Lexical creation in signed languages -- rephrasing

[Celso Álvarez Cáccamo]

Hello,

Thank you to all who replied to my queries about lexical creation in
signing apes.

I am aware that there is controversy about some of this research on apes
trained on human languages. However, my intention was simply to find out
about whether a particular type of lexical creation has been reported/found
among signing apes. I would now like to extend the issue to natural sign
languages. Let me summarize:

1) Koko is exposed not only to (a version of?) ASL, but to spoken US
English as well. I hope this was clear from my first posting.

2) Koko has been exposed to the ASL sign for 'eyebrow(s)', /bringing one's
fist to one's eyebrow(s)/. But she had never been exposed to any ASL sign
for 'browse' (type of lettuce).

3) On the basis of partial homophony between the English spoken words
"eyebrows" and "browse" (lettuce), Koko reportedly would have applied the
ASL sign form for the former referent to the latter referent and thus
created a new sign: the association between the form /bringing fist to
eyebrows/ and the meaning 'type of lettuce'.

4) The two signs 'eyebrows' and 'lettuce' could then be said to be
homonyms, like "bear" (animal) and "bear" (verb) in English.

5) This could be said to entail a type of de-indexicalization on Koko's
part (the sign for 'eyebrows' is probably an index), and therefore a type
of symbolization, quite different from lexical composition.

Now, whether Koko actually created THAT sign or not, let us take that as
the starting point for these questions, again:

(1) Has this type of homonymic lexical creation based on (partial)
homophony between two spoken words been reported in trained signing apes?

(2) If the answer to (1) is yes, does this say anything particularly
interesting about apes' language abilities under controlled environments?

(3) Does the same type of lexical creation exist as a regular or sporadic
procedure among (a) hearing users of natural signed languages (e.g. hearing
children of deaf parents, when communicating among themselves or with
parents); (b) post-locutive deaf users of signed languages who remember the
auditive image of words; or (c) hearing communities who use auxiliary sign
languages?

Thank you,

Celso Álvarez Cáccamo              Tel. +34 981 167000 ext. 1888
Linguística Geral, Faculdade de Filologia     FAX +34 981 167151
Universidade da Corunha                          lxalvarz at udc.es
15071 A Corunha, Galiza (Espanha)  http://www.udc.es/dep/lx/cac/