speed of movement in signs

[Susan Fischer]

I think there are some minimal pairs, such as ARRIVE vs. PROVE, as well as
punctual aspect.
Susan Fischer

Dan Parvaz wrote:

> > Are there any sign languages where the speed of hands is
> > phonologically contrastive?  It's not in ASL.  Maybe the only role
> > variation in speed has in ASL is for emphasis, but even then I'm not
> > sure whether it is the change in distance in sign "space" travelled
> > or speed, or both, that convey emphasis.
>
> According to Ronnie Wilbur's article in _Language and Speech_ last year,
> peak velocity may have some tie with prosodic prominence (like F0
> frequency in spoken languages), what has some dicourse/pragmatic
> uses. Barb Shaffer's dissertation describes the difference between modals
> used in various constructions. I'm not sure anyone has teased apart the
> function of phrase-final modals from the discourse functions of the
> phrase-final prominence. In any event, it looks like "speed" might play a
> role in contrasting the epistemic and deontic uses of some modals.
>
> Boy, that was was a long way of "I don't know," wasn't it? :-)
>
> -Dan.
>
> ____________
> ,,,
> .. .   D A N  P A R V A Z  --  Geek-in-Residence
>  U    University of New Mexico Linguistics Dept
>  -    dparvaz@{unm.edu,lanl.gov}   505.480.9638

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