A Grammar of Turkish Sign Language (TİD)

1.2. Location

The major locations for the articulation of signs are head, torso, arm, and non-dominant hand (h2). Setting further specifies a major location as either being ipsilateral (right side of a right-handed signer), contralateral (left side of a right-handed signer), low, high, contact, proximal, and distal. Moreover, each location can be specified with an exact setting unique to the major location (e.g. eyes is an exact setting of the major location head). Below, a table with all locations and all exact settings are presented with examples.

 

Major Loc

Setting

Exact Setting

Example Sign

Arm

Contact

Whole arm

street

Arm

Contact

Elbow

blue_jeans

Arm

High

Upper Arm

yellow

Arm

Low, contact

Lower Arm

hometown

h2

Contact

Dorsal Hand

late

h2

Contact

Fingers

rıde

h2

Contact

Whole hand

orange

h2

Contact

Palm

ınvestıgate

h2

Contact

Radial and Ulnar Lateral Border of the Hand

ınsıde

h2

Contact

Wrist

doctor

Head

Contact

Cheeks

look

Head

Contact

Ear

wednesday

Head

Contact/ Proximal

Eyes

december

Head

Contact

Whole head

poor

Head

Contact

Mouth

red

Head

Contact

Nose

easy

Head

Contact

Upper Head

hot

Head

Proximal

Proximal Face

mırror

Torso

Contact

Whole body

cloth

Torso

Contact

Neck

please

Torso

Contact

Shoulders

new

Torso

High, Contact

Chest

law

Torso

Low

Hips

short

Torso

Low

Pelvis

swımsuıt

Torso

Low, Contact

Abdomen

accusatıon

Torso

Proximal

 Proximal Torso

key

(adapted and expanded from Makaroğlu & Dikyuva 2017)

 

 

Often the lexical items involve the torso as the major location, and for some signs the location of articulation is the head. Occasionally locations are the non-dominant hand and the arm. The non-dominant hand rarely serves as the major location while the arm is extremely exceptional.

          There are other exact settings that are also used very rarely. These are predominantly iconically motivated signs. For example, the exact setting of eyes appear in eye-related words such as eye, eyeglasses, teardrop, brow, and eyelashes (with the exception of december). Other such rarely occuring exact settings that serve as the setting for iconic signs are the body (e.g. cloth, shırt), the pelvis (e.g. swımsuıt), and the hips (e.g. shorts).

List of editors

Meltem Kelepir

Copyright info

© 2020 Kadir Gökgöz, Aslı Göksel, Demet Kayabaşı, Meltem Kelepir, Onur Keleş, Okan Kubus, Aslı Özkul, A. Sumru Özsoy, Burcu Saral, Hande Sevgi, Süleyman S. Taşçı

Bibliographical reference for citation

The entire grammar:
Kelepir, Meltem (ed.). 2020. A Grammar of Turkish Sign Language (TİD). 1st ed. (SIGN-HUB Sign Language Grammar Series). (https://thesignhub.eu/grammar/tid) (Accessed 31-10-2021)

A Chapter:
LastName, FirstName. 2020. Syntax: 3. Coordination and Subordination. In Kelepir, Meltem (ed.). 2020. A Grammar of Turkish Sign Language (TİD). 1st ed. (SIGN-HUB Sign Language Grammar Series), 230-237. (https://thesignhub.eu/grammar/tid) (Accessed 31-10-2021)

A Section:
LastName, FirstName. 2020. Phonology: 1.1.1.2. Finger configuration. In Kelepir, Meltem (ed.). 2020. A Grammar of Turkish Sign Language (TİD). 1st ed. (SIGN-HUB Sign Language Grammar Series), 230-237. (https://thesignhub.eu/grammar/tid) (Accessed 31-10-2021)

LastName, FirstName. 2020. Syntax: 3.1.2.1.3. Manual markers in disjunctive coordination. In Kelepir, Meltem (ed.). 2020. A Grammar of Turkish Sign Language (TİD). 1st ed. (SIGN-HUB Sign Language Grammar Series), 230-237. (https://thesignhub.eu/grammar/tid) (Accessed 31-10-2021)