Spreading and echoing: a representational account of the non-­‐dominant hand Onno Crasborn, Els van der Kooij Radboud University Nijmegen, Centre for Language Studies During the articulation of one-­‐handed signs, a variety of linguistic activities is performed by the non-­‐dominant hand while being held steady in space: from the prosodic spreading analysed by Sandler (2006) and others to discourse markers (buoys) described by Liddell (2003). Each of these functions has been linked to the grammar of the language. The present study aims to find out what the non-­‐dominant hand does the rest of the time, investigating different types of activity other than ‘full rest on the lap’ (cf. Nilsson 2007). On the basis of a narrow transcription of corpus data of Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT), we examined a number of issues related to the presence of the non-­‐
dominant hand in signed languages. This prolongation of the final state of one hand of a sign in a ‘full hold’ has been analysed by Sandler and others as a prime piece of evidence for the presence of prosodic domains such as the phonological phrase in the organisation of sign languages, and thereby for a prosodic level of organisation more generally. However, next to these ‘full holds’, we find spreading of only some elements of final state of the preceding sign, e.g. selected fingers, setting or orientation. In this paper we propose answers to a number of new questions relating to the frequency, source, and nature of these ‘partial’ spreading processes in terms of their linguistic representation. Our conclusion is that a) partial spreading is not fundamentally different from full holds, and that b) spreading can best be analysed in terms of spreading of features of manual signs, as in traditional feature geometry analyses of assimilation, for instance (Clements 1985, Corina 1990). In addition to spreading of individual phonological features over neighbouring signs, we find frequent ‘echoing’ movements of the non-­‐dominant or ‘inactive’ hand during the articulation of a one-­‐handed sign. These echos sometimes mimick the transitional movement from sign to sign, for instance leading to an extended finger of the dominant hand that is extended on the non-­‐dominant hand as well. Alternatively, echos may mimick the lexical movement of the dominant hand, such as the rotation of the forearm. We propose a similar analysis for these forms as for spreading over time: where features are copied from the preceding sign in spreading, in the echos the non-­‐
dominant hand copies features of the dominant hand of a one-­‐handed sign. We present the occurrence and distribution of partial spreadings and echos over various signers and text types. Less spreadings and echos are found in narratives than in discussions. We analyse this in terms of a difference in prosodic structure of these different text types. The representations of surface forms of both spreading and of echoing movement are thus created by copying or spreading features, either syntagmatically (the linear context in spreading) or paradigmatically (the simultaneous context in echoing). By creating an explicit formal representation, heterogeneous phenomena such as prosodic domains, the distribution of buoys and manual echos can be analysed in a similar manner. References Clements, G. N. (1985). The geometry of phonological features. Phonology Yearbook, 2, 225-­‐252. Corina, D. (1990). Handshape assimilations in hierarchical phonological representation. In C. Lucas (Ed.), Sign language research: theoretical issues (pp. 27-­‐49). Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. Liddell, Scott K. (2003) Grammar, Gesture, and Meaning in American Sign Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nilsson, Anna-­‐Lena (2007) The Non-­‐Dominant Hand in a Swedish Sign Language Discourse. In: Crasborn, O., Leeson, L. & Vermeerbergen, M. (red.) Simultaneity in Signed Languages: Form and Function. John Benjamins Publishing Company. 163-­‐
185. Sandler, Wendy (2006) Phonology, phonetic and the non-­‐dominant hand. In: Goldstein, L., D. H. Whalen, Catherine T. Best (eds) Laboratory Phonology 8, Volume 8. De Gruijter. 185-­‐212