These some other results might possibly be due to cross-linguistic variations in the latest services of your BSL and you can ASL lexicons
Dating one of lexical and you will phonological services
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, Christian dating review 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 iconicity z-score (SignFrequency(Z) and you can Iconicity(Z)) was significantly negatively synchronised along (see Table step 1), with increased regular signs ranked once the smaller iconic; not, this relationship try weak, r
A number of phonological characteristics was very correlated and in of many cases this is due to the way they is defined (see Table step 1). Eg, for every single significant venue includes one or more slight towns-high-frequency small towns will hence almost inevitably be discovered inside high volume big urban centers, and you will handshape volume is likewise associated with selected thumb and bending regularity. In addition, all the three methods from Society Thickness was extremely synchronised that have one other partly since they’re furthermore outlined and you will partially as one residents one express five of five sub-lexical features (Maximum Community Thickness) usually necessarily including express certainly one of four sandwich-lexical characteristics (Minimal People Thickness). Ultimately, all the three People Thickness steps is actually coordinated with each of your own sub-lexical frequency actions. This is going to make feel once the because of the meaning, well-known sub-lexical qualities can be found in of numerous signs.
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).