SV: [SLLING-L] use of sign language in Jordan

[Sonja Erlenkamp]

Kathy wrote:
 
>(And I WOULD like to know if anyone can list the phonemes of any sign language...and justify their phonemic Zstatus...)
 
That's a really good question. :) 
I have searched for an answer to that questions some years now and haven't found any full description of the phonemesystem of any signed language yet. But of course I may not have found the one that exists (please let me know if that is the case :)
One of my Ph.D. students who is working on notational systems for sign lanuage dictionaries seems to close in to a conclusion that one of the major problems for notational system is to capture shared iconic features of different signs.
Personally I believe that many, if not allmost of all the parameters in a single sign and including nonmanual features can (and often do) carry an iconic potential which makes them by definition non-arbitrary and that means again they could not be phonemic in the sense of spoken language phonemes, because phonemes are by definition arbitrary. On the other hand is for example  a handshape not always morphemic either since it does not carry some meaning in a morphemic sense, just an iconic potential that can be activated in a sign. I think that signed languages probably do not fit entirely in the linguistic level model of phonemic - morphemic and that we probably need a new level, somewhat in between these two "levels" describing how "iconemes" work. I use the terms "iconeme" roughly said for the "smallest analysable unit in a language carrying an iconic potential". 
And if (I say IF!) we end up describing an iconeme-level of signed languages this could also influence our understanding of writing systems/notational tools for signed languages.
 
Just my two cents on a friday morning :)
 
All the best
 
Sonja Erlenkamp




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