Metathesis is a process whereby the first and last location of a sign are reversed, due to the linguistic context in which the sign appears. An example is the reversed direction of the movement in the sign post when it is used in the compound sign post^lamp. In Figure 2.65, both signs post and lamp are shown individually, and it can be observed that the sign post has a downward movement:
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a. post |
b. lamp |
Figure 2.65. The signs post (a) and lamp (b), as signed in isolation.
In the compound sign post^lamp, however, the movement of post is reversed and goes upwards, to adapt to the higher location of the sign lamp. The reversal allows for a smooth transition between signs, where no transitional movement is necessary.
Figure 2.66. The compound sign post^lamp with movement metathesis in the first part.
Another example is a variant of the compound meaning ‘ear, nose and throat doctor’. In Dutch, and in one version of the NGT compound, the order of the body parts is ‘throat-nose-ear’. In this sign, the three relevant body parts are quickly touched by the index finger. The variant which we want to address in light of metathesis, however, includes the reversed order ear^nose^throat. This order is probably motivated by ease of articulation, as the final indexical sign throat is then closer to the place of articulation of the subsequent sign doctor, namely the chin. This particular example was discussed during Klomp’s program with, among others, her sign language teacher Joni Oyserman, who brought this sign up. Another account for the reversed locations that was proposed at that moment was the ‘Highest Sign First Rule’ (Wallin 1983), which states that the first element of a compound should always be higher than or at the same level as subsequent elements, but as we will see in MORPHOLOGY 1.2.2, this rule does not hold for NGT.
Whether these variants are more frequent and/or whether metathesis is really a productive process has yet to be investigated.