As previously mentioned selected fingers are the active fingers of a handshape. They display some properties that cannot be found in unselected fingers, for instance, i) they can have internal movement, ii) they can fulfil different finger configurations, and iii) they typically have contact with a location (as will be shown in PHONOLOGY 1.1.1.2). By contrast, unselected fingers cannot have internal movement and they can only display two different finger configurations (open or closed). In the example below the sign emerge has the same set of selected fingers but different finger configurations at the beginning (closed) and at the end (open).
emerge [video]
In LSC there is a limited amount of finger selection combinations that are shown in the table below.
|
Nr. of selected fingers |
Selected fingers |
Flexed unselected fingers |
Extended unselected fingers
|
|
One |
Thumb |
/ |
|
|
Index |
/ |
||
|
Middle |
|||
|
Pinkie |
/ | ||
|
Two |
Thumb+index |
||
|
Thumb+middle
|
/ |
|
|
|
Thumb + pinkie
|
/ |
||
|
Index + middle
|
/ |
||
|
Index + pinkie
|
/ |
||
|
Three |
thumb + index+ middle |
/ |
|
|
Four |
index + middle + ring + pinkie
|
/ |
|
|
Five |
thumb + index + middle + ring + pinkie |
/ |
LSC shows many examples of minimal pairs created by contrastive handshapes based on a different finger selection.
Handshape 1 and i may create minimal pairs such as the one shown below (different vs. peace).
different vs. peace
Handshape 5 and 0 may create minimal pairs such as the one shown below (slowly vs. no-one).
slowly vs. no-one
Handshape B and A may create minimal pairs such as the one shown below (always vs. work).
always vs. work
Handshape Y and U may create minimal pairs such as the one shown below (telephone vs. toilet).
telephone vs. toilet
Handshape 4 and 2 may create minimal pairs such as the one shown below (catalunya vs. es-2).
catalunya vs. es-2
Handshape 1-middle and 7 may create minimal pairs such as the one shown below (tablet vs. literature).
tablet vs. literature
Handshape 4 and A may create minimal pairs such as the one shown below (latin vs. bold).
latin vs. bold
Handshape C and 5 may create minimal pairs such as the one shown below (bus vs. fast).
bus vs. fast
Handshape 8 and B may create minimal pairs such as the one shown below (chair vs. son).
chair vs. son
Handshape 2 and 6 may create minimal pairs such as the one shown below (tidy vs. mafia).
tidy vs. mafia
Moreover, some signs in LSC may be articulated with different phonological handshapes (allophones) without any contrastive meaning giving rise to different lexical variants, like the ones shown below.
a) mother-2 vs. mother-b
b) father-2 vs. father-b
c) afternoon-b vs. afternoon-middle