SV: On accent in SL

[Nedelina Stoyanova Ivanova]

Dear Adam,
many thanks for the answer. 
No, I do not mean the aspect of Swedish fingerspelling.

In spoken Swedish, stressed syllables differentiate two tones, often described as pitch accents, or tonal word accents by Scandinavian linguists.These accents are called acute and grave accent, tone/accent 1 and tone/accent 2, or Single Tone and Double Tone.Generally, the grave accent is characterized by a later timing of the intonational pitch rise as compared with the acute accent. The main tendency for tone is that the acute accent appears in monosyllables (since the grave accent cannot appear in monosyllabic words) while the grave accent appears in polysyllabic words. Polysyllabic forms resulting from declension or derivation also tend to have a grave accent except when it is the definite article that is added. 

I have been assessing sign language skills of children aged 1-12 years for three years now. In all my data, I find  very similar mistakes on path and hand internal movement. I was looking for an explanation, why this is the case. Then I thought about the phonology of Swedish, where words have accent one and accent two. For a foreigner (from my personal experience), is very difficult to master specially accent two. The deaf children whose skills I assess, are non-native late-learners. All of them, have difficulties with PM and HIM. Then I thought, that it might be possible to look at PM and HIM as kind of accent one and accent two on the phonological level. Having only PM or HIM in the sign, there would be than accent one; having both, accent two. The sign is kind of more complicated having both, PM and HIM than having only PM or HIM; my data show that it is more difficult for children to master signs with PM and HIM, than signs with only PM or HIM as it is more difficult to m
 aster accent two than accent one.
I was just trying to find explanation of the errors on the phonological level I see. Than I thought that it might be possible to compare PM and HIM with accent one and accent two to a certain level. I do not know. This was just a thought. 

Regards,
Nedelina



Með kveðju / Best regards
___________________________________
Nedelina Ivanova
Málfræðingur/Linguist

Samskiptamiðstöð heyrnarlausra og heyrnarskertra
Suðurlandsbraut 12
108 Reykjavík
Sími: +354 562 7702
Fax: +354 562 7714
shh at shh.is


Fyrirvari/Disclaimer
________________________________________
Frá: linguists interested in signed languages [SLLING-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACOLLEGE.EDU] Fyrir hönd Adam Schembri [A.Schembri at LATROBE.EDU.AU]
Sent: 16. febrúar 2013 00:43
Viðtakandi: SLLING-L at LISTSERV.VALENCIACOLLEGE.EDU
Efni: Re: On accent in SL

Hi Nedelina
Are you referring to some aspect of Swedish fingerspelling that attempts
to represent these diacritics? I don't believe grave and acute accents are
used in Swedish, whereas other diacritics are (the a with a small
circle/ring over it) and these are represented by movements of the
handshape.
Regards,
Adam
--
Assoc. Prof. Adam Schembri, PhD
Linguistics program | Humanities and Social Sciences
Interim director | Centre for Research on Language Diversity
(http://www.latrobe.edu.au/crld)
La Trobe University | Melbourne (Bundoora) | Victoria |  3086 |  Australia
Tel : +61 3 9479 2887/6401 | Mob: +61 432 840 744
Secretary, Sign Language Linguistics Society: http://www.slls.eu
ALLY Network Member supporting GLBTIQ students and staff at La Trobe
University:  www.latrobe.edu.au/equality/ally
<http://www.latrobe.edu.au/equality/ally>








On 15/02/13 23:51 , "Nedelina Stoyanova Ivanova" <nedelina at SHH.IS> wrote:

>Hallo,
>
>Is someone familiar with papers/researches or something regarding  acute
>and grave accent as known from Swedish f.ex. but related to sign
>languages, and in particular to path movement and hand internal movement?
>When only one movement (path or hand internal) is presented, than the
>accent is acute; when both presented, than the accent is grave?
>I know, quite far-fetched ...
>
>Nedelina Ivanova
>