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