4.3.1 Introduction
The question that the second pilot study aimed to answer was whether the variation observed in the realization of the location change in SAY can also be found for other signs. The prediction was that for these signs, too, the location change can be articulated by the shoulder and elbow (leading to change in location of the whole hand), as well as by the more distal forearm, wrist, and MCP joints.
In the study of SAY, forearm movement was not transcribed separately from wrist movement. In no case was the forearm movement so prominent that it was necessary to include it as a separate category. Forearm rotation and wrist abduction / adduction often lead to the same effect, and it is very hard to record with one video camera whether there is movement at both joints or only one of them, especially if the signer wears long sleeves. In the present study forearm movement was included in the transcriptions, because of the focus of the study on the articulation of the movement, and also because the differences in phonological specification of the
selected signs, and especially the possibility for some signs to inflect, made it more likely that this movement would figure in the realizations.
Rotation of the forearm alone can lead to a marked change in location of the end of the articulator, in the case where the wrist and/or MCP joints are not fully extended. The larger the deviation of the wrist and MCP joints from their neutral state of 0 degree flexion, the larger the movement of the end of the hand will be. This is illustrated in Figure 4.8, for a hypothetical sign in which all fingers are selected.
i. Wrist and MCP extended, 90 degree supination, tip trajectory: none
ii. MCP 90 degrees flexed, 90 degree supination, tip trajectory: 17 cm
iii. Wrist 45 degrees adducted, 90 degree supination, tip trajectory: 20 cm
iv. Wrist 70 degrees flexed, MCP 20 degrees flexed, 90 degree supination, tip trajectory: 31 cm
Figure 4.8
Forearm rotation leading to different sizes of trajectory of the tip of the middle finger
4.3.2 Methodology
Twelve signs were selected, six with and six without a handshape change. These signs are listed in Table 4.4, with their phonological specification and other information. The classification of these signs as having a location change was based on phonetic properties common to different citation forms found in dictionaries and in the SignPhon corpus. These properties were a change in location of the whole hand (or, in other words, movement of the wrist through space), and the absence of marked orientation changes (esp. a change in orientation about the longitudinal axis; see the illustration on page 127).
All 12 signs contain a change in location, and in the column ‘configuration change’ a change in finger configuration (handshape) is specified, if any. The changes are given in initial and final values for finger flexion or for changes in aperture. In the column ‘articulator’, the size of the articulator is listed (one, two, or all fingers selected). A check mark in the column ‘inflects’ indicates that the sign can be morphosyntactically inflected (or localized, in the case of STREET). The phonological specifications are listed in the rightmost seven columns. Some of the
signs are illustrated later in this chapter (see the index of glosses on page Error!
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gloss inflects
configuration
change artic. orientation109 location setting repet.
STREET 3 all tips neu: horiz. close, away
TAKE 3 extended,
closed all dorsum neu: horiz. close, away
INVITE 3 aperture open,
closed one root
neutral space
object, subject
PROOF all dorsum weak
hand: palm away, close 3
CHOOSE 3 aperture open,
closed one root neu: horiz.
object, subject
DAUGHTER extended,
closed all dorsum chest close, away
WARM-FOOD all palm mouth high, low 3
ALREADY all ulnar neu: horiz. high, low
FIND 3 aperture open,
closed one root neu: horiz.
low, high / object, subject
NICE aperture open,
closed one root neu: horiz. high, low
SEE 3 two dorsum eyes close, away
AUGUST all palm chest high away, close 3
Table 4.4
Signs selected for second study110
The glosses were offered to two signers, whose task was to translate the word to a sign, and to make up about five sentences or short stories including the sign.
After problems experienced with making transcriptions on the basis of a frontal view of the signer on video tape alone, the present recordings were made with two video cameras, placed at right angles to each other, one facing the signer, and one aimed on the signer from the left. These two views were recorded simultaneously on one S-VHS tape.
The signs were transcribed in terms of the joints that participated in articulating the path component of the location changes. The handshape changes that are marked for some signs in the table above were left out of consideration. No further details of the articulation at a given joint were transcribed, such as the size or relative
109 For the signs with an aperture specification, the orientation values refer to the fingers rather than the hand. As the selected finger(s) in these cases are fully flexed at the MCP joint, the value [root] of the finger is identical to the value [dorsum] for the whole hand.
110 Abbreviations: articulator (artic.), repeated movement (rep.), horizontal plane in neutral space (neu: horiz.).
contribution of the joint in the total articulation, the direction of the movement, or the dimension in which the movement occurred (for shoulder and wrist).
4.3.3 Results and discussion
The results are presented in Table 4.5. The number before the ‘+’ refers to number of realizations by one informant, the number after the ‘+’ to that of the other informant. gloss total no mov sh elb sh elb for sh elb wr sh for wr sh elb for wr elb elb wr elb wr mcp wr wr mcp STREET 9+11 8+8 1+2 0+1 TAKE 7+13 1+0 4+ 13 2+0 INVITE 3+5 0+4 1+0 2+1 PROOF 9+7 7+0 2+2 0+1 0+3 0+1 CHOOSE 15+6 8+6 7+0 DAUGHTER 10+6 1+0 9+6 WARM-FOOD 5+7 2+0 3+0 0+7 ALREADY 8+9 0+1 4+4 4+4 NICE 16+7 0+1 10+2 6+4 SEE 14+8 0+1 10+ 4 4+3 AUGUST 5+6 5+6 FIND 13+13 0+4 5+8 7+0 1+1 total 114+98 0+3 24+ 22 6+6 28+ 33 7+0 3+1 25+ 10 13+ 5 3+1 0+3 5+14 overall total 212 3 46 12 61 7 4 35 18 4 3 19 Table 4.5
Articulation of 12 signs by two signers
Abbreviations: no movement (no mov), shoulder (sh), elbow (elb), forearm (for), wrist (wr), MCP joints (mcp)
The number of responses by the two signers was highly variable for each sign, as can be seen in the second column. Overall, there were roughly the same number of responses by the two informants (114 vs. 98). Note that many other (combinations of) movements did not occur at all, such as only shoulder or MCP movement, or combined elbow, forearm and wrist movement.
The data clearly confirm the prediction that both proximal (shoulder, elbow) and distal (forearm, wrist, MCP) joints can participate in articulating a change in location. This is summarized in Table 4.6. The distinction between ‘proximal’ and
‘distal’ joint groups in the table is not based on any anatomical criteria, but solely on the effect they have in terms of traditional sign language parameters: shoulder and elbow movement change the location of the whole hand, whereas the joints distal to the elbow do not.
joint groups no of tokens. joints no. of tokens
shoulder 130 proximal 310 (67%) elbow 180 forearm 11 wrist 116 distal 150 (33%) MCP 23 Table 4.6
Involvement of proximal vs. distal joints in articulating location changes
It is clear, then, that in terms of overall involvement, the proximal elbow and shoulder joints are used twice as often as the distal forearm, wrist, and MCP joints together (310 vs. 150 tokens) . These data are not informative though if we want to consider the combinations of movements that were found. Location changes as in the group signs under study are traditionally seen as articulated by proximal joints alone, whereas the hypothesis of the present study is that combinations of proximal and distal articulations will also occur, as well as articulations by distal joints alone. The numbers in Table 4.7 confirm this prediction.
joint groups no. of tokens
proximal 46 (22%)
proximal and distal 144 (68%)
distal 22 (10%)
Table 4.7
Location changes articulated by proximal vs. distal joints
Although purely proximal articulations do occur (22% of tokens), in the majority of cases distal joints are involved in realizing a change in location as well (68%). In 10% of all tokens, the distal joints were the only joints that articulated the change in location.
Finally, in 3 cases (1%) no movement was found at all. That is to say, all the movement seemed to be transitional movement from the previous sign towards the location of the target sign, and from that location to the location of the next sign.
4.3.4 Conclusions
The present data were not analyzed in terms of the sequential phonological context that might have caused coarticulatory effects, except for establishing that in some signs the only movement was transitional movement from and to the surrounding signs. For example, no transcription of the orientation of the sign was made, which could have indicated that coarticulatory effects were present. The sizes of changes in joint state were not transcribed either. In all, then, it cannot be concluded that the orientation of the hand actually did change due to the involvement of distal joints. An assumption in the studies above, which was not made explicit so far, is that moving the distal joints will inevitably change the absolute orientation of the whole hand, while not changing its location. This is indeed true if these are the only joints that move. However, if the distal joints move in conjunction with the proximal joints, there are two possible outcomes for orientation.
(4.3) Effect of movement at the distal joints
1. The distal joints enhance the change in whole hand orientation that is almost inevitably caused by moving shoulder or elbow alone, and that is typically found in combinations of shoulder and elbow movement 2. The distal joints move so as to counteract the change in whole hand
orientation that would be caused by proximal movement alone.
How this works can be illustrated by drawing a line on a blackboard or a sheet of paper. If one only moves one joint, the line will be curved. To get a straight line (case 2 above), a well-synchronized action of more than one joint is needed.111 Moving all joints synchronically may however also lead to a sharply curved line traced by the end of the articulator (case 1 above).
The impression from the tokens for all signs above is that there was no attempt to keep the orientation of the hand constant in both degrees of freedom, and that the degree of variability is similar to that found for SAY. However, this should be confirmed by looking at the data in the same detail as was done for SAY, transcribing changes in orientation as well.
With this reservation in mind, I conclude that, in general, it is possible for signs to be articulated by both proximal and distal joints, in various combinations, thereby obscuring the traditional boundary between location changes, handshape changes, and orientation changes as properties of the whole hand. This confirms the prediction made by the phonological model in Chapter 3, that the phonological specification (for location and changes in location, in the present data set) does not concern the hand as a whole, but rather a smaller or more variable part of the articulator.
111 Nagahara (1988) capitalizes on this point, arguing that the default movement in sign language is arc- shaped, because movement at a single joint inevitably leads to an arc-shaped path. However, the data in this study (cf. Table 4.5) show that the use of only a single joint in the realization of a sign is rather rare, the use of combinations of joints being the default case.