BSL isn't English. response 2

[Nobukatsu Minoura]

Dear Paulette, Raymond, and other colleagues,

Sign languages do have double articulation like spoken languages.  By the
way, when Andre Martinet suggested double articulation first, the first
articulation was the articulation corresponding to "ideas," which are
materialized by morphemes (in non-French context) or by words.  The second
articulation was that of phonemes.  It seems like Paulette learned them the
other way around.

Not all sign linguists have agreed on whether sign languages have vowels,
consonants, or even syllables.  But sign languages do have phonemes as well
as morphemes and words.  Our pioneer, William Stokoe avoided the term
"phonemes" for ASL in the beginning.  But since we, sign linguists got to
know that sign language phonology has so much in common with the phonology
of spoken languages, like the application of phonological rules etc., we
call them _phonemes_ now.

What are the phonemes of sign languages?

Not all sign linguists have agreed on that either.  As for myself, phonemes
that are put together to form a sign consist at least of a hand shape, an
orientation, a location, and a movement.  If you want to go more precisely,
you can add some other components as phonemes.  And it might be too
simplistic to call a movement a phoneme.

A Japanese Sign Language (JSL) sign can consist of a single morpheme, which
in turn consists of the above-mentioned phonemes.  E.g. The JSL sign for WIN
is made with a fist (hand shape), the tip of the limb pointing up
(orientation), in the right space of the signer's head (location), with a
short single movement forward (movement).

Some other JSL signs consist of more than one morpheme.  E.g. The verb FALL
for an apple is made with an open hand with the thumb and fingers slightly
bent (hand shape), the tip of the limb pointing diagonally up and front and
the palm facing up, left, and inward (orientation), starting in the right
space of the signer (location), with a long downward movement (movement).
When the hand shape and the orientation are replaced by the hand shape of
the I-LOVE-YOU sign in ASL pointing front and the palm facing down, it
becomes the verb FALL for an airplane.  Thus at least you can analyze that
the hand shapes (together with the orientations) of the first FALL and the
second FALL are morphemes encoding some nominal meanings, namely a round
object and an airplane respectively.  The rest (i.e. location and movement)
encodes some verbal meaning, namely FALL.  These are only a few examples of
so-called classifiers which are sometimes called polymorphemic signs.

BSL may not work exactly in the same manners as JSL, but I am sure that JSL
and BSL have a lot of similarity.

I hope this helps a little bit.

Nobukatsu "Nobu" Minoura
General Linguistics
Faculty of Foreign Studies
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
Mailto:minoura at tufs.ac.jp

> Would anyone like to answer this e-mail?
>
> Raymond Lee
>
> **********************
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Paulette R. Caswell"
> To: "Philocophus" <Philocophus at philocophus.demon.co.uk>
> Sent: Monday, May 12, 2003 11:13 PM
> Subject: Re: BSL isn't English. response 2
>
>
>> Raymond, dear, kindly explain to your readers, in a bit less emotional
>> fashion, just what is a "spoken" component of a language. A language
>> that is "spoken" is based on SOUNDS OF HUMAN SPEECH. Humans are the only
>> species on this planet that produce the sounds of human speech. They
>> produce those sounds in a strict order and according to a strict
>> underlying structure. This is known as "First Articulation" in
>> Semiotics. It is the level BELOW the level of words. It is what hearing
>> people learn before they speak, and what deaf people must learn from
>> people like Colin before they can speak (even unclearly, that doesn't
>> matter). It is the underlying basis for all HUMAN language.
>>
>> If you are asserting that sign languages are HUMAN languages, then you
>> will need to first identify a strict underlying "First Articulation"
>> semiotic component for sign languages (languages based SOLELY on signs).
>> You will need to identify the equivalent forms in sign language for
>> vowels and consonants, consonant-vowel pairs ("CV pairs") and the
>> underlying structure of how the vowels and consonants are combined, in
>> order, and that order cannot be changed or altered.
>>
>> So, go ahead, Raymond. Give me the names of Sign Language "Linguists"
>> who have identified the vowel and consonant structure UNDERLYING
>> "signs."
>>
>> Because if you cannot do so, you are left with only a "Second
>> Articulation" kind of human communication that is not recognized as a
>> LINGUISTIC NATURAL LANGUAGE by professional linguists, or a HUMAN-ONLY
>> language. If you cannot demonstrate a First Articulation component, you
>> are simply talking about the language of apes and other lower species,
>> not a language of human beings.
>>
>> Provide me with proof that Sign Language (i.e. BSL) has BOTH the First
>> and Second Articulation functions of human-only languages. Linguistics
>> only recognizes DOUBLE articulation languages as "real" languages.
>>
>> If you can't do it, then please just stop your vituperative diatribes
>> which mean nothing at all.