Segmentation and Pinky Extension in ASL Fingerspelling

• Published in: The Segment in Phonetics and Phonology pp. 103 - 128
• Main Authors: Keane, Jonathan, Brentari, Diane, Riggle, Jason
• Format: Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 04.05.2015
• Subjects: ASL; fingerspelling segmentation; handshape variation; pinky extension coarticulation; sign language phonology
• ISBN: 9781118555408; 1118555406
• DOI: 10.1002/9781118555491.ch5

At first glance, fingerspelling as a system seems easy to segment: there are a limited number of possible segments: 26, one for each letter used to write English. These segments are executed in a temporal sequence, just like written glyphs are used in a spatial sequence. The fingerspelling is used more frequently in ASL than in other sign languages. This chapter shows one example of handshape variation found in fingerspelling: pinky extension coarticulation. A large corpus of fingerspelling is analyzed, and pinky extension coarticulation is found to be conditioned by surrounding segments with pinky extension. Finally, the chapter proposes a model of segmentation that accounts for this coarticulation, where segments in fingerspelling are not the entire configuration of the hand, but rather, only a subpart of the hand, the active part, that has been proposed in many models of sign language phonology.