SignWriting on Bing - Improvements to Ordering Signs

[Charles Butler]

Hello Folks,

Although I don't know how to change Bing, I'm glad that the system footnotes my article, written back in 2001, on an ordering system for Sign Writing.  

http://www.signwriting.org/archive/docs1/sw0066-SW-Journal-Butler.pdf

I believe that we need to fine-tune the system so that the order of handshapes follows logically, not simply as they are put into the system, as having the articulated fingers starting straight, then together, then curved, then bent, then crossed, seems logical but because of the order of creation of a given handshape in the historical progression of the ISWAthat sometimes does not follow.

Ordering of the system now simply follows the order of the coding, so that signs using the same articulators can be put into a system.  The sign-shape-sequence which I have been trying to include or edit all the signs I find to include, follows the glyphs in sequence order internal to a sign.

1) Right hand (by hand group, sub-hand group, orientation, rotation) 
2) Left hand (by hand group, sub-hand group, orientation, rotation)
3) Right hand contact (touch, grasp, brush, rub, in-between)
4) Left hand contact (touch, grasp, brush, rub, in-between) 
5) Right hand location (include face or body) (location on the face, location on the body)
6) Left hand location (include face or body) (location on the face, location on the body)
7) Right hand movement (straight, curved, compound)
8) Left hand movement (straight, curved, compound) 
9) Right hand speed (prosody) (slow, fast, smooth) There are signs in LIBRAS where the only difference is the speed of the sign)
10) Left hand speed (prosody) (slow, fast, smooth) 
11) Facial expression (I have no idea how to order facial expressions) 
12) Body posture (there are signs in LIBRAS where the only difference is a posture)

Now that we have a sufficiently large corpus, I would propose we use this system for some experiments to see how clearly it actually works.  The only change I would put in might be in defining 1) as "Dominant Hand" and 2) as "non-Dominant Hand" but there are many signs such as "WITH" in ASL that have no clearly dominant hand, so that it might be simpler to continue with "right-hand dominant".  



Charles Butler
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