[sw-l] Sign Spelling Syllables question

Charles Butler chazzer3332000 at YAHOO.COM
Tue May 20 15:19:47 UTC 2008 

Hasna,

Proximity is not the association.  The arrows themselves are coded for right, left, or both hands moving.  This way, even if hands cross, the motions are kept sorted out.  Visually this is easy to read, encoding might be a challenge.

Example: Through.  




The arrow for the right hand is on the opposite side of the left hand but visually can be seen as a continuous arrow from the "between" icon, the "rub" icon and then the right arrow moving forward and to the left.

Two readers can only read the sign the same way.  The purpose of the SignWriting system is that what you write is what the other person will reproduce.  

You may see the same sign in different places so that the meaning has changed, but the production of the sign is exactly the same.  In the following two sentences, the word "nothing" is signed two different ways because of the meaning, but the sign production does not change from one person to another. 


  He no zero football.  He feel nothing.
  He is the best football player. He feels no pain.
 
Source: Charles Butler
Modified: May 20, 2008 08:16
 [input]  [input]  [input]  [input]     [input]  [input]  [input]  [input]  [input]  [input]  [input]     [input]  [input]  [input]  [input]  [input]  [input]  [input]  [input]     [input]  [input]  [input]  [input]  [input]  [input]  [input]  [input]     [input]  [input] 


Hasna Hocini <h_hocini at yahoo.fr> wrote: 
Hi Jonathan,
I though that the proximity is the information that associates the hand with the arrows? No?
Regards,
Hasna

Jonathan <duncanjonathan at yahoo.ca> a écrit :        Hi Hasna,
     No, what I mean is that the reader interprets which arrows moves which hand symbol.  But if both people read the signwriting correctly, they should produce the same sign and understand the same thing. 
     On the other hand there isn´t any information in the sign data that associates de hand with the arrows.
 
 Jonathan
 
 Hasna Hocini wrote: Hi Jonathan,
 Thank you for your messages.
 So, two readers of the same sign can  understand two different things...   
 Is it what you want to say?
 Regards,
 Hasna
   
   Jonathan <duncanjonathan at yahoo.ca> a écrit :         Hi Stuart,
     I agree with you here too.  The interpretation of the meaning and the interaction of the symbols in the SignWriting are fully up to the reader to interpret. The way the signwriting is currently saved, a computer would have a REALLY hard time guessing which symbols go together.  e.i.  Which symbol goes with which arrow as this information isn't yet part of the information that is being inputed or stored with the sign.
     
 Jonathan
     
 Stuart Thiessen wrote:             
On the contrary, SW most likely can be reduced to a linear representation. But that representation would not be human readable, or at least not easily human readable.

Admittedly, the challenge is that there are relationships being expressed in the 2D arrangements that would need some kind of explicit notation in a linear string. The build string that Steve uses is one type of linear representation of SW.

But I don't think it is possible to "code as a cluster" without the computer understanding the components. The computer needs a better intelligence behind its interpretation of component symbols so that it can gather relevant linguistic data from facial expressions, use of space, etc.

Thanks,

Stuart
--------------------
Stuart Thiessen
Voice: 800-919-8853
SVP-Home:
 515-633-8774
Sent from
 my BlackBerry® wireless device

-----Original Message-----
From: "Charles Butler" <chazzer3332000 at yahoo.com>

Date: Thu, 15 May 2008 11:08:06 
To:"SignWriting List" <sw-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu>
Subject: Re: [sw-l] Sign Spelling Syllables question


Dear Hasna,

I would have to underline the differences between, for example, Stokoe notation, which is based on single-string notation and Sign Writing which is based on x,y notation.  Sign Writing cannot be reduced to single-string notation because its very nature is 2-dimensional, not one-dimensional. 

Stokoe deliberately made his writing from symbols that can be found on a keyboard, in a fixed order, but for that reason it is not
 iconographic, it is not a sign-recognition system, but an encoding.

I can
 show the sign "THANK YOU" as a string of symbols that translates as "right flat hand touches mouth and then moves out pronately forward from the speaker" but with SW it's quick, simple, and must less complicated.  

If you are to do your translation system, you will need to find a way to code "as a cluster" the whole graphic which is a complete sign, not its components.

The sign-spelling will help you find which handshapes, or which movements, are being used, but not their "whole cluster" which is a sign, in which all parts of the sign are being articulated simultaneously. 

Charles




Valerie Sutton <sutton at signwriting.org> wrote: SignWriting List
May 15, 2008


Hello Hasna and Charles -
Many thanks for your input, Charles...we are
 thinking the same ;-)


Hasna - regarding programming versus the "real world of signing"...there is
 no question they are two different worlds, and of course it is hard to imagine translating between a spoken language like French or English, which uses the Roman alphabet that is written horizontally in a string from left to right, and compare that with a writing system like SignWriting, that is written in visual clusters...NOT written in a string...we do not write like the SignSpellings look...one symbol after the other...we write in two-dimensional relationships because those relationships, of the hands under the head, and so forth...those clusters of symbols in proper alignment with the human body...those "symbol relationships" hold meaning to us in a way that the symbols from left to right could never do...


For example, if a sign is done over the head, it can mean one thing, and if the sign is produced under the head, it could mean something else,
 so the visual placement is important for meaning.


So just placing symbols in a string doesn't give
 you the feeling or the meaning of signs...


That is the very reason why SignWriting works...because we don't write "symbols in a line in sequence"...


I realize this is no help to your project, and we can continue discussing this...I can continue the discussion later tomorrow as I have appointments all day today...


Val ;-)


--------



Hasna Hocini wrote:Thank you very much for your answers and intterest to help me...
We are working on statistical translation. 
The problem now is to find a compact representation  of signs, because if we use the two dimensional representations of signs (As it is in SWML: symbol code, position x,y ), it will not work and the results of our statistical translation system will not be satisfying.
So, we'll use the SignSpelling representation. If we can have the
 syllables also, It will improve the codification. We will have for example for the second syllable (Mvt syllable) less
 signs so we will not need to codify that on 13 positions as it is in SSS-2004 but two positions will be enough (177 movements symbols -> using the alphabet to codify them, two positions it will enough 26*26 =676).
Do you think I can do it in a different way?
Thanks a lot,
Hasna


--------------



Charles Butler <chazzer3332000 at yahoo.com <mailto:chazzer3332000 at yahoo.com> &> a écrit : I would agree.  Think of a sign as a whole concept, like Chinese, you are not translating stroke for stroke, you are translating a whole sign into a whole concept.  

The sign spelling helps one look up two
 signs in a dictionary by how they are produced, not by their meaning, just like ANGRY and APPLE can be looked up in the dictionary by spelling, not by meaning. 
 

In ASL, the ANGRY hand would be a 5-claw hand at the chest, APPLE would be a A-hand at the corner of the mouth.  They would sort by their handshapes first, but that has nothing to do with their meaning.

Valerie Sutton <sutton at signwriting.org <mailto:sutton at signwriting.org> > wrote: SignWriting List
May 15, 2008

Hasna Hocini wrote:
  
                
1- If I ask two signers to sign the word "Interesting". Will they do 
it the same way?
What are the differences they will introduce ?
    
               

Hello Hasna and everyone -

Your work with translation from signwritten signs, into spoken 
language, is a big job but a fascinating subject...thank you for 
sharing your project with us
 ;-)

1. There are several signs for the concept of INTERESTING, in American 
Sign Language...Just like in other spoken languages, there are 
oftentimes several words you could use for one concept...

Here are three writings of the sign for INTERESTING in the ASL 
SignPuddle Dictionary, to give you an example....and there may be more 
variations and signs that could be equivalent as well...

The important thing to realize is that this has nothing to do with 
syllables. I cannot see how syllables have anything to do with 
translation, since the "whole word" or "whole sign" carries the 
meanings...the syllables do not have meanings... In this attached 
diagram, you can see the SignSpellings to the right of the
 signs (the 
tiny grey symbols in little boxes)...those are only for sorting the 
dictionary by symbols and not the way we actually write the 
signs...The fact that the SignSpellings can be divided into syllables 
is
 not important for sorting dictionaries...

Looking at the three attached signs...

1. two-handed sign
2. same sign as 1, but one-handed
3. different sign that can also mean fascinating










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Val
 ;-)











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