SCC Sign Language Linguistics Project

Documentation on natural sign languages for conlangers

Non-manuals

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Non-manuals, sometimes called Non-manual markers (NMMs) or Non-manual parameters (NMPs), are constituents like head tilt, body tilt, and facial expression that don't involve the hand in its articulation.

35.23% of documentation on 87 sign languages in the Sign Language Analyses (SLAY) database identify non-manuals as a distinctive parameter. (Tatman 2015)

Uses

Non-manuals have a diverse range of uses, even in a single sign language, marking lexical, syntactic, or prosodic information.

Even when non-manual parameters are available in a sign language, not every lexical sign specifies a non-manual. That is, there will be lexical signs that do not change their even if non-manual parameters change when saying them. (Susanne 2014) This means that lexical signs can be articulated simultaneously with morphemes that are articulated non-manually, a feature common to most sign languages.

Types

Eye gaze

Eye gaze has been observed to fill several roles. For example, eye gaze in BSL has at least five different uses for eye gaze, including: (Sutton-Spence & Woll 1999)

  • Lexical distinctions (e.g. BSL GOD vs BOSS, where GOD is articulated with upwards eye gaze)
  • Use in conjunction with location and movements of referents in space
  • Showing role shift
  • Contrasting rhetorical and echo questions with genuine questions
  • Marking time

Facial expression

Prillwitz 1985 identifies the following constituents of facial expression used in sign languages:

  • Position of the head, shoulders and torso (e.g. leaning, inclined, tense)
  • Eyebrows (e.g. raised, furrowed)
  • Eye aperture (e.g. wide open, squint, blinking)
  • Direction of eye gaze (e.g. straight ahead, aside, up/downwards)
  • Mouth (e.g. open, closed, pressed together, corners up/down, puckered, tongue)

In all known sign languages, certain facial expression on its own can have adverbial or adjectival meanings. For example, in DGS sucking in the cheeks marks diminutive while puffing out the cheeks marks augmentative.

)(
POSS FRIEND HOUSE BUY
"My friend bought a small house"
DGS Example of sucked-in-cheeks, represented by )(, marking the diminutive in Pfau & Quer 2010.

Facial expression has been observed to be an essential part of a lexical sign's phonological description for certain signs, and is often obligatory in emotion signs like HAPPY and SAD, even if other signs in the language are not be specified for facial expression. Facial expression can even define a minimal pair, such as in LSC where PITY and FALL-IN-LOVE are distinguished by a negative and positive facial expression respectively. (Pfau & Quer 2010)

A facial expression associated with the meaning expressed by a sign (e.g. a expression in BSL SAD), has been observed to spread over the rest of the sentence, such as in SAD ME WHY RABBIT DIE. The sad expression is only interrupted by the sign WHY, which has its own obligatory facial expression. (Sutton-Spence & Woll 1999)

Head movements

Mouth gestures

Echo phonology

Mouthings

References