37.2327, Diss: American Sign Language; Applied Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, Forensic Linguistics, Linguistic Theories, Morphology: Laurel Whitsett: "Pinky Extension in American Sign Language: Evidence for a Lexically Restricted Morphological Process"

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LINGUIST List: Vol-37-2327. Mon Jul 13 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.2327, Diss: American Sign Language; Applied Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, Forensic Linguistics, Linguistic Theories, Morphology: Laurel Whitsett: "Pinky Extension in American Sign Language: Evidence for a Lexically Restricted Morphological Process"

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Date: 12-Jul-2026
From: Laurel Whitsett [whitsett at uta.edu]
Subject: Pinky Extension in American Sign Language: Evidence for a Lexically Restricted Morphological Process


Institution: University of Texas at Arlington
Degree Date: 2026
Level: PhD

Author: Laurel Whitsett

Dissertation Title: Pinky Extension in American Sign Language:
Evidence for a Lexically Restricted Morphological Process

Dissertation URL:
https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/linguistics_tesol_dissertations2/4/

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics
                     Discourse Analysis
                     Forensic Linguistics
                     Linguistic Theories
                     Morphology

Subject Language(s): American Sign Language (ase, amer1248)

Dissertation Director(s): Dr. Laurel Stvan, Dr. Cindy Kilpatrick, Dr.
William G. Vicars

Dissertation Abstract:

This study investigates pinky extension (PE) in American Sign Language
(ASL). PE involves extending the pinky finger in signs, even though
this feature is not present in standard dictionary representations of
those signs. Although PE has been previously described as conveying
emphasis, this account does not fully explain its distribution. This
study asks whether PE reflects a meaningful part of how signs are
structured in ASL, rather than a matter of individual style or
variation. Focusing on adjectives, it examines whether PE interacts
with sentence position. In ASL, certain adjectives may appear either
before (prenominally) or after (postnominally) the noun they modify;
though position may affect interpretation, the form of the adjective
can remain the same. This study tests whether PE forms are more
acceptable in postnominal position and whether they are preferred over
forms without PE in that environment.
An acceptability judgment task was conducted using three adjectives
(BORING, DEAF, SERIOUS), each produced with and without PE in both
positions. Participants judged whether each sentence felt natural to
them. They were not informed of the variables under investigation,
allowing the study to capture intuitive responses to variation.
Results show acceptability varies across sign form and sentence
position, but not in a uniform way. While forms with PE were accepted
across conditions, they were not consistently preferred in postnominal
position, and patterns differed by sign. These findings suggest PE
cannot be explained by a single distributional rule or by handshape
variation alone. Instead, the findings point to PE as a feature
dependent on meaning and structure, tied to specific signs. Such an
account is consistent with analyses that treat this patterning as part
of the internal morphological structure of individual signs. More
broadly, these findings demonstrate that variation in ASL reflects
underlying grammatical organization.



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