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324 Sign Language: Lexicography Sternberg M L A (1981). American Sign Language. A com- Van Herreweghe M, Slembrouck S & Vermeerbergen M prehensive dictionary. New York: Harper and Row. (eds.) (2004). ‘Digitaal Vlaamse Gebarentaal-Nederlands/ Stokoe W C, Casterline D & Cronenberg C (1965). Nederlands-Vlaamse Gebarentaal woordenboek.’ http:// A dictionary of American Sign Language. Silver Spring, gebaren.ugent.be/. MD: Linstok Press. Sign Language: Morphology T Johnston, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia face, and body) means that each sign gesture takes ß 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. more time to execute than each spoken articulatory gesture (Bellugi and Fischer, 1972). If segments are added to a stem, producing a multisyllabic sign, pro- Morphology deals with the regular, minimal, meaning- cesses of assimilation and deletion tend to restructure bearing units in language – morphemes – which are the resulting sign into a bisyllabic or monosyllabic words or parts of words. Morphemes can effect one with simultaneously expressed morphemes. changes in meaning by signaling the creation of a This process is most clearly seen in the formation of new word or a change in word class (derivation), or new signs through compounding. In Auslan/BSL, for by signaling grammatical information such as case, example, the sign CHECK derives from SEE and MAYBE. number, person, aspect, tense, etc., (inflection) (see SEE has lost its outward movement with final hold Morpheme). and has incorporated the anticipated handshape of Individual signs in a signed language are the basic MAYBE, while MAYBE has lost its repeated twisting equivalent of words in a spoken language. Each movement. The compound has a single syllable signed language has a vocabulary of conventional (Sutton-Spence and Woll, 1999). See Figure 2. lexical signs which are often monomorphemic. In With the exception of prefixes in Israeli Sign Lan- the closely related Australian and British Sign Lan- guage (Aronoff et al., 2000), the few affixes that have guages (Auslan and BSL, respectively), for example, been identified in signed languages are all suffixes. none of the formational aspects of the sign SISTER has Indeed, many appear to have grammaticized from any separate meaning of its own (see Sign Language: one of the elements in erstwhile compounds. For Phonology and Sign Languages of the World). See example, a negative suffix –NEG can be attached to Figure 1. AGREE to derive the new sign DISAGREE, in Auslan/ The type of morphological processes commonly BSL. The affix appears to be a reduced form of an found in signed languages seems to be influenced by independent sign, which itself seems related to a ges- the fact that most lexical signs are monosyllabic or, at ture (meaning something like ‘not know’) shared with most, bisyllabic (Johnson and Liddell, 1986; Liddell, the hearing culture. A similar suffix (in both form and 1984; Sandler, 1995; Wilbur, 1993). Signed languages meaning) has been identified in a number of signed appear to favor simultaneous sign internal modifica- languages (Zeshan, forthcoming). See Figure 3. tion, rather than the concatenation of morphemes. Researchers have also identified a derivational pro- This may be related to the fact that the larger size of cess whereby stem signs for certain units that are the articulators in signed languages (the hands, arms, enumerable (e.g., TOMORROW, WEEK) may incorporate Figure 1 A monomorphemic sign. Reproduced from Johnston Figure 2 A compound and its components. Reproduced from T & Schembri A (eds.) (2003). The survival guide to Auslan: a begin- Johnston T & Schembri A (eds.) (2003). The survival guide to Auslan: ner’s pocket dictionary of Australian Sign Language. Sydney: North a beginner’s pocket dictionary of Australian Sign Language. Sydney: Rocks Press with permission. North Rocks Press with permission. Sign Language: Morphology 325 Figure 3 Derivation through negative affixation. Reproduced from Johnston T & Schembri A (eds.) (2003). The survival guide to Figure 5 Derivation through movement modification. Repro- Auslan: a beginner’s pocket dictionary of Australian Sign Language. duced from Johnston T & Schembri A (eds.) (2003). The survival Sydney: North Rocks Press with permission. guide to Auslan: a beginner’s pocket dictionary of Australian Sign Lan- guage. Sydney: North Rocks Press with permission. Figure 4 Number incorporation in Auslan/BSL. Reproduced from Johnston T & Schembri A (eds.) (2003). The survival guide to Figure 6 The derivation of a nominal from a verb. Reproduced Auslan: a beginner’s pocket dictionary of Australian Sign Language. from Johnston T & Schembri A (eds.) (2003). The survival guide to Sydney: North Rocks Press with permission. Auslan: a beginner’s pocket dictionary of Australian Sign Language. Sydney: North Rocks Press with permission. numeral handshapes to create specific signs for spe- However, typical exemplars in many signed lan- cific numbers of these units (e.g., IN TWO DAYS, TWO- guages overlap considerably in both form and mean- WEEKS). See Figure 4. ing, and the productivity of the derivational process Modification of the quality of the movement in a appears influenced by underlying iconicity. Though it sign can also be used to derive new signs, such as BUSY is to be expected that derivational paradigms in any from WORK (Auslan/BSL). A similar process derives language will be restricted and morpheme productiv- NARROW-MINDED/PRUDISH from CHURCH in ASL, and ity limited, for some signed languages at least the this has been compared to templated morphology as degree of grammaticization of these modifications is found in Semitic languages (Fernald and Napoli, as yet uncertain. 2000). See Figure 5. Morphemes and morphological processes can also It is often difficult to clearly distinguish between signal the inflection of existing signs, adding gram- stem modification or suprasegmental modification in matical information (e.g., marking for number, per- signed languages. In many respects, modifying the son, aspect, etc.) while maintaining the essential movement parameter of a sign is akin to changing a lexical meaning of the stem. Inflections in signed vowel (a stem modification); however, in others, and spoken languages can be found on nominals or modifying for manner of movement is akin to tone predicates (verbs and adjectives). (a suprasegmental modification). The derivation of Inflection by concatenative affixation appears to nouns from verbs in some signed languages is a case be extremely rare in signed languages. One example in point. is a nominal genitive suffix in Auslan which is used Originally described in ASL (Supalla and Newport, to signal possessive relationships between two nouns. 1978), this morphological process, in which nouns This sign is not used as a free morpheme of any kind, are derived from verbs by a sign-internal modification but only as a suffix, as in MOTHERþGEN SISTERþGEN of movement, also has parallels in other signed lan- HUSBAND to mean ‘mother’s sister’s husband.’ guages. The continuous single movement found in the Data from a growing number of signed languages verb is modified to be restrained and tense, and often have shown that all of them exploit space and move- repeated, in the noun, as in the Auslan/BSL pair DOOR ment patterns inherent in sign formation to convey and OPEN-DOOR. See Figure 6. information regularly encoded in the inflectional 326 Sign Language: Morphology Figure 7 Inflection (‘person agreement’) through movement modification in the Auslan/BSL sign GIVE, and the Auslan sign HELP. Reproduced from Johnston T & Schembri A (eds.) (2003). The survival guide to Auslan: a beginner’s pocket dictionary of Australian Sign Language. Sydney: North Rocks Press with permission. systems of spoken languages. Indeed, the markings often appear to be in part phonologically conditioned. For example, space will be exploited when a sign is not anchored throughout its produc- tion at a particular location on the body, or if its movement parameter is not specified for repetition. These processes are exemplified in both nominal and verbal inflections. In nominal signs, inflection for plurality can be marked by repetition (often in differ- ent locations if the sign is not anchored). Spatial Figure 8 Inflection (‘distribution’) through movement modifica- tion in Auslan/BSL. Reproduced from Johnston T & Schembri A modifications can also signal topographical informa- (eds.) (2003). The survival guide to Auslan: a beginner’s pocket dictio- tion about referents (e.g., a noun may be placed in the nary of Australian Sign Language. Sydney: North Rocks Press with signing space to mean ‘thing-at-such-and-such-a- permission. place’). A basic tripartite division of ASL verb signs as plain, spatial, and agreeing (Padden, 1988) has been within a mental space representation of an event found to apply to signed languages to which the (Liddell, 2003). framework has been applied (with or without various A second related phenomenon in verb inflection modifications and reinterpretations). refers to distribution and involves a ‘plural sweep’ in For example, no sign language lacks the ability to which the end point is moved in an arc through loca- modify the direction of the movement parameter of tions associated with referents or relocated and redir- agreeing verbs so that the beginning and end points of ected at each in a series of repetitions, as in the these signs move between regions in the signing space modification of ASK to mean ‘ask all’ or ‘ask each.’ associated with the subject (or the agent) and the See Figure 8. object (or the patient) of the action. (Alternative inter- Similarly, modifications can be made to the move- pretations of this phenomenon include those that ment parameter of verb signs to express a number of assign source and goal as the underlying significance aspectual nuances. Researchers in many signed lan- of these locations (Johnston, 1991; Meier, 1982).) guages have identified similar patterns of movement The sign glossed as GIVE in many signed languages modification, with similar meanings, as first de- can have the meanings ‘I give you’ when moved scribed in ASL (Klima et al., 1979).

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