Discursive and morphological processes in the formation and the stabilisation
of lexematic units in French Sign Language (LSF)
Processes of lexical formation in sign language (SL) currently classified as morphological
include lexical extension, reduplication, affixation (considered exceptional), numeral
incorporation and compounding (e.g Klima & Bellugi 1979, Brennan 1990, Johnston &
Schembri 2007). The latter, described as a productive process in SL, is generally defined as
the combination of at least two pre-existing signs into a single one. Liddell (1984, 2003)
stresses that some signs formed through compounding are in fact “portmanteau words”, since
the original compounded single signs are no longer recognizable. In addition to these
morphological processes, non-conventionalized compositional units —“productive signs” or
“classifier constructions”— which could have been described as "partly lexicalized signs"
(following Liddell 1995, 2003) — are considered as a major non-morphological source for
new lexical signs (e.g Johnston & Ferrara 2012), in addition to the many borrowing
phenomena.
We will present a typology of lexical formation processes in LSF, based on a corpus of 500
recent lexical signs showing varying degrees of stabilisation. These signs (and their numerous
variations) were selected, under the supervision of two Deaf signers, out of a corpus of 57
conversations between Deaf adults (aged 18-65) from all over France (Corpus CREAGEST
Authors 1 & 2 2011, ± 106h).
We will show the minor impact of compounding (as defined above) in LSF and on the
contrary the high productivity of other morphological processes, which can be combined. In
particular, lexical formation through the modification of one parametric component of a preexisting sign, where the global structure of this source sign is preserved in the new lexical
sign. The frequency of this process, which is not limited to signs that exhibit obvious
iconicity, attests to the deaf signers' strong epilinguistic consciousness of various types of sublexical components as morphemes, despite the conventionalized meaning of the source sign.
In addition, we will consider lexical formation involving at least one pre-existing sign,
immediately reduced to its handshape, which, however, maintains the entire meaning of the
source sign.
We will also illustrate the frequent non-morphological formation process which is based on
successive delexicalisation and relexicalisation.
Our research follows the cognitive-functionalist framework of the ‘Semiological Model’
(e.g Cuxac & Antinoro Pizzuto 2010), which identifies two major types of units in SL:
lexematic units—LU—("frozen signs") and transfer units—TU. The latter, covering both the
so-called "classifier constructions" and "constructed actions" in the literature, are
linguistically analysable into a limited set of structures linked to the “saying by showing”
mode of saying. In this context, delexicalisation, which is particularly frequent in SL
discourse, is analysed as a change in “modalité du dire” (saying mode), a change which is
signalled by the signer’s gaze. We conclude that the co-existence and dynamic interaction of
LUs and TUs, playing an important functional role in signed discourse, can account for our
typology of lexical formation processes as well as for the restricted number of LUs in SLs.
References
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