11. The Simplified Sign System Lexicon

Chapter 11 contains the first one thousand signs of the Simplified Sign System lexicon, alphabetized by each sign’s main gloss. Each entry in the lexicon includes a hand-drawn illustration of how that sign is formed, a listing of any synonyms or antonyms related to that sign, and a written description of how the sign is formed (i.e., the handshape(s), palm orientation(s), finger/knuckle orientation(s), location, and movement parameters of the sign). Also provided are a short memory aid to help learners remember the sign’s formation and a longer memory aid that describes the visual and iconic link between how the sign is physically formed and the meaning it conveys. Many of the longer memory aids also include a definition of the main gloss and some of that sign’s synonyms. If users of the system wish to look up a particular vocabulary item, term, or idiomatic phrase, an alphabetized Sign Index that integrates all of the main sign glosses with all of their listed synonyms and antonyms is provided at the end of the volume. This Sign Index directs readers to the page that contains the main sign entry, its written description, and its memory aids.

Changing shape according to strength: Evidence from root allomorphy in Greek

In this article we examine patterns of root allomorphy in Greek that involve vowel alternations and propose a Generalized Non-linear Affixation (Bermúdez-Otero 2012) analysis according to which these alternations result from the competition between segments that belong, on the one hand, to the vocabulary items of roots and, on the other, to the exponents of functional heads (Voice/Aspect, n). More specifically, we claim that phonological entities have a gradient degree of presence in a structure, that is, are specified with a certain activation strength value underlyingly (Smolensky and Goldrick 2016). As a result, the surface realization of roots is determined by the relevant activation level of the exponents of functional heads they are eventually combined with. From all available exponents, the one that optimally complements the strength value of the vocabulary item of a given root will eventually surface. Our analysis is shown to be theoretically advantageous because it develops a strictly phonological account of allomorphy and, moreover, it captures the attested generalizations without resorting to extensive stem/span listing or to the application of phonologically unrestricted readjustment rules.

The Effect of Age on the Ultimate Attainment of English Lexis and Morphosyntax

This study investigates the relationship between the age of onset of learning English and the ultimate attainment in that language. To this end, it tests the lexical and morphosyntactic competence of 62 intermediate school students who have different points of onset. They have to do a grammaticality judgment test and a vocabulary test. Using the methods of descriptive statistics, the result showed that late starters have outperformed early starters in all aspects of the language examined. The study also revealed that there is a relatively weak correlation between the age of headstart and the ultimate attainment in both levels of language tested. The correlations between the age of exposure and vocabulary attainment is (r = 0.2), whereas it is (r= 0.18) between the age of exposure and morphosyntactic knowledge. It is also found that there’s a strong positive correlation between ESs and LSs grammar and vocabulary (r= 0.75). This suggests that vocabulary and grammar are interdependent fields in that the abstract morphosyntactic rules would remain null and void without the lexical component at work, and the intrinsic meaning of a vocabulary item can’t be fully grasped without adequate knowledge of the morphosyntactic rules that assign meaning to each word in a sentence.

Communication without language

Great apes do not possess language or any comparable system of symbolic communication. Yet they communicate intentionally and possess cognitive competencies like categorization and decontextualization. These provide the basis for mental concepts and the meaning side of linguistic symbols. The arbitrarily linked and conventionalized forms for expressing these meanings, however, seem to be largely missing. We propose two strategies that may allow great apes to communicate a wide array of meanings without creating numerous arbitrarily linked forms. First, we suggest the existence of ‘population-specific semantic shifts’: within a population a communicative signal’s meaning is modified without changing its form, resulting in a new ‘vocabulary item’. Second, we propose that great apes, in addition to possessing sophisticated inferential abilities, intentionally display behaviors without overt communicative intent to provide eavesdropping conspecifics with ‘natural meaning’ (in the Gricean sense) and thus to influence their behavior.

A MORFOLOGIA DISTRIBUÍDA E A NATUREZA DO SEGMENTO /R/ NA FLEXÃO VERBAL DO PORTUGUÊS BRASILEIRO | DISTRIBUTED MORPHOLOGY AND THE NATURE OF THE SEGMENT /R/ IN BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE VERBAL INFLECTION

<p>Seguindo Oltra-Massuet (1999) e Santana (2016), o presente trabalho adota a análise de que o formativo /r/ que compõe a desinência modo-temporal de alguns tempos verbais do português brasileiro é o Item de Vocabulário que realiza o traço de futuro. Objetivamos mostrar que tal conjectura tem o potencial de unificar cinco aspectos independentes da língua: (i) a semelhança fonológica entre os tempos futuro do presente, futuro do subjuntivo e futuro do pretérito, (ii) a existência do processo sintético e do processo analítico para a realização do futuro do presente e do futuro do pretérito, (iii) o fenômeno de hipercorreção das formas analíticas de futuro, (iv) a semelhança fonológica entre, de um lado, os tempos futuros e, de outro, o infinitivo e (v) o desaparecimento da marca de infinitivo, da marca de futuro do subjuntivo e dos futuros sintéticos na língua.</p><p><strong>Abstract:</strong> <em>Following Oltra-Massuet (1999) and Santana (2016), the present work adopts the analysis that the formative /r/ making up some of the Brazilian Portuguese tense morphemes is the Vocabulary Item that spells out the future feature. We intend to demonstrate that such claim has the potential to unify five independent aspects of the language: (i) the phonological similarity between the future, the conditional and the future subjunctive tenses; (ii) the existence of the synthetic and the analytic processes for realizing the future and the conditional tenses; (iii) the hypercorrection phenomenon involving the analytic forms of the future and the conditional tenses; (iv) the phonological identity between, on the one hand, the future, the conditional and the future subjunctive and, on the other, the infinitive and (v) the loss of the segment /r/ in the infinitive and in the future subjunctive and the loss of the synthetic future and conditional.</em></p><p>Keywords: <em>Verbal Inflection; Theme Vowel; Distributed Morphology.</em></p>

‘So, well, whatever’

This study investigates the frequency and functions of a ubiquitous form in conversational NZSL discourse glossed as palm-up. Dictionaries show that it is a polysemous vocabulary item in NZSL, although many of its uses in discourse are not accounted for in the lexicon. Analysis of discourse data from 20 signers shows it to be the second most frequently occuring item, and to exhibit phonological variation. We identify and discuss four (non-exclusive) functions of palm-up in this data: cohesive, modal, interactive, and manual frame for unpredictable mouthings (codemixing). Correspondences in form, linguistic context, and meaning are found between uses of palm-up in NZSL, similar forms in other signed languages, and co-speech palm gestures. The study affirms previous descriptions of this form as having properties of both gesture and sign, and suggests that it also has features of a discourse marker.

Panel Discussion IV

I. Hubeny Welcome to the last panel meeting. We invite general comments either from the audience or from the panelists.V. Trimble Well, Mercedes started us with a vocabulary item and I think I would like to end with a vocabulary item. When they were first discovered, we called them ‘extra solar system planets’ which was descriptive and fine, but it's just rather cumbersome. At some point they became ‘extra solar planets.’ Now I have never seen a planet inside the Sun. And therefore ‘extrasolar’ is not a good descriptor. ‘Exoplanets’ is OK, but now that there are so many of them that perhaps they are simply ‘the planets.’ When you want to specialize to ours, you could say ‘solar system planets.’ Think how much ink it would save.

Lexicalizing number and gender in Lunigiana

<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">In this article, I present an analysis of gender and number marking on nouns in a group of Italian dialects. These dialects share the property that the plural morpheme is <em>-i-</em> in both the feminine and the masculine gender in both declension classes. But there is an asymmetry: in contexts where plurality is marked on a determiner, the plural marking <em>-i-</em> does not appear on nouns or adjectives in the feminine gender, but does appear on masculine nouns and adjectives. I argue that this asymmetry can be understood once it is recognized that a vocabulary item can lexicalize more than a single terminal, and that lexicalization is governed by the Superset Principle, i.e. if the lexicon associates a vocabulary item with a feature set <em>F</em>, it can lexicalize any constituent with the feature set <em>F'</em> provided <em>F</em> is a superset of <em>F'</em>.</span></p>

Code-switching and lexical borrowing: Which is what in Ghanaian English?

Mixed local feelings about the use of local words in the English of Ghana. A Ghanaianism is a vocabulary item peculiar to Ghana. It may be an English item that has undergone a local semantic shift, an item of local origin used consistently in English, or a hybrid of the two. In addition, the term Ghanaian English as used here refers, not to a variety whose features have been more or less fully recognised and described, but broadly to the English used by Ghanaians who have had at least some formal education and are able to use English in some registers. Drawing on a collection of Ghanaianisms compiled over the last 10 years, this paper looks first at some of the prevailing problems in attempting to define the transference phenomena widely identified as code-switching (CS) on the one hand and lexical borrowing (LB) on the other, then at how Ghanaians deal with the phenomenon of borrowing into English at the text level.