1.1.3. The manual alphabet & number signs
Although the handshapes presented in PHONOLOGY 1.1.1 are mostly phonemic, some of them do carry meaning since they are only used to represent letters from the manual alphabet, be it by themselves or in initialized signs, and/or numeric signs. These subsets of handshapes are shown in the figures below. It is relevant to point out these handshapes, since it is debatable whether they are really part of the native phonemic inventory of NGT, in other words, whether they fit within the combinations of phonological features that naturally developed in NGT. When additional feature specifications are necessary to describe sublexical elements that only occur in signs which are borrowed from the written language (e.g. handshapes which represent letters from the manual alphabet), they might better be considered non-native phonemes. The handshape representing the letter r, for instance, needs the configuration feature [crossed], which is not considered relevant for non-borrowed, i.e., native sign (see PHONOLOGY 1.1.1.2). Signs which developed naturally through usage of the language by (near-)native signers are considered native, whereas borrowed signs resulting from language contact or resulting from “linguistic engineering” are considered non-native. For the handshape representing f, a feature would be necessary to account for the crossing of the thumb and index-finger. The following figure shows handshapes that merely occur in initialized signs (e.g. france or signs that contain fingerspelling. They represent the letters e, m, p, k, r and f, respectively.
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e m p k r f |
Figure 2.11. Handshapes that are merely used in initialized signs or signs that contain fingerspelling (© Dutch Sign Centre).
A side note must be placed for the handshape that represents the k. It is clear that in the standard variant of NGT, this handshape is used only for initialized signs. However, according to the online dictionary of the Dutch Sign Centre, the handshape is quite frequent in the lexicon of the Sint-Michielsgestel dialect (see also SOCIO-HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 4.4). At least for this dialect, it is therefore questionable whether the
The second figure shows signs that are only used as numerals. The first handshape is only used for the numeric sign 9, the other handshapes are only seen in Groningen numeric signs, namely the numerals 11, 13, 15, 17 and 19.
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9 11 13 14 15 17/19 |
Figure 2.12. Handshapes that are only used in numerals: the Western number 9 and the Groningen numbers 11, 13, 14, 15, 17 and 19 (© Dutch Sign Centre).
The phonological features that are necessary to describe these handshapes are different from the combinations seen in Tables 2.2-2.6 above. One might wonder why the handshape pictures representing 11, 13, 14, 15 and 17/19 are very similar (or even identical) to handshapes seen in Tables 2.2-2.6, and are yet given a special status here, by suggesting that these handshapes cannot be explained by the feature combinations in Tables 2.2-2.6. This illustrates the problem that comes with representing phonological features by means of a phonetic handshape picture: The handshape pictures in Figure 2.12 represent a different set of phonological features than the handshape pictures in Tables 2.2-2.6. Take, for example, the C -handshape, which in some cases represents an articulation where the selected finger is the index finger (traditionally called the ‘L-handshape’). This finger is the one that moves and that is present also in non-initialized signs – and therefore the L-handshape as such does not belong in Figure 2.12, since it can be described with a combination of features that occurs in native NGT signs. In the ‘17/19-handshape’ represented in Figure 2.12, however, the middle, ring and pinky finger are selected, because these are the ones that articulate the internal movement. As mentioned in PHONOLOGY 1.1.1.1, this combination of selected fingers is not encountered in the lexicon of NGT. Similarly, the traditionally called ‘Y–handshape’, which is included in Tables 2.2-2.6 and which has a selected pinky finger, is also part of Figure 2.12 because in this figure, it represents a handshape in which the index, middle and pinky finger are selected. This combination is also not on the list of possible combinations of selected fingers. This shows that the handshapes used for the manual alphabet and numeric system often have a special status (hence this paragraph). The movement of these combinations of selected fingers is therefore arguably restricted to these numeric signs and not used further in the lexicon of NGT.