This type of various other performance would-be on account of cross-linguistic variations in the fresh functions of your own BSL and you can ASL lexicons

Dating certainly lexical and you may phonological properties

Next we examined relationships among the lexical and phonological properties of the signs in ASL-LEX to gain insight into how phonological, lexical, and semantic factors interact in the ASL lexicon. _s = –0.14, p < 0.001. Although it is possible that this inverse correlation is driven by the relatively higher frequency of closed-class words which may be lower in iconicity than other signs, the negative correlation remains when closed-class words (i.e., words with a “minor” Lexical Class) are excluded (r _s = –0.17, p < 0.001). This result is compatible with the early proposal that with frequent use, signs may move away from their iconic origins, perhaps due to linguistic pressures to become more integrated into the phonological system (Frishberg, 1975). Interestingly, the direction of this relationship was the opposite of that found for British Sign Language; that is, Vinson et al. (2008) reported a weak positive correlation between frequency and iconicity: r = .146, p < .05. Alternatively, the different correlations might be due differences in stimuli selection. Vinson et al. (2008) intentionally selected stimuli that had a range of iconicity values which resulted in a bimodal iconicity distribution while we did not select signs for inclusion in ASL-LEX based on their iconicity.

Volume and you can iconicity z-scores (SignFrequency(Z) and you may Iconicity(Z)) have been somewhat adversely correlated with each other (pick Table step one), with additional repeated signs rated while the faster iconic; although not, this relationships are weakened, roentgen

Lots of phonological properties try extremely synchronised along with of a lot instances this is due to the way they was laid out (find Dining table step one). For example, each big place contains one or more lesser metropolitan areas-high-frequency small cities usually for this reason nearly invariably be discovered during the high frequency big towns, and you can handshape frequency is furthermore linked to chosen finger and bending regularity. Simultaneously, every around three steps out of People Density are very coordinated with you to several other partially since they’re likewise discussed and you may partly because any locals one to show five of the five sub-lexical attributes (Maximal Society Thickness) usually fundamentally and additionally show one of five sandwich-lexical properties (Limited Area Density). Finally, most of the about three People Occurrence strategies try correlated with each of your sub-lexical regularity methods. This will make experience while the of the meaning, prominent sub-lexical properties can be found in of numerous cues.

Interestingly, the basic sub-lexical frequencies are completely uncorrelated with each other, with the exception of selected fingers and minor location which are significantly but weakly correlated (r = .10, p < .01). This finding suggests that the space of possible ASL signs is rather large as each sub-lexical property can (to a first degree of approximation) vary independently of the others. This property contrasts with spoken languages where phoneme frequency is correlated across different syllable positions. For example, using position-specific uniphone frequencies from Vitevitch and Luce (2004) we estimate that in English monosyllabic words, vowel frequency is negatively correlated with the frequency of the preceding consonant (r = –.07, p < .001) and positively correlated with the following consonant (r = .17, p < .001), and that onset consonants have highly correlated frequencies (r = –.51, p < .001). We speculate that the relative independence of ASL sub-lexical features is related to both the motoric independence of the manual articulators (e.g., finger flexion is unaffected by the location of the hand in signing space) as well as the relative simultaneity of manual articulation (as opposed to serial oral articulation). We note that these non-significant correlations are for sub-lexical frequency only; specific sub-lexical properties have been argued to co-vary systematically (e.g., signs produced in locations far from the face may be more likely to be symmetrical, two-handed, and have larger, horizontal, and vertical motions; Siple, 1978).