Numeral Incorporation In American Sign Language
NUMERAL INCORPORATION IN AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGEbyVanessa L. JonesBachelor of Arts, Gardner-Webb University, 2007A ThesisSubmitted to the Graduate Facultyof theUniversity of North Dakotain partial fulfillment of the requirementsfor the degree ofMaster of ArtsGrand Forks, North DakotaDecember2013
2013 Vanessa L. Jonesii
This thesis, submitted by Vanessa L. Jones in partial fulfillment of the requirementsfor the Degree of Master of Arts from the University of North Dakota, has been read bythe Faculty Advisory Committee under whom the work has been done and is herebyapproved.J. Albert Bickford, ChairJohn M. CliftonAdam BakerThis thesis meets the standards for appearance, conforms to the style and formatrequirements of the Graduate School of the University of North Dakota, and is herebyapproved.Wayne Swisher,Dean of the Graduate SchoolDateiii
PERMISSIONTitleNumeral Incorporation in American Sign LanguageDepartmentLinguisticsDegreeMaster of ArtsIn presenting this thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a graduatedegree from the University of North Dakota, I agree that the library of this Universityshall make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for extensivecopying for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor who supervised mythesis work or, in his absence, by the chairperson of the department or the dean of theGraduate School. It is understood that any copying or publication or other use of thisthesis or part thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my writtenpermission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to theUniversity of North Dakota in any scholarly use which may be made of any material inmy thesis.SignatureDateiv
TABLE OF CONTENTSLIST OF TABLES . xACKNOWLEDGMENTS . xiABBREVIATIONS . xiiiABSTRACT . xivChapter 1 INTRODUCTION TO NUMERAL INCORPORATION . 11.1 Numeral incorporation in ASL . 11.2 What numeral incorporation is . 61.2.1 Numeral incorporation is derivational morphology . 61.2.2 Numeral-incorporated signs are compounds . 71.2.3 Analyzing numeral incorporation . 101.3 What numeral incorporation is not . 131.3.1 Noun incorporation in spoken languages . 131.3.2 Numeral classifiers in spoken languages . 131.3.3 Noun phrases in ASL . 141.3.4 Signs with numeral meaning in ASL . 161.3.5 Co-articulation in sign languages . 17Chapter 2 METHODOLOGY . 192.1 Interviews . 192.1.1 Selection of individuals to interview . 202.1.2 Interview methodology . 23v
2.2 Data processing . 282.2.1 ELAN phase. 282.2.2 SignWriting phase . 292.2.3 Transcription methodology. 292.3 Helpful information for reading SignWriting transcriptions . 302.4 Data presentation . 32Chapter 3 NUMERAL INCORPORATION DATA . 353.1 Simple numeral-incorporated signs . 363.2 Numeral incorporation with additional morphology . 413.2.1 Past and future morphology . 423.2.2 Repetition and duration morphology . 453.2.3 French roots in numeral incorporation . 493.3 Numeral incorporation ranges . 523.3.1 Additional morphology affecting numeral incorporation ranges . 553.3.2 Incorporation of numerals over nine. 563.4 Continuous vs. initial or final occurrence of numeral handshape . 583.5 Other constructions involving numeral incorporation . 643.5.1 Numeral incorporated signs with yes/no facial grammar . 643.5.2 Compounding numeral-incorporated signs. 653.5.3 Numeral incorporation with hand-internal movement . 653.5.4 ‘Five’ or ‘many/multiple’ . 673.6 Bases and source signs . 70vi
3.7 Numeral incorporation categories . 793.7.1 Time related numeral-incorporated signs . 793.7.2 Numeral-incorporated signs, initial body contact . 813.7.3 Numeral incorporation, dominant hand only . 853.7.4 Numeral incorporation, classifier type signs . 863.7.5 Numeral incorporation, residue . 87Chapter 4 NUMERAL INCORPORATION ANALYSIS . 894.1 Description of hand-tier diagrams . 914.1.1 Sandler’s hand-tier model . 914.1.2 Hand-tier diagrams in this thesis . 924.1.3 Definition of hand-tier diagram terms . 944.2 Analysis of the compound . 954.2.1 Compounds represented in hand-tier diagrams . 954.2.2 Bases in hand-tier diagrams . 974.2.3 Cardinal numeral represented in hand-tier diagrams . 984.3 Analysis of the compound when modified by additional morphology . 1054.3.1 Hand-tier diagrams representing signs with the base X.WEEK . 1054.3.2 Variation represented in hand-tier diagrams. 1074.3.3 Hand-tier diagrams representing duration and repetition . 1114.3.4 Hand-tier diagrams representing signs with the base X.YEAR . 114Chapter 5 CONCLUSION . 118APPENDICES . 120References . 222vii
LIST OF FIGURESFigurePage1. Canonical form of a monomorphemic sign . 912. Sandler’s hand configuration . 923. Hand-tier diagram of THREE.WEEKS (S2) . 934. Hand-tier diagram of alternate pronunciation of THREE.WEEKS (S5) . 945. Hand-tier diagram of THREE WEEK (S2) . 966. Hand-tier diagram of alternate pronunciation of the base X.WEEKS (S5) . 977. Hand-tier diagram of THREE.CARDINAL (S2) . 998. Hand-tier diagram of alternate THREE.CARDINAL (S4). 1009. Hand-tier diagram for fully specified numeral combining with base . 10110. Hand-tier diagram of TWENTY.THREE (S1) . 10311. Hand-tier diagram of AGE.TWENTY.THREE . 10312. Hand-tier diagram of X.WEEK-PAST (S5) . 10613. Hand-tier diagram of THREE.WEEKS.AGO (S5). 10714. Hand-tier diagram of alternate X.WEEK-PAST (S4). 10815. Hand-tier diagram of X.WEEK-FUT . 10916. Hand-tier model of X.WEEK-DUR . 11217. Hand-tier model of X.WEEK-EVERY . 11318. Hand-tier model of THREE WEEK-REDUP . 11319. Hand-tier diagram of THREE.YEARS . 114viii
20. Hand-tier diagram of X.YEAR-FUTURE . 11521. Hand-tier diagram of THREE.YEAR.FUTURE . 11622. Hand-tier diagram of EVERY.X.YEARS . 11723. Movement on the vertical plane . 12624. Movement on the horizontal plane . 12625. Curved movement along the vertical plane . 12726. Curved movements along the horizontal plane . 12727. Curved movement along the sagittal plane . 128ix
LIST OF TABLESTablePage1. Demographic information of interviewees . 212. Numeral-incorporated bases . 263. Other numeral-incorporated bases volunteered during interviews . 274. Other numeral-incorporated bases not covered in my data . 285. Basic numeral handshapes in ASL . 376. Handshape differences between ASL and LSF . 507. Numeral range for sets that incorporate 1-9 . 538. Numeral range for sets that incorporate 1-5 . 549. Numeral ranges for X.MONTH sets . 5610. Bases for SignWriting handshapes . 12211. Basic numeral handshapes one to ten . 12312. Fill possibilities for flat handshape . 12413. Rotation possibilities for flat handshape . 12514. Arrow head meanings . 12815. Hand-internal movement symbols . 12916. Contact Symbols . 129x
ACKNOWLEDGMENTSMany thanks to my committee and especially my advisor for spending so much timein discussion helping me to discover even more about linguistics, writing, and signlanguages while helping me to craft this thesis. Thank you also to my committee forbeing excited with me when I discovered awesome things in the numeral incorporationsystem in ASL.Thank you to Steve and Dianne Parkhurst for permission to use their lovelyillustrations and diagrams from their excellent guide to SignWriting, SignWriting: Acomplete system for reading and writing sign languages.Thank you to Valerie Sutton for her extensive work in SignWriting and continueddevelopment of the system online. Her work has meant that the signs written in this thesisare wonderful SVG images. I also thank her for permission to use illustrations from herbooks, SignWriting: Lessons in SignWriting and SignWriting Hand Symbols.Thank you to my ASL and interpreting professors in college for instilling in me alove of sign language and to my first linguistics professor who introduced me to theworld of sign language linguistics.Thank you to NTID/RIT for their cooperation with me in this project. Thank youalso to my department, Access Services, for their support and to my many colleagues fortheir encouragement during this project and while pursuing this degree.Thank you to my many friends in the deaf community for sharing your languagewith me and especially to the six colleagues I interviewed who shared their signs forxi
numeral incorporation. Thank you to my many linguist friends who have helped meclarify topics through numerous discussions about numerals. Thank you to my countlessfriends who have encouraged me to continue writing or asked me about my thesis eventhough their interest is not in linguistics. This includes thanks to Alex Jones, Annemarie,Dan and Sarah, Derrick, Jeanne, Jen and Justin, Jess, Julie, Kelsea, Kevin, Nate andHolly, Peter and Shawna, Robert Moore, and Stuart and Linda Theissen. I could not havecompleted this thesis without you!Thank you to my awesome family who encouraged me as I worked to earn thisdegree even as they call my husband and me the ‘resident nerds’ of the family. I come byit honestly, though, as without the solid educational foundation and love for learninginstilled in me from a young age, I would not be where I am today.Thank you to my husband, Stephen, for continuing to encourage me while I workedon my thesis, for reading parts of my thesis repeatedly, and for going out of his way tomake sure I had time to finish. I could not have navigated thesis writing as smoothlywithout your continuous support throughout the entire process.xii
ABBREVIATIONSASLAmerican Sign LanguageLSFFrench Sign LanguageNTIDNational Technical Institute for the DeafRITRochester Institute of TechnologyUNDUniversity of North Dakotaxiii
ABSTRACTNumeral incorporation is a moderately productive process in ASL which combines anumeral and a base to form a compounded fully formed sign. Numeral-incorporated signsinvolve some sort of simultaneity of the base and the numeral. I interviewed sixindividuals who use ASL as their primary language in order to gather examples ofnumeral-incorporated signs in ASL, thus getting a sampling of variation in the Americandeaf community.Traditionally, numeral incorporation has been viewed as a process of combining anumeral sign with a noun, which I call a source sign. Instead, I found that the sourcesigns are separate lexical items and are different than the bases used in numeralincorporation. While some of these source signs are homophonous with certain numeralincorporated forms, others are different. Incorporation also occurs when the forms of thesource and incorporated signs are different or when no source sign corresponds to thebase.Numeral-incorporated signs are formed from a numeral and a base. Some numeralincorporated signs can be modified with additional derivational morphology while otherscannot. Incorporated bases can be grouped into categories that have phonetic or semanticsimilarities. Also, the production of numeral-incorporated signs varies between signersand sometimes for one signer. The pronunciation of any one numeral-incorporated signcan vary in handshape, orientation, or movement. The numeral ranges for whichxiv
numerals can incorporate into numeral-incorporated signs also vary according to signerand according to the base.Numeral-incorporated signs can be represented autosegmentally using Sandler’shand-tier diagrams. The hand-tier diagrams show the features of the numeral and the baseas well as the resulting compound. The hand-tier diagrams can also show signervariation.xv
Chapter 1INTRODUCTION TO NUMERAL INCORPORATION1.1 Numeral incorporation in ASLNumeral incorporation in American Sign Language (ASL) is a complex processwhich combines a numeral handshape with a base representing a noun usingsimultaneous morphology as shown in (1).(1)AGE TWO‘two years old’2The 2-handshape ( ,(S3)1), palm facing forward, touches the chin and then movesdown and forward.2 Spoken language morphology tends to be sequential while sign1These codes represent signers I interviewed; S3 is an abbreviation here for “Signer 3”. Demographicinformation of the signers can be found in 2.1.1. The actual signs produced by each signer are presented inAppendix E - Appendix T.2See Appendix A for a quick guide to reading and understanding SignWriting transcriptions.1
language morphology can be either sequential or simultaneous, though simultaneousmorphology is more common (Sandler & Lillo-Martin 2005:120–121). Instead ofmeaning being modified by the addition of suffixes and prefixes, signs can be modifiedinternally in many ways.Numeral-incorporated signs use simultaneous morphology; when the numeral and anoun are signed sequentially, this is generally not regarded as numeral incorporation butrather normal sequential use of two independent signs. Thus many meanings can beexpressed in two ways, either with numeral incorporation as seen in example (1), orthrough the sequence of a nume
for the Degree of Master of Arts from the University of North Dakota, has been read by . Numeral incorporation in American Sign Language (ASL) is a complex process which combines a numeral handshape with a base represent
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