Dating certainly lexical and phonological qualities
Next we examined relationships among the lexical and phonological properties of the signs in ASL-LEX to gain insight into how phonological, lexical, and semantic factors interact in the ASL lexicon. s = https://datingranking.net/making-friends/ –0.14, p < 0.001. Although it is possible that this inverse correlation is driven by the relatively higher frequency of closed-class words which may be lower in iconicity than other signs, the negative correlation remains when closed-class words (i.e., words with a “minor” Lexical Class) are excluded (r s = –0.17, p < 0.001). This result is compatible with the early proposal that with frequent use, signs may move away from their iconic origins, perhaps due to linguistic pressures to become more integrated into the phonological system (Frishberg, 1975). Interestingly, the direction of this relationship was the opposite of that found for British Sign Language; that is, Vinson et al. (2008) reported a weak positive correlation between frequency and iconicity: r = .146, p < .05. Alternatively, the different correlations might be due differences in stimuli selection. Vinson et al. (2008) intentionally selected stimuli that had a range of iconicity values which resulted in a bimodal iconicity distribution while we did not select signs for inclusion in ASL-LEX based on their iconicity.
Regularity and iconicity z-ratings (SignFrequency(Z) and Iconicity(Z)) was basically notably adversely correlated together (get a hold of Table 1), with increased regular cues rated just like the smaller renowned; but not, so it relationships is weakened, r
An abundance of phonological characteristics is actually highly correlated and also in of several circumstances this is due to how they are outlined (pick Desk step 1). Such as for instance, for every single major venue comprises of a minumum of one lesser towns and cities-high frequency minor metropolises will hence almost invariably be found into the highest volume big cities, and you will handshape regularity try furthermore connected with chose little finger and bending frequency. While doing so, most of the three tips regarding People Density is highly synchronised with that some other partly since they are also outlined and you will partly given that one neighbors you to share five of your four sub-lexical properties (Maximal Community Occurrence) commonly necessarily together with share certainly one of five sandwich-lexical services (Restricted Neighborhood Thickness). In the long run, the around three Area Thickness steps is correlated with each of the sub-lexical volume methods. This makes experience since by the definition, preferred sandwich-lexical services are available in of numerous signs.
Interestingly, the basic sub-lexical frequencies are completely uncorrelated with each other, with the exception of selected fingers and minor location which are significantly but weakly correlated (r = .10, p < .01). This finding suggests that the space of possible ASL signs is rather large as each sub-lexical property can (to a first degree of approximation) vary independently of the others. This property contrasts with spoken languages where phoneme frequency is correlated across different syllable positions. For example, using position-specific uniphone frequencies from Vitevitch and Luce (2004) we estimate that in English monosyllabic words, vowel frequency is negatively correlated with the frequency of the preceding consonant (r = –.07, p < .001) and positively correlated with the following consonant (r = .17, p < .001), and that onset consonants have highly correlated frequencies (r = –.51, p < .001). We speculate that the relative independence of ASL sub-lexical features is related to both the motoric independence of the manual articulators (e.g., finger flexion is unaffected by the location of the hand in signing space) as well as the relative simultaneity of manual articulation (as opposed to serial oral articulation). We note that these non-significant correlations are for sub-lexical frequency only; specific sub-lexical properties have been argued to co-vary systematically (e.g., signs produced in locations far from the face may be more likely to be symmetrical, two-handed, and have larger, horizontal, and vertical motions; Siple, 1978).
