Front Matter 20030420.

qxd 4/24/2003 11:41 AM Page i

By Robbin Battison

With foreword by
Diane Brentari
Front Matter 20030420.qxd 4/24/2003 11:41 AM Page ii

Copyright © 2003 by Robbin M. Battison

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced

in any form or by any electronic or mechanical or xerographic
means or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without permission in written form from author and publisher.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 78-59164

International Standard Book Number 0-932130-02-x

Linstok Press, Incorporated

4020 Blackburn Lane
Burtonsville, Maryland 20866-1167
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iii

Table of Contents
List of Figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
List of Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxi
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter One: Analyzing Signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.1 Sublexical structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.2 The body as articulator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.3 Typology of signs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.4 Morpheme constraints on 2-hand signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
1.5 Marked and unmarked handshapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
1.6 Morpheme structure constraints on locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
1.7 Metric restrictions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
1.71 Locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
1.72 Handshapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
1.73 Iterations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
1.8 Summary of Chapter One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Notes to Chapter One . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Chapter Two: Signs in Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
2.1 Alternation between 1-hand and 2-hand signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
2.2 Assimilation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
2.21 Assimilation of handshapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
2.22 Assimilation of “Errors” in restructuring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
2.3 Displacement and simplification of locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
2.31 Elbow to hand variation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
2.32 Marking emphasis with location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
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iv Table of Contents

2.4 Changes in movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

2.41 Reduction & simplification of movement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
2.42 Simplification of movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
2.43 Marking emphasis by adding movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
2.44 Movement added and deleted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
2.45 Directionality and movement limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
2.46 Summary of movement changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
2.5 Summary of Chapter Two . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Notes to Chapter Two . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Chapter Three: Social Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.1 ASL and English in contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
3.2 English influences on ASL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
3.3 Lexical borrowing and restructuring in spoken languages . . . . . . . . 101
3.4 Summary of Chapter Three . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Chapter Four: Loan Signs from Fingerspelled Words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
4.1 Informants and methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
4.2 Two-letter loan signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
4.3 Three-letter loan signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
4.4 Four-letter and five-letter loan signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Chapter Five: Analysis and Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
5.1 Sociolinguistic considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
5.2 Phonological restructuring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
5.21 Deletion of letter handshapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
5.22 Restructuring of handshapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
5.23 Restructuring of location. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
5.24 Restructuring of movement and orientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
5.25 Homonymy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
5.26 Facial expressions and oral accompaniment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
5.3 Morphological restructuring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
5.4 Phonological & morphological motivations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
5.5 Semantic considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
5.6 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Notes to Chapter Five . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Appendix A: Citation fingerspelling handshapes, with other sign
handshapes cited in the text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Appendix B: List of symbols for sign notation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
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List of Figures
Figure Page
1 CAR and WHICH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2 CHINESE and SOUR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3 NAME, SHORT (BRIEF), and SIT/CHAIR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
4 PREACH, DISCUSS, RESTRAIN-FEELINGS,
CONTACT (A PERSON) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
5 Idealized Procedure for Identifying the Handshape
Specifications of a Two-Handed Sign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
6 SINCE and BE-PREPARED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
7 BE-PREPARED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
8 Seven Unmarked Handshapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
9 Comparison of Potential Points of Contact of Unmarked (B),
Intermediate (3), and Marked (R) Handshapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
10 Fingerspelling and Signing Areas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
11 Vertical Location Distinctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
12 Central Area of Signing Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
13a Body Locations for ALL Signs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
13b Body Locations for Single-Contact Signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
14 Four Major Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
15 NOTE-DOWN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
16 RESTRAIN-FEELINGS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
17 SIGN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
18 BE-PREPARED and BAWL-OUT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
19a SHORT (BRIEF)—older and modern version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
19b INFIDELITY—older and modern version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
20 Citation, Adult, and Child forms of the Contrived Sign TRUCK . . . . . . . . . 73
21a DRIVE/CAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
21b DRIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
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vi List of Figures

22a DISCUSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
22b YOU-AND-I-DISCUSS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
23 Nominal and Verbal Forms of the sign NAME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
24 #OR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
25 #OH(b) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
26 #HA(a) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
27 #SO(a) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
28 #KO(b) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
29 #GO. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
30 GO. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
31 #IF(a,b) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
32 #NO(a) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
33 #DO(d) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
34 #DO(f). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
35 #BS(d) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
36 #EX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
37 #NG(a) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
38 #NG(c) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
39 #OFF(a). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
40 #BUT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
41 #JOB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
42 #ALL(a) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
43 #ALL(d) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
44 #ALL(g) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
45 #ALL(h) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
46 #ALL(i) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
47 SINCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
48 #SURE(b) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
49 #COOL(a) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
50 #HURT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
51 #EASY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
52 #FUCK(a) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
53 #BUT and #WHAT(c). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
54 #DO(d) and #WHAT(e) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
55 #SOON(b) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
56 #EARLY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
57 #WOULD(b) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
58 #BREAD(b) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
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vii

List of Tables
1 Questions required to obtain handshape information on a two-
handed sign following schema in Figure 5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2 Number of signs with marked and unmarked handshapes located in
two major areas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3 Five signs which have undergone historical handshape assimilation,
resulting in changes from type 3 signs to type 2 signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4 Adult and child restructurings of contrived signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5 Loan words in spoken languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
6 Fingerspelled words included in the corpus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
7 Fingerspelled words noted, but excluded from the corpus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
8 Assimilated handshapes for initial/final pairs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
9 Dissimilated handshapes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
10 Summary of location changes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
11 Interaction between centralization and two-handedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
12 Summary of movement changes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
13 Loan sign movements based on fingerspelling transitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
14 Pairs of homonyms and near-homonyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
15 Morphological restructurings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
16 Loan signs that compete with existing native signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
17 Interaction between competing native signs and formational class of
native signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
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Front Matter 20030420.qxd 4/24/2003 11:41 AM Page ix

ix

Foreword

Lexical Borrowing in American Sign Language (LB) is one of the best books
available on the subject of sign language phonology because both specialists and
non-specialists can read it. And even though it is now twenty-five years since LB
was first published (as a dissertation), the data, methods, and analyses still hold up
under scrutiny. LB presents a picture of the state of the art of sign language linguis-
tics in the mid-1970s in a single author’s voice, and reading it today helps us to
better understand what has happened in the intervening decades: Surprisingly little
in some respects, a great deal in others.
LB addresses the phonological grammar, both in terms of structures and in terms
of rules and constraints, and it does so with ample examples and lucid discussion.
The formal expression of Battison’s findings may have changed, but the fundamen-
tal contributions of both data coverage and insightful analyses are still as strong as
ever.
LB is methodologically solid, since Battison describes his subjects, tasks, and
procedures straightforwardly, and more importantly, he does not overstate his results
beyond what his method allows. It is not always obvious when a work first appears
if it will withstand the test of time. LB has surely succeeded; this book is a must-
read for every graduate student entering the field, and a source of inspiration for
phonologists working in the field of sign linguistics. LB is an example of what we
all strive to produce.

Putting LB in the context of the history of the field

LB is not only one of the very best book-length works on the phonology of a
sign language, but it is also one of the first. Works by Stokoe (1960), Boyes-Braem
(1973), Fischer (1973), Friedman (1976, 1977), Frishberg (1975, 1976) appeared
before LB, but these were articles, book chapters, technical reports, unpublished
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x Foreword

dissertations, or occasional papers. As such, these works were less accessible.

Stokoe, Casterline and Croneberg’s Dictionary of American Sign Language (1965)
was a groundbreaking work published earlier than LB, but it had a different set of
goals. This dictionary called attention to the heretofore-neglected internal structure
of the sign and to sign language linguistics more generally; it provided a dependable
corpus of signs in the form of a dictionary; and it provided a notational system to
express the component parts of a sign. These goals had to be met first, in order to
make LB conceptually possible, but LB goes beyond them to address issues of
phonological distribution.
Both specialists and non-specialists will benefit from reading LB. There is infor-
mation that will be useful for interested members of the Deaf community, phonolo-
gists who work on sign languages, phonologists who don’t know anything about
sign languages, sign language linguists who work on other aspects of the grammar,
teachers and students of sign languages, as well as sign language interpreters and
interpreter trainers—just to name a few.
For example, the information in the Introduction and first two chapters is useful
on different levels. For readers who might not have much of a sense of the Deaf
community and the linguistic context of ASL, these chapters are a clear and concise
overview of the issues that must be covered in order to approach Battison’s work
with sufficient background to understand its significance. For readers who have a
strong background in sign language studies, these chapters are useful also, since the
style of presentation is a model of how to cover the essentials without overburden-
ing the novice with too much detail. Researchers who work on ASL are often asked
for such information, and here is a place where the facts are accurately presented
and respectful to all concerned, narrated in a clear, accessible prose style.
The period when LB appeared, the 1970s, was a time of awakening in the Deaf
community. Work by Stokoe had by then circulated among scholars and non-
scholars alike. Performances by the National Theater of the Deaf, such as My Third
Eye, were performed nationwide, which produced a groundswell of pride in ASL
and in being Deaf. Within Deaf education, the switch from an oral method to a total
communication method took place in many residential schools for the Deaf during
this decade.
The educational practice of Total Communication, in which speech and sign are
to be used simultaneously, often incorporated systems of Manually Coded English
(MCE). These systems were invented by hearing educators and were accepted with
a great deal of optimism within some circles of educational policy, yet many mem-
bers of the Deaf community viewed them with disdain.
Besides ignoring the syntax and morphology of natural sign languages, these sys-
tems include large numbers of invented signs, called initialized signs, which super-
impose a fingerspelled letter onto a lexical item from ASL. (See Supalla (1990) and
Stack (1999) for analyses of why these systems are unlearnable by Deaf children.)
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Foreword xi

The combination of these events gave rise to a language-consciousness among

the Deaf community, and efforts began to purge ASL of foreign influence. LB
appeared at this time, when fingerspelling itself began to be viewed with suspicion.
Because at the heart of fingerspelling is the relationship of the handshape to a letter
of the English alphabet, fingerspelling can be considered “foreign”. The fact that
fingerspelling has existed since the earliest filmed records of ASL (Hotchkiss, 1913;
Veditz, 1913) and much earlier in Spain (Bonet, 1620) seems not to have discour-
aged the popular sentiment that fingerspelling is appropriated from English and its
presence in ASL is marginal.
This is the historical context in which Battison began his data collection for LB.
Yet one of the most important, but understated, outcomes of LB was to demonstrate
an ironic point: Even though fingerspelling may have been invented and introduced
into sign languages by hearing educators—Bonet was hearing, as was the French
educator, Abbé Sicard, who appropriated it for use at the Paris School for the Deaf
(Lane, 1984)—all subsequent patterns of fingerspelling used by American Deaf
people cannot be attributed solely to foreign influences.
Battison’s work shows that patterns of re-structuring of fingerspelling are a win-
dow on the word-level phonological constraints in ASL more generally. Moreover,
LB shows that patterns of fingerspelling use feed back into the grammar of the lan-
guage in the areas of phonology, morphology, and pragmatics, as well as in the
operations of lexicalization and grammaticalization.
Chapters 1 and 2 taken together are a thumbnail sketch of the phonological
structure of ASL for the non-specialist. It is a balanced description of word-based
phenomena, but in a way that guides the reader into thinking about signs as a pho-
nologist would—that is, highlighting the discovery procedures that are involved in
looking for lexical and morphological contrast, as well as for patterns of distribu-
tion. The methodology of this book is that of generative phonology, but sometimes
it is easy to lose sight of this because there are no formally written rules in the text,
and because on virtually every page there is a new empirical finding. It is easy to be
swept along by the sheer amount of new information about the language presented
in these chapters.
We see such new ideas as: (1) evidence for the use of a general ‘complexity’
measure in 1- and 2-handed signs; (2) the distribution of 1- and 2-handed signs
within the signing space; (3) possible articulatory and perceptual explanations for
the distribution of handshapes in different areas of the signing space; (4) general
constraints on complexity in 1-handed signs, such as “the number of parameters that
can change in a signed word is two”; (5) a typology of 2-handed signs; (6) the
Symmetry and Dominance Condition of 2-handed signs; (7) the distribution of
different types of 2-handed signs in the ASL lexicon.
The “first-mention” of many of these research issues is here in LB, and where it
is not the first mention, the original work is cited, so that readers can have accurate
information about the origin of key concepts in the discipline. For graduate students
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xii Foreword

entering the field, chapter 2, called “Signs in Action,” includes important considera-
tions about empirical evidence that should be brought to bear on studies of ASL
phonology. It is clear from this chapter that in order to analyze word-level phenome-
na adequately, one must look at data from as many of the following areas as possi-
ble—i.e. phonological alternation, morphological alternation, historical change, and
lexical innovation. Contributions to Grammatical Operations in Sign Languages
LB has made a number of specific contributions to our understanding of sign
language linguistics, and, specifically, to sign language phonology. I have selected a
few of the issues first raised in LB and then pursued in subsequent work, and these
will be described in this section.
LB was one of the first studies of lexicalization in ASL, that is to say, the manner
in which new lexical items are added to the lexicon. Battison carefully circum-
scribed his project by focusing on what he called “loan signs,” which is only one set
of forms that utilizes the letters of the manual alphabet and displays an identifiable
set of properties. In addition, loan signs actually participate in three distinct types of
operations related to variation and language change, however, not simply lexicaliza-
tion. They participate in grammaticalization and nativization as well, and each of
these operations has been pursued independently in subsequent work by Padden
(1996, 2000), Janzen (1999), Johnson and Schembri (1999), Wallin (2000), Brentan
& Padden (2001), and Shay (2002), to name of few. A closer look at these works
makes clear what are the distinctions among the related phenomena of nativization,
lexicalization, and grammaticalization, and how it is possible to tease apart the con-
tribution that LB made to our understanding of ASL in each of these areas.
Grammaticalization is that subset of linguistic changes through which a lexical
item in certain uses becomes a grammatical item, or through which a grammatical
item becomes more grammatical (Hooper and Traugott, 1993:2). The most well
studied cases of grammaticalization in spoken languages are those where lexical
items (open class items) become grammatical elements (closed class items), such as
the case of the Ewe, a West African language. In Ewe, a verb form for the word
‘say’ (Ewe: bé) has become a complementizer (Lord, 1976). During the first step of
grammaticalization, shown in (la), bé is performing the function not only of the
matrix verb “say,” but also of the complementizer “that.” During the second step of
grammaticalization, shown in (1b), a different word for ‘say’ is used as the matrix
verb, and bé only means ‘that.’
(1) a. Me-bé me-wç-e.
I-say I-do-it
‘I said, “I did it.”/I said that I did it.’
b. Me-gblç bé me-wç-e. (gblç is a different word for ‘say’)
I say say I-do-it
‘I said that I did it.’
The third and last stage of grammaticalization in Ewe is one in which be comes
to be used as a complementizer after a whole range of matrix verbs, including nlç
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Foreword xiii

‘write,’ x_se ‘believe,’ nyá ‘know,’ bu ‘think,’ se ‘hear/perceive,’ and ná ‘make

sure.’
Grammaticalization in ASL has been discussed in the context of classifier predi-
cates becoming lexical items (Johnson & Schembri 1999; Wallin, 2000), but it is
also relevant for fingerspelled forms as well. Fingerspelled forms can assume a dif-
ferent word class identity in ASL, as shown by Shay (2002). In some cases, finger-
spelled forms instantiate nominalization in ASL—e.g. the distinction between RIDE
(verb) and R-I-D-E used as a noun. The fingerspelled form can function as a noun in
the syntax, and can be tested by determining its ability to function as an antecedent
in a classifier structure, as shown in (2). The fingerspelled form must be a syntactic
noun in order to function in this role.
(2) a. no antecedent (ungrammatical)i
* CL: 3[zig-zag] ‘vehicle take a zig-zag path’ SICK[resultative]
[The ride] was along a switchback road. I got sick.
b. lexical item antecedent
? RIDE CL: 3[zig-zag] ‘vehicle take a zig-zag path’ SICK[resultative]
The ride was along a switchback road. I got sick.
c. fingerspelled form antecedent
R-I-D-E CL: 3[zig-zag] ‘vehicle take a zig-zag path’ SICK[resultative]
The ride was along a switchback road. I got sick.
The data from LB show that loan signs also participate in grammaticalization.
They may undergo a change in word class. For example, the loan sign #O-U-T has
become a predicate adjective to refer to a difficult situation (LB, §4.3); it is no
longer a preposition, as it is in English. This same example, #O-U-T, also partici-
pates in lexicalization, since this same form has filled a new space in the ASL lexi-
con where no word previously existed, a word that has no exact English equivalent,
as shown in (3).
(3) INDEX-lsg GO CLASS KARATE, INDEX-lsg WATCH FINISH, INDEX-lsg
THINK CAN PRACTICE, NOTHING-TO-IT... UNTIL START CHOP CL:
“over-the-shoulder-throw” CL: “fall-on-floor”… SILLY INDEX-1sg#OUT.
The loan sign #E-X, another example of grammaticalization, has been modified
from its source English affix to an ASL lexeme, and in ASL simply means ‘former’
((4); LB, §4.2). It is neither morphologically restricted to agentive-nouns, as it is in
English (e.g. ex-President, ex-chef, ex-swimmer, ex-member; *ex-school, *ex-work,
*ex-desk) nor is it morphologically restricted by allowing no intervening material
between #EX and the constituent it modifies:
(4) a. PAST #EX WORK CARPENTER
b. WHAT, INDEX-2sg #EX PAST SWIM INDEX-2sg SWIM #EX
INDEX-2sg.
Lexicalization is that subset of operations that: (i) creates a single word (i.e. lex-
eme) from structures that were polysemic, or (ii) changes the meaning or the range
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xiv Foreword

of meaning of a word. These two forms (#OUT and #EX) undergo less phonological
restructuring, but they are important in discussions of lexicalization and grammati-
calization of fingerspelled forms. Their role in the syntax is different than that of the
English source and the range of lexical meanings has changed as well.
Another example of lexicalization in loan signs occurs in compounding, a wide-
spread phenomenon whereby a single word is created from two stems, which need
not have anything whatsoever to do with fingerspelling in ASL (e.g. SLEEP^SUN-
RISE=OVERSLEEP, NAME^SHINE=GOOD REPUTATION).
There is evidence, however, that fingerspelling also participates in compounding
in ASL (Padden 1998) in sign+fingerspelled compounds, such as B-E-L-L BOY,
CHEAP S-K-A-T-E, PAY R-O-L-L, in which the fingerspelled form is used when
the lexical sign would refer to something outside the range of meanings used for the
sign—e.g. to use the lexical items BELL, SKATE, and ROLL would be ungrammat-
ical here.
Lexicalization can also include semantic or pragmatic changes. As stated earlier,
fingerspelling has been used for pedagogical purposes from the very beginning, but
Padden (1996, 2000) discusses two new pragmatic uses of fingerspelling in the
classroom by native-signing, ASL teachers. The first use is known as “chaining”,
whereby the use of fingerspelling serves to underscore the importance of a new term
in a classroom lesson. This involves fingerspelling a word, such as ‘volcano,’ point-
ing to the word in a print medium, and then using the sign, all in rapid sequence.
These instances of chaining build associative structures between print and sign
and are mediated by fingerspelling. Importantly, this technique (pragmatic in lin-
guistic terms, and also important as a pedagogical practice) was innovated sponta-
neously by native signing, Deaf teachers. Hearing teachers who are fluent in ASL do
not use this technique.
The second use of fingerspelling in a pedagogical setting that involves language
innovation in the pragmatic/semantic domains is to create a contrast between two
uses of the same word. The fingerspelled form creates a label for a specialized, tech-
nical, discipline-specific use of the same word that has a lexical sign for the more
general use—e.g. PROBLEM (i.e. general use) vs. P-R-O-B-L-E-M (i.e. math or
science problem).
This type of contrast is another instance of a more general phenomenon which
ascribes a narrower use to the fingerspelled form and the more general use to the
lexical sign is pointed out in LB in the emphatic uses of fingerspelling—#EARLY,
#BUT, #EASY, and #YES (LB, 215).
Finally, the loan sign forms discussed in LB contribute to our understanding of
nativization, which is that subset of operations that brings a borrowed word in closer
alignment with the phonological inventory and the phonological constraints on
native forms in the target language. A striking example is #BREAD (LB, §4.4, dis-
cussed at length in Brentari & Padden, 2001). In this loan sign, the R-, E-, and A-
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Foreword xv

handshapes are deleted, and the resulting form is a repeated handshape change
between an open and a closed 8-handshape. In fact, this loan sign conforms to all of
the documented well-formedness conditions on words in ASL; there is even a lexi-
cal item with the same structure as this loan sign, albeit with a different orienta-
tion—namely STICKY. We can see the distinction between nativization and lexical-
ization if we look at the differences between the changes that of classifier predicates
and loan signs undergo as they become lexicalized.
Looking at the model of the ASL lexicon developed in Brentari & Padden
(2001), shown in (5) we see that classifier predicates (labeled ‘2’) are already part of
the native lexicon, which includes both frozen forms (labeled ‘3’) and classifier
predicates (labeled ‘2’). Because they are part of the native lexicon, classifier predi-
cates need not undergo nativization. Classifiers predicates are not monomorphemic,
however, and, therefore, they are not lexemes, and must undergo lexicalization in
order to enter the core (i.e. frozen) lexicon. A surface form that looks like a classifi-
er can become a lexeme, however, and, as shown in Brentari and Padden (2001),
this can be tested by checking whether the form allows the affixation of inflectional
morphology (e.g. grammatical aspect), or derivational morphology (e.g. nominaliza-
tion).
(5) foreign / non-native native
1.3 1.2 1.1 1.0 3 2
Unlike classifier predicates, all forms that utilize the manual alphabet have a for-
eign source, English (labeled 1.0,1.1,1,2,1,3 in (5)), and typically this source is a
monomorphemic English word. Different sets of forms containing letters of the
manual alphabet reside in increasingly peripheral strata, moving from 1.0 (e.g. a
form such as #BREAD, which looks identical to a core form) to 1.5 (e.g. sign+fin-
gerspelling compounds, which violate the largest number of phonological con-
straints that the core forms obey). The path of loan signs to the core lexicon
involves both nativization and lexicalization. They become nativized by demonstrat-
ing the phonological and morphological properties of native ASL words—i.e. obey-
ing constraints on allowable handshape, movement, and place of articulation within
words. They become lexicalized by changing the range of meanings the form is used
for in ASL vs. English or by filling a new lexical space in the ASL lexicon.
By understanding the distinctions among these processes of grammaticalization,
lexicalization, and nativization, we can more easily see how the discussion of loan
signs fits into these discussions. Because all three operations can occur in a single
loan sign, it sometimes obscures the fact that these forms contribute to more general
issues concerning patterns of use in ASL grammar, totally distinct from their written
English sources.
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xvi Foreword

Contributions to Sign Language Phonology

The preceding paragraphs discussing grammaticalization, lexicalization, and
nativization address one set of the contributions of LB—that is, more general ones
about grammatical operations. This next part is about the contribution LB made
specifically to SL phonology, by targeting patterns of distribution of structures.
These contributions are equally important, whether addressing forms with finger-
spelled letters in them or not.
Our understanding of the phonology of ASL was greatly enhanced by the study
of Battison’s loan signs, and in these paragraphs I want to describe some of the
work by subsequent researchers that was inspired by this book. Even though subse-
quent work investigates different specific issues than LB, the overarching issue here
is structural complexity and constraints on phonological structure imposed by ASL
grammar. Battison considers both ease of perception (Siple, 1973) and ease of pro-
duction (LB, p. 41) as potential phonetic sources for this complexity, but he address-
es the question of complexity ultimately as a phonological issue. I will divide the
discussion into work addressing complexity in 1-handed signs and that addressing
complexity in 2-handed signs.
In 1-handed signs, structural complexity in LB is discussed in terms of the
number and type of handshape (HS) and place of articulation (POA), singly and in
combination. Battison addresses handshapes according to the number of motorically
involved fingers (LB, p.189), how frequent they are, what handshapes and places
of articulation combinations occur together, which joints, other than joints of the
hand, are involved in executing a sign, and the number of places a given handshapes
allows for contact (LB, §1.6). Only a few of these issues have been taken up in any
depth.
One topic that has been given considerable attention is the matter of selected
fingers. Two-letter loan signs have a strong tendency to exhibit a type of assimila-
tion, whereby in forms, such as #0K, #NG, #OH, one of the handshapes (most often
the first handshape, but not always) changes the articulation of the handshape by
assuming the same set of selected fingers. In its underlying form, the handshape ‘0’
has contact between all of the fingers and the thumb, but in #0K and #OH, only two
fingers contact the thumb, which is the number of selected fingers involved in pro-
ducing -K and -H-, the second handshape in these forms. Mandel (1981) addresses
this issue, calling it a constraint on the number of handshapes in words. He articu-
lates the constraint using a production account to divide fingers into selected fingers
and unselected fingers, and argues that there is only one set of selected fingers per
word, two sets of fingers per word. This Selected Fingers Constraint was argued to
be a morpheme-based, rather than a word-based phenomenon in Sandler (1986),
then a syllable-based phenomenon in Brentari (1990) and Perlmutter (1992);
however, it may be that each of these units plays some role in the Selected Fingers
Constraint. POA exhibits similar behavior to that of selected fingers, in that the set-
ting within a major POA region may change within a word (setting features include:
ipsilateral, contralateral, proximal, distal), but only rarely does the major body
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Foreword xvii

region itself change within a word (POAs on the body: head, arm, non-dominant
hand, torso; POAs in neutral space: the 3-dimensional x-, y-, and z-planes in neu-
tral space). Diachronic change is in this direction as well.
In 2-handed signs, structural complexity is primarily addressed in terms of
Symmetry and Dominance. The Symmetry and Dominance Conditions articulated in
LB (§1.4) are the starting point for all work on complexity in 2-handed signs.
Symmetry is a property of handshape, orientation, and place of articulation in LB,
and for single signs, the concept of symmetry has been explored further by Uyechi
(1996).
The need for conditions, such as the Symmetry and Dominance conditions, has
led both to debates about the best way to use feature geometry to express the phono-
logical representation of 2-handed signs (Brentari 1998, Sandler, 1987, 1989, van
der Hulst and Sandler, 1994, van der Hulst, 1996), and to analyze phenomena that
are intertwined with the representation of 2-handed signs. One such phenomenon is
Phonological Deletion of the non-dominant hand (sometimes referred to as Weak
Drop, Padden and Perlmutter, 1987, Brentari, 1998). Why do some signs allow this,
while others do not? Phonological deletion occurs when a sign that is 2-handed
allows a 1-handed surface form, not when the non-dominant hand is encumbered by
driving, carrying packages, etc., but rather under normal signing conditions. There
are 2-handed signs from all three types that may undergo this optional process (e.g.
Type 1: SUNDAY; Type 2: REMEMBER; Type 3: READ). It is possible to predict
which signs will allow Phonological Deletion and which ones will not (Padden &
Perlmutter, 1987; Brentari, 1998); both analyses refer to some extent to the phono-
logical complexity of signs to make their arguments. Padden and Perlmutter (1987)
address this issue for Type 1 signs; Brentari (1998) analyzes all three types of signs.
This set of work was not simply influenced by the initial observations and analyses
in LB; it was launched in Battison’s project. The existence of the Symmetry and
Dominance conditions and their role in the phonology is convincing evidence, even
to the non-specialist, that sign languages have phonology, because a physiological or
a phonetic account of this complexity will fall short of explaining the facts.
I have only given a few examples here of how LB has served as a point of
departure for important work in sign language linguistics. I would like to thank
Sign Media, Inc., for undertaking this new printing of LB. Such publications make it
possible to include these texts in our courses and to continue to inspire us for gener-
ations to come.

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i If there is an antecedent in a previous utterance, this sentence is fine, but not as a first mention.
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xxi

Preface

If this were a study of a spoken language, we could begin with many expecta-
tions about the form of the language, the ways people used it, and the ways in which
they regarded it. Since it is about sign languages, and one sign language in particu-
lar, American Sign Language, there is much that cannot be taken for granted. We
have much to learn about signing, signers, and deaf culture.
Most work to date on deafness and deaf people has been based on impaired hear-
ing and its consequences rather than on the substance and organization of deaf peo-
ple’s lives. As individuals, deaf people fit well into a clinical framework: pathologi-
cal sensory loss, diagnosis, and remediation. Considered as a group, however, they
form a community whose cohesion is not so much based on pathological audition as
it is on shared experiences: similar experiences in interacting with parents, siblings,
peers, and professionals; similar educational backgrounds; and a group identity
derived from the use of a common sign language, which simultaneously distinguish-
es them from others as much as it holds them together.
Hearing people largely encounter and view deaf people as aberrant individuals in
a larger societal context, and hence impose something like a clinical—pathological
model of thought in any interaction with them. But any effort to understand what
deafness entails will fall short if it is limited to the one-sided perspective suggested
by defective speech and hearing, and may have disastrous social consequences.
More important to understanding deaf people is finding out how they do obtain sen-
sory information about the world around them, how they process and interpret it,
and how this affects their interaction and communication with those they perceive as
like themselves and those they perceive as being outside their group.
If we consider the deaf from this socially based perspective, much becomes clear;
for the collective attitudes and policies of the hearing majority toward the deaf
minority are based primarily upon language use, a complex set of social acts. Some
may consider deaf people to be “slow” because they do not understand or respond to
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everything that is said in the majority language; they are hard to understand because
of their often imperfect spoken command of that language, and if they resort to writ-
ing it often resembles a foreigner’s fumblings; they are overtly different because
they wave their hands and fingers in the air to communicate with one another.
Consequently, understanding this group of very special people requires understand-
ing the organization of their lives on their own terms—one must understand the
principles of the sign languages that they use to communicate among themselves.
Ignorance of how deaf people live, think, and communicate is unfortunately pres-
ent even among those of us who have professional interests in the deaf, such as
teachers, speech and hearing specialists, and social workers. Textbooks used in
training these specialists typically discuss sign communication superficially, and
label it esthetically, expressively, and psychologically inferior to speech. In the
absence of linguistic inquiry, sign languages have often been viewed as linguistical-
ly inferior; where test validity assumes the possession of spoken or written language
skills, the intelligence and achievement levels of signers are often underrated; in
societies that stigmatize overt use of the hands to communicate, signing is taken to
indicate social maladjustment. Those who hold these attitudes seem to reason that an
inferior language indicates culturally and intellectually deprived users of language;
and vice versa, that simple people require a simple language. In fact, one of the
unfortunate by-products of teaching chimpanzees how to use signs is a mistaken
conclusion that sign language must be very simple if even chimps can use it.
We have learned recently from investigations of sign languages, that they are
complete languages both in the technical and extended sense, that they are compara-
ble to spoken languages on many dimensions, and that they are far from simple. In
fact, they are quite complex. Information about the linguistic nature of sign lan-
guages thus has implications for linguistic theory, language planning, the psycholo-
gy of language, the education of deaf people, and attitudes towards deafness and
deaf people.
Along with many other linguists, I have been interested for the past several years
in the form or “pronunciation” of gestures used as signs in American Sign Language
(ASL), in the organizational principles of their formation, and in their relationship
to the human capacity for making gestures with our hands and perceiving them with
our eyes. These issues are useful reference points for comparing the nature of spo-
ken languages and sign languages.
One of the central problems of such a comparison is the gross difference between
the acoustic signal produced vocally and the visual signal produced manually, with
all the differences in production and perceptual processing this entails: How much
of these physical, channel-specific differences are reflected in other, more abstract
linguistic structures of the language? For example, since we have two hands but
only one tongue, it is sometimes possible to articulate two signs simultaneously, but
never to pronounce two words simultaneously. What does this mean for the way we
identify and isolate individual signs and words, the way we compute rate of infor-
mation transmission, or the way we represent syntactic relationships among words
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Preface xxiii

or signs in a sentence? A host of such questions arises whenever we begin compar-

ing physical signals and work upwards to more abstract language structures.
As a case in point, the present study examines some English words that are often
fingerspelled by signers, but which have a special status; these manually produced
words physically change and actually become ASL signs in a systematic and pre-
dictable manner, leading to the conclusion that the process of word borrowing and
restructuring in ASL is highly similar to the same process in spoken languages. In
other words, despite the very great physical differences between signing and speak-
ing, there are underlying regularities common to both ASL and English. This is just
one of the many ways in which we can show that ASL is a complex linguistic
system—a true language.
While this study focuses on the formational aspects of signing, an analysis of
loan signs and the English influence that prompts their borrowing also depends upon
the social world of signers, in particular those aspects of social interaction that cre-
ate ASL-English bilinguals. Just as we cannot divorce a language from the way it is
physically expressed, we cannot separate it from the culture or cultures in which it
is used; a diverse approach is necessary for understanding any one aspect of a lan-
guage. I sincerely hope that others will continue working in this very exciting area.
We are still in a rich discovery period for the study of American Sign Language.
This study has involved the efforts of many who deserve special thanks. I was
fortunate in having Elizabeth Baird as an illustrator during the early stages; she not
only created with her pen, but also served as a consultant and reinforced my excite-
ment about the data (needless to say, adapting her drawings to this text has some-
times spoiled the artist’s original intent, for which I apologize). Thanks go also to
my deaf “mother”, Bonnie Gough, who very patiently introduced me to American
Sign Language; to Carol Padden, who served as a consultant on the nuances of
much of the data and on deaf social interaction—I am grateful to her also for teach-
ing me most of what I know about using ASL conversationally; to William Stokoe
for his encouragement and support over the years in the Linguistics Research
Laboratory at Gallaudet College; to Edward Klima and Ursula Bellugi for their
continuing support and editorial help as academic advisors and colleagues; to Nancy
Frishberg for loads of data and encouraging revisions; to Ella Mae Lentz, a consult-
ant who secured the services of others; to Barbara Kannapell, a creative consultant
who pushed me in practical directions; and to many others who assisted either as
consultants, advisors, friends, or some valuable combination of the three: Genaro
Abenchuchan, Charles Baird, MJ Bienvenu, Nancy Chinchour, Cathy Cogen,
Dennis Cokely, Gil Eastman, Wally Edington, Tim Johnson, Harlan Lane, Gil Lentz,
Agnes Padden, Don Padden, Carlene Canady Pedersen, David Peikoff, Marie Philip,
Ted Supalla, Ruth Ann Sussman, Ronnie Wilbur, and Sylvia Wood.
The following friends additionally took time off from more pleasurable pursuits
in order to review portions of earlier manuscripts: Lloyd (Andy) Anderson,
Charlotte Baker, Frank Caccamise, Robert (Gus) Johnson, Harry Markowicz, and
James (Woody) Woodward. The final manuscript preparation was done with the help
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xxiv Preface

of Geraldine Conkling, Jim Kane, Katy Kane, Tamara Klein, Barbara Levitov, and
Jane Nunes. I am grateful also to other friends and associates at the University of
California, San Diego, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Gallaudet College,
and Northeastern University, who gave me their time and attention while this project
was on the slow burner. This study was supported in part by NSF grant SOC 741-
4724 to the Linguistics Research Laboratory at Gallaudet College, and in part by
NSF grant BNS 768-2530 to the Psychology Department at Northeastern University.
RMB
Boston
April 1978