Phonology of numerals

[Adam Schembri, Deaf Studies]

BSL has at least four signs that appear not to be constrained by
Battison's (1978) symmetry condition. These are the signs SIXTEEN,
SEVENTEEN, EIGHTEEN and NINETEEN. These signs have a two-handed
variant in which the hands have the same location (neutral space) and
movement (an alternating up and down movement) but different hand
configurations on the dominant and non-dominant hand (the
non-dominant hand has a 5 handshape, while the other hand may have an
I, for example, in one form of the sign SIXTEEN). To my knowledge,
these variants are not found in the related variety, Auslan.

Bencie Woll pointed out to me that numerals in BSL and Auslan have
other distinctive formational properties, such as hand configurations
not found in other core native signs, as in the closed hand with
only the pinky and ring finger extended used in some varieties of BSL
and Auslan for SEVEN, and the extended thumb, index, middle and ring
used in some varieties for NINE. Only signs related to SEVEN and
NINE use these handshapes (e.g., SEVENTEEN, NINETY, LAST-WEEK etc).

I believe the same claim has been made in the literature for ASL
SEVEN.

So do other sign languages use different formational features and
constraints for numerals? Can someone point me in the direction of
any published discussion of this issue (I seem to recall some
discussion of this on SLLING-L some time ago)?

Cheers,
Adam

PS Auslan also has a very small number of signs that appear to break
Battison's (1978) dominance condition, using marked handshapes on the
non-dominant hand.

----------------------
Adam Schembri
Centre for Deaf Studies
University of Bristol
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Email: Adam.Schembri at bristol.ac.uk
Website: www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/DeafStudies