A Grammar of Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT)

As discussed in PHONOLOGY, Chapter 1, there is a fixed set of phonological features which can be used to describe native signs in NGT. The sublexical elements of loan signs, however, may at times be incompatible with the inventory of NGT, since these signs are (partly) borrowed from another language. Therefore, their phonological specifications may need to be adapted to the phonemes and features available in NGT. An example can be seen in the two NGT variants of workshop, both originating from the ASL sign workshop. In the original ASL sign, the j-hand is used, which changes into the 6-hand. (For a video of the ASL sign, see https://www.signingsavvy.com/signs/mp4/14/14524.mp4). In ASL, the j-hand is the manual representation of the letter W, meaning that this sign is an initialized sign. The first NGT variant, shown in Figure 2.64a, is articulated with a Z-handshape. Interestingly, the initialization is preserved in this variant, since the Z-hand is the manual representation of the letter W in NGT. In addition, the path movement is preserved, but the internal movement (handshape change) is lost. Since the original internal movement (i.e., a change from the Z-hand to the 6-hand) violates the selected finger constraint (see PHONOLOGY 2.1.1), this is a clear example of nativization: by losing the internal movement, the sign obeys the phonological rules of NGT. In Figure 2.64b, a non-initialized variant is shown, which starts with a >-hand that changes into a -hand. In this variant, the internal movement is preserved, which is possible without violating the selected finger constraint since both the starting and end handshape have changed from the ASL handshapes into NGT handshapes that have all fingers selected (first open, then closed). Thus, by changing the handshapes, the internal movement could be preserved, at the expense of initialization.

Figure 2.64. Two variants of the sign workshop: (a) initialized without internal movement; (b) non-initialized with internal movement.

Since nativization is a diachronic process, it could be that the variant in Figure 2.64a predates the variant in Figure 2.64b, and that eventually, only the second sign will remain. Yet, it could also be that these signs emerged around the same time and exist side by side.