LL-L "Language varieties" 2009.10.18 (03) [EN]

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L O W L A N D S - L - 18 October 2009 - Volume 03
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From: Roger Thijs, Euro-Support, Inc. <roger.thijs at euro-support.be>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2009.10.18 (01) [EN]

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com
>
> Subject: Language varieties

> The case of Polynesian seems to show that some change does take place in
relative isolation.

What about Icelandic v/ Old Norse?
Regards,
Roger

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From: Hellinckx Luc <luc.hellinckx at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties"

Beste Sandy,

On 18/10/09, at 22:17, Lowlands-L List wrote:

In sign languages, however, the classifier system feeds some vocabulary
into the language, as the more successful classifier expressions become
widely recognised and then gradually become more and more like lexical
signs.

Take, for example, an elephant: when something like this is a new idea
it tends to get fully described in a sign language: the way of walking,
the tusks, the ears, the trunk. If it becomes well used, then some of
this is dropped and you may find the classifier expression for the trunk
alone being used to sign "elephant". Lexical signs tend to be of the
form hold-movement-hold and be signed in a restricted space, so if the
"trunk" classifier is more complex than this then it tends to get
simplified until it becomes a structurally well-behaved sign.


If an elephant gets narrowed down to its trunk ("pars pro toto"), how do you
distinguish between the trunk of an elephant and the trunk of a mammoth in
sign language?

Kind greetings,

Luc Hellinckx, Halle, Belgium

•

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