Relationships among lexical and you may phonological features
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 may iconicity z-results (SignFrequency(Z) and you may Iconicity(Z)) was rather adversely synchronised collectively (pick Dining table 1), with regular cues ranked just like the faster renowned; however, so it dating are poor, r
Lots of phonological characteristics was highly correlated along with of numerous times it is because the way they is actually outlined (look for Table 1). Eg, for every single significant venue includes one or more slight metropolises-high frequency minor places commonly thus almost inevitably be found when you look at the high regularity major metropolises, and you may handshape regularity try furthermore linked to selected little finger and you will flexion volume. At the same time, all about three strategies off Neighborhood Occurrence is https://datingranking.net/nl/trueview-overzicht/ actually highly synchronised with you to some other partially as they are furthermore discussed and you will partially while the people natives you to express five of the four sub-lexical qualities (Maximal Neighborhood Thickness) commonly necessarily plus share certainly one of five sub-lexical properties (Limited Neighborhood Density). In the end, the around three People Density actions are correlated with each of one’s sub-lexical frequency measures. This makes experience because because of the meaning, preferred sub-lexical attributes are available in many 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).