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According to a theoretical tradition dating back to Aristotle, verbs can be classified into two broad categories. Telic verbs (e.g., “decide,” “sell,” “die”) encode a logical endpoint, whereas atelic verbs (e.g., “think,” “negotiate,” “run”) do not, and the denoted event could therefore logically continue indefinitely. Here we show that sign languages encode telicity in a seemingly universal way and moreover that even nonsigners lacking any prior experience with sign language understand these encodings. In experiments 1–5, nonsigning English speakers accurately distinguished between telic (e.g., “decide”) and atelic (e.g., “think”) signs from (the historically unrelated) Italian Sign Language, Sign Language of the Netherlands, and Turkish Sign Language. These results were not due to participants' inferring that the sign merely imitated the action in question. In experiment 6, we used pseudosigns to show that the presence of a salient visual boundary at the end of a gesture was sufficient to elicit telic interpretations, whereas repeated movement without salient boundaries elicited atelic interpretations. Experiments 7–10 confirmed that these visual cues were used by all of the sign languages studied here. Together, these results suggest that signers and nonsigners share universally accessible notions of telicity as well as universally accessible “mapping biases” between telicity and visual form.

This paper aims at investigating the syntactic behavior of cardinal numerals in Italian Sign Language (LIS). In particular, we will address the distribution of cardinals functioning as modifiers in the nominal domain. This topic will be discussed on the basis of different data sources (i.e. corpus data, elicited data, and acceptability judgments) with the purpose to benefit from the advantages of each source.

How are lexical representations retrieved during sign production? Similar to spoken languages, lexical representation in sign language must be accessed through semantics when naming pictures. However, it remains an open issue whether lexical representations in sign language can be accessed via routes that bypass semantics when retrieval is elicited by written words. Here we address this issue by exploring under which circumstances sign retrieval is sensitive to semantic context. To this end we replicate in sign language production the cumulative semantic cost: The observation that naming latencies increase monotonically with each additional within-category item that is named in a sequence of pictures. In the experiment reported here, deaf participants signed sequences of pictures or signed sequences of Italian written words using Italian Sign Language. The results showed a cumulative semantic cost in picture naming but, strikingly, not in word naming. This suggests that only picture naming required access to semantics, whereas deaf signers accessed the sign language lexicon directly (i.e., bypassing semantics) when naming written words. The implications of these findings for the architecture of the sign production system are discussed in the context of current models of lexical access in spoken language production.

The position of wh-items is one of the most striking features of the syntax of sign languages (SLs). In contrast to spoken languages, where wh-words are generally found either clause-initially or in situ, SLs allow wh-signs in situ, in clause-final position (preferred for many SLs), or repeated in two different positions of the clause. Moreover, in many cases all these options coexist in the same language (and even within a single signer). Several proposals in the theoretical literature showed how grammars are able to generate such constructions; however, none of the proposals addresses the issue of what factors determine the choice of these options. We present corpus evidence showing that both linguistic and social factors constrain the distribution of wh-signs in LIS (Lingua dei Segni Italiana, Italian Sign Language). The result of multivariate analysis suggests that LIS is undergoing a grammatical change and becoming less like spoken Italian with respect to the position of wh-signs.

This paper focuses on those wh-questions in Italian Sign Language (LIS) featuring two lexically identical wh-signs. We show that wh1 (the first wh in linear order) is shorter than wh2 (the second wh in liner order). However, there is evidence that this different duration is due to a phrase-final lengthening, as wh2 occupies a sentence-final position. We therefore conclude that the two wh-signs are identical full copies: one sitting in Spec,CP on the right in LIS and the other one sitting in Spec,FocP on the left. We show that this construction yields a (focused) cleft question interpretation and we speculate that both copies are phonologically realized because the wh-signs in Spec,CP and Spec,FocP are the heads of two distinct chains. Finally, we distinguish identical wh-duplication from improper wh-duplication, namely cases where one of the two wh-elements is what we call qartichoke, an underspecified interrogative sign only surfacing in wh-questions.

Most studies on narrative competence have focused on monolingual subjects, and there are very few studies which address this issue in bilingual subjects dealing with two language systems. In the present case study we analyzed and compared the textual and narrative written skills of three deaf and three hearing adolescents attending eighth grade at a bilingual school (Italian and Italian Sign Language), characterized by a pragmatic approach to writing (based on production and the interpretation of texts in genuine and meaningful situations).Their competences were assessed through a well-known narrative task, the Frog Story (Mayer, 1969), and the following parameters were examined: complex syntax, narrative structure and evaluation devices. Results show that there were not significant differences in the texts written by the deaf students compared to the hearing students and that being immersed in a bilingual context did not interfere with the development of textual and narrative competence in either hearing or deaf students.

By providing evidence that sign language is an autonomous language, research has contributed to various changes both within and beyond the signing communities. The aim of this article is to show an example of how sign language change is driven not only by language internal factors but also by changes in language perception, as well as in the changing groups of users and the contexts of use. Drawing from data collected at a sign language research centre in Italy on Italian Sign Language during a time span of over thirty years, the present study will show how language research was a major impetus for a new linguistic awareness and changes in language attitude has influenced new linguistic practices and has forced Italian signers to think about rules governing the use of their language.

This paper presents the prototype and the preliminary evaluation of an automatic translation system developed in the LIS4ALL project. The system domain is the corpus of railway station announcements in Italian. The output of the system is a 3D animated avatar that signs announcements in Italian Sign Language. The preliminary evaluation, which measures the accuracy of the translations at the sentence level, relies through the BLEU-RAC4 metric, a variant of the traditional BLEU metric used to evaluate Machine Translation, specifically designed for sentence level evaluation. The aim of the evaluation is to compare the LIS4ALL translation outputs with the human counterparts.

By providing evidence that sign language is an autonomous language, research has contributed to various changes both within and beyond the signing communities. The aim of this paper is to show an example of how sign language change is driven not only by language internal factors but also by changes in language perception, as well as in the changing groups of users and the contexts of use. Drawing from data collected at a sign language research center in Italy on Italian Sign Language during a time span of over thirty years, the present study will show how language research was a major impetus for a new linguistic awareness and changes in language attitude has influenced new linguistic practices and has forced Italian signers to think about rules governing the use of their language.

We analyze a hitherto undescribed case of ellipsis in Italian Sign Language (LIS) and show that it has common properties with VP ellipsis in languages like English. For example, the ellipsis site can contain a wh-trace and semantic restrictions on the type of predicate that can be omitted are only derivative. We thus propose a phonological deletion approach for the LIS construction. We also consider the issue of how the content of the ellipsis site is recovered from its linguistic antecedent. We present new arguments for a syntactic identity condition, although a limited number of mismatches between the ellipsis site and its antecedent, notably including vehicle change cases, must be accommodated.

CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS INVOLVE a structure-preserving mapping between a concrete domain of thought (the source domain) and an abstract domain of thought (the target domain) (Lakoff and Turner 1989; LakofF and Johnson 1999). They are grounded in our everyday experience and are fundamental to our conception of the world (LakofF and Johnson 1980, 1999). The past two decades have brought a groundswell of interest in and research on metaphors in sign languages. Research conducted on American Sign Language (e.g., Boyes-Braem 1981; Grushkin 1998; Holtemann 1990; Taub 2001; Wilbur 1987; P. Wilcox 1993, 2000), British Sign Language (e.g., Brennan 1990), and Italian Sign Language (e.g., Russo 2000), among others, constitutes comprehensive efforts to show the pervasiveness of conceptual metaphors in sign languages. However, whereas metaphorical linguistic expressions in spoken language consist of one mapping, metaphorical items in sign languages use two mappings (Holtemann 1990; Taub 2001; P. Wilcox 1993). Numerous signs for abstract concepts-ideas, emotions, communication, and so on-incorporate a visual image of a concrete thing or activity. That is, in order to name or describe abstract concepts metaphorically, sign languages use a large array of iconic linguistic items for concrete shapes, locations, and movements. Boyes-Braem (1981) refers to these as "morphophonemic primes," Brennan (1990) as "visual metaphors," and Taub (2001) as "iconic image-schematic items." For example, COMPRENDRE ("to understand") in Catalan Sign Language gives a visual depiction of communication as objects moving from one person to another. Jarque (1999) argues that the domains of communicating ideas and throwing objects are linked for the LSC signer. An idea corresponds to an object; telling or explaining the idea corresponds to throwing the object to someone; and understanding the idea corresponds to catching the object. Brennan postulates the special relevance of iconicity: "The strong intuition that even signs with highly abstract referents show some link between form and meaning is given support once we realize that metaphorical relationships can operate across a wide range of meanings" (1990, 24-25). In cognitive linguistics, iconicity is characterized as a mapping between certain formal features of the expression of a sign (or a sublexical component of the sign) and some features of the meaning of this sign (or a sublexical component) or, as S. Wilcox (1999) points out, between our mental conceptions of a linguistic item's form and its meaning. According to Taub (2001, 67) and S. Wilcox (1999), iconicity in sign languages is based on the following: * OUR PERCEPTION OF HANDS, ARMS, AND FINGERS AS HAVING SHAPES, LOCATIONS, AND MOVEMENT * OUR ABILITY TO CONSTRUE SHAPES FROM THE PATH THAT A MOVING OBJECT TRACES IN SPACE * OUR KNOWLEDGE THAT A SIGNER'S BODY IS A HUMAN BODY * OUR ABILITY TO REORGANIZE THE BODY MOVEMENTS THAT GO ALONG WITH PARTICULAR ACTIVITIES * OUR PERCEPTION THAT BODY GESTURES TAKE PLACE IN TIME AND SPACE * OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE MOVEMENTS OF SIGNING ITSELF Taub provides a general framework and a set of tools for the precise description, modeling, and analysis of iconic linguistic items-the "analogue-building" model of iconicity. Specifically, she points out that metaphorical signs are shaped by two mappings: a metaphorical one from concrete to abstract conceptual domains and an iconic one between the concrete source domain and the linguistic forms that represent it (2001, 97). The target domain is presented using an iconic depiction of the source domain. For example, consider the LSC linguistic expression COMPRENDRE mentioned earlier. Table 1 sets out the correspondences between articulators, source, and target domains. The dominant hand displays a spread open 5 handshape (HS), and the palm orientation (PO), facing the addressee's locus, closes to an S handshape and moves toward the signer. …

COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS EMBRACES a powerful notion of conceptual embodiment that reveals metaphoric creativity in spoken and signed languages. Since Aristotle's time and until fairly recently, metaphors have been thought of as flowery frills that emerge as colorful expressions in our daily language. Traditionally, metaphors were considered to be tropes or figures of speech and were to be avoided for argumentation purposes since they were "nonliteral" (Centner and Jeziorski 1993, 448). More recently, however, metaphor has been recognized as a systematic conceptual thought process, or, as Lakoff and Johnson view it, "metaphor means metaphorical concept" (2003, 6). Their research has helped to generate a body of work showing that metaphor is "shaped to a significant extent by the common nature of our bodies and the shared ways that we all function in the everyday world" (ibid., 245). Although there are fundamental differences in defining metaphor (Stern 2000; Dirven and Porings 2002; Kittay 1987), LakofTand Johnson's contemporary experiential theory provides a strong basis for understanding the cross-domain mappings discussed in this article. Jakel argues for the metaphorical concept of mind in a cognitive model by asserting that "most of the structure of our model of mental activity is supplied by two extremely productive image schemata: the 'container' schema and the 'manipulation' schema'" (1995, 219). Two metaphors entrenched in spoken English as well as American Sign Language (ASL) are MIND is A CONTAINER and IDEAS ARE OBJECTS. Metaphorical mapping operates on these two conceptual metaphors in a way that permits us to conceive of our brains as containers filled with mental items. We cannot literally move thoughts or ideas, but we can visualize them as objects, and physical objects in our surroundings can be manipulated and moved. Conversely, ideas take on a metaphorical frame by being moved conceptually in our minds. Ordinary language behavior in ASL reveals parallel cognitive structures that are both similar to and different from spoken-language behavior. This article focuses on the metaphorical similarities between English and ASL that are found in the metaphors MIND is A CONTAINER and IDEAS ARE OBJECTS. We also look at the differences in metaphor conceptualization that can be demonstrated through UNDERSTANDING is GRASPING, a countervailing metaphor that is commonly mapped in English but is not prevalently found in ASL. Several other languages that evoke UNDERSTANDING is GRASPING are discussed, including British Sign Language (BSL), Catalan Sign Language (LSC), Italian Sign Language (LIS), and, to a certain extent, French Sign Language (LSF).1 Iconic Brain and Metaphorical Brain In ASL, handshapes lend themselves to metaphorical constructs through their phonological forms and productive morphemes. The handshape icons not only reveal iconicity that is prevalent in spoken languages (Armstrong 1983; Bybee 1985; Fauconnier 1985; Langacker 1991; Givon 1991; Haiman 1985) but also use the corresponding movements to add visual images to the linguistic spectrum. ASL phonemes and morphemes are isomorphic, with corresponding handshapes having the same appearance of form.2 However, it is important to distinguish between iconic and metaphoric conceptual relationships. For example, an isomorphic use of two cupped hands can show, through mimetic behavior, the brain of a person who was killed in a car accident. The cupped hands indicate the approximate size of the victim's brain and skull. The purely isomorphic imitation of the skull that is flapped up and off of a victim's brain represents the approximation between the size and shape of the hands and the skull in question. On the other hand, a metaphorical skull shows the physical source and abstract target schema that are evoked when using the same handshape combination just described. This second case of iconicity is identified in a situation that occurred when a consultant described seeing a few deaf friends teasing each other at a party. …

A KEY DEFINITIONAL FEATURE of metaphors is that they make it possible to talk about a particular topic with terms usually related to a very different subject. For example, if someone says, "Jerry's mental wheels are oiled," we understand that the person is talking about the mind of someone in terms that are usually used for talking about machines.1 Researchers in the contemporary theory of metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson 1999; Fauconnier and Turner 2002) explain this phenomenon as the result of a cross-domain mapping between two different conceptual domains. To process the metaphor "Jerry's mental wheels are oiled," we need an understanding of some of the key properties of the mind's domain (the target of the metaphor) that our experience of the machine's domain (the source of the metaphor) can provide. In recent theoretical accounts of metaphors (Ortony 1979; Keysar and Glucksberg 1989; Turner and Fauconnier 1995), much effort has been devoted to determining which constraints limit and govern metaphorical cross-domain mappings (i.e., not every domain can be mapped onto every other, and some cross-domain mappings are perceived as meaningless). Context, cultural presuppositions, and universal human experiences play an important role in determining which domains can be mapped onto which others. According to Lakoffandjohnson (1999), metaphors are rooted in prelinguistic bodily experiences that lead children who are acquiring language to a conflation of different semantic and cognitive domains. From this point of view, different cultures construct different metaphors that stem from these same experiences. I argue that we can construe signed language metaphors as products of prelinguistic experiences that are probably universal for deaf people but do not completely overlap with those experienced by speakers of vocal languages. In addition, signed language metaphors can also be characterized as intrinsically related to aspects of the particular linguistic and cultural dimensions to which they belong in a particular Deaf community. I suggest that the shared cultural knowledge of Italian deaf signers plays a relevant role in the making and understanding of metaphoric cross-domain mappings in Italian Sign Language (LIS). Another important topic is the role that the iconic features of signs may play in metaphor production. In recent discussions of signed language metaphors, much attention has been devoted to the interplay of iconicity and metaphors (Brennan 1992; Russo 2000; Wilcox 2000; Taub 2001). Although iconic and metaphorical phenomena in signed languages must be given separate theoretical accounts, the interplay of iconicity and metaphors in signed language discourse has a key role in metaphor creation and understanding. Iconicity and Metaphor in Signed Languages Iconicity refers to a regular mapping of some of the formal features of the meaning of a sign (or of a sublexical component) onto some of the formal features of the expression of a sign (or sublexical component). This correspondence is generally inherent in the language system but can also be productively established in a set of utterances. It is possible to distinguish between two kinds of iconicity: frozen (dormant) and productive (dynamic) (Russo, Giuranna, and Pizzuto [2001]; Russo [2004]). Frozen iconicity affects the relations between form and meaning that can be found in the sublexical, lexical, and grammatical structures of signs when they are abstracted from a particular utterance and considered in their citation form. In signed language literature, this kind of iconicity has been much debated (Klima and Bellugi 1979; Boyes Braem 1981; Pizzuto and Volterra 2000; Pietrandrea 2002; Taub 2000, 2001). It has often been argued that the iconic features of the citation forms of signs do not contrast with the inherent linguistic character of signed languages. The second type, dynamic iconicity, affects the correlation between forms and meanings that can be established in particular utterances, according to a particular textual and situational context. …

In this paper I explore the role of gesture in the development of signed languages. Using data from American Sign Language, Catalan Sign Language, French Sign Language, and Italian Sign Language, as well as historical sources describing gesture in the Mediterranean region, I demonstrate that gesture enters the linguistic system via two distinct routes. In one, gesture serves as a source of lexical and grammatical morphemes in signed languages. In the second, elements become directly incorporated into signed language morphology, bypassing the lexical stage. Finally, I propose a unifying framework for understanding the gesture-language interface in signed and spoken languages.

Sign Language Research Contributes to a Better Understanding of Language Acquisition, A Review of Directions in Sign Language Acquisition Directions in Sign Language Acquisition, edited by Gary Morgan and Bencie Woll (Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2002. 339 pp. Hardcover $60.00. ISBN 9-027234-72-8 [Europe], 1-58811-235-7 [United States]) Directions in Sign Language Acquisition is a collection of current research studies that emphasizes the ways in which knowledge about sign language acquisition can contribute to a better understanding of language and the way in which children acquire it. Inspired by presentations and workshops at the 1999 Congress of the International Association for the Study of Child Language, the book is published as part of this organization's "Trends in Language Acquisition Research" series. The introduction, by editors Morgan and WoIl, provides an excellent framework for the studies included in the book. The background information and terminology they discuss are also very helpful for readers who are not familiar with sign languages. Morgan and WoIl emphasize that these studies support diversity in theoretical and methodological approaches, in languages studied, and in the geographical and academic backgrounds of the contributors. This diversity generally contributes to broadening the scope of the text, but it also restricts connections between some of the chapters. Although the editors claim that the emphasis of the reported studies is both theoretical and practical, the primary focus is on theory, and readers must extract the applications. The first chapter, by Marschark, is a review of research on early language development. It is very thorough and provides an excellent conceptual framework for the book but does not introduce any new research. Marschark clearly introduces the role of gesture as a theme that later chapters also address. Another key point he makes is that researchers need to view language as more than a linguistic system and consider it as a social-communicative system. Analysis must go beyond the grammatical structures and features of a language and include the context and interactions in which they occur. In the second chapter Kamopp provides a description of phonological development in Brazilian Sign Language. Unfortunately, the theoretical background is not written in enough detail for nonphonologists or non-sign-language researchers to follow. he concludes that location and movement features are acquired earlier and more accurately in children's production of signs, whereas the process of acquiring handshapes is slower and involves more errors. These findings are similar to what Marentette (199$) discovered in studying phonological acquisition in American Sign Language. In the third chapter Hoiting and Slobin introduce the use of the Berkeley Transcription System (BTS) as a tool for sign language research. They imply that using the same standards as the rest of the language acquisition ReId adds credibility to research in sign language acquisition. This also acknowledges transcription as a necessary tool. Hoiting and Slobin state that a transcription system should be designed to answer the questions we have. For example, it is not necessary to focus on detailed phonology when this is not the major interest of the research. Since the point of this chapter is to describe the new tool, they only briefly mention studies in which the BTS was used. In chapter four Pizzuto discusses research regarding the development of Italian Sign Language in preschool children. She presents a broad spectrum of findings and information, but because of disorganization in her writing some ofhcr points are difficult to follow. Her primary emphasis is on the variability that occurs in children's use of grammatical structures. She accounts for this unevenness in several ways. First, inflectional morphology in signed languages is highly variable because it is often optional, which makes acquisition slow and irregular. …

IN THIS ARTICLE I focus on the linguistic features of three Italian Sign Language (Lingua Italiana dei Segni; LIS) registers to show to what extent iconic features of signs are relevant to the level of signed language discourse. This work is intended as a contribution to the understanding of iconic phenomena in signed languages through the analysis of different sign language registers. Before defining broad concepts such as "iconic" and "iconicity," I would like to discuss the relevance of iconicity for an understanding of sign language linguistic structure. Recent literature presents at least two main perspectives on iconicity in signed languages: One of these maintains that, although iconic features of signs play a significant psychological role in the storing and memorizing of signs, they are not linguistically relevant. Proponents of this position disagree with the idea that signed languages are similar to pantomimes or other nonlinguistic iconic forms of communication. Klima and Bellugi, for example, in their influential work (The Signs of Language 1979), discuss the "insignificance of iconicity in processing signs" (27), and a large number of well-known studies of signed language (SL) grammars (e.g., Supalla 1982; Wilbur 1987) draw similar conclusions. This point of view has recently been reiterated by Baker, Dye, and Woll (2001). On the other hand, a second position has recently demonstrated the relevance of iconic features of signs at different levels of the grammatical and lexical structure of signed languages (Taub 1998; Wilcox 2000). This position is influenced by works in the functionalist and cognitivist frameworks, which stress the role of iconicity as a central feature in the study of human language (Haiman 1983, 1985; Givon 1979, 1989; Dressler 1995; Du Bois 1987; Waugh 1993; Fonagy 1983). Armstrong, Stokoe, and Wilcox (1995), for example, in their study of the role that sign languages might have played in the origin of human language, underline the role of the iconic features of sign language phonology in their "semantic phonology" proposal. Recently, in a different framework, Crasborn, van der Hulst, and van de Kooij (2000) also stress the relevance of iconic features at the interface between phonology and morphology. I suggest that, by determining optional choices regarding the connection of signs in a particular utterance, iconicity is a relevant linguistic feature of signed languages not only at the morphophonological and lexical levels but also at the level of discourse. From this point of view the different role that iconicity plays in vocal and signed languages cannot lead, in any sense, to questioning the linguistic status of signed languages; on the contrary that role can help us extend our knowledge of the similarities and differences between two different language types, spoken and signed, both of which iconic features affect to some extent. Iconicity in Spoken and Signed Languages The current literature on spoken and signed languages offers many contrasting definitions of the term iconicity. In the philosophical tradition (at least from Plato's Cratylus [1995, p. 422e]) the term iconic primarily indicates a relation of similarity between the expressive form and the referent of a sign, regardless of whether linguistic or nonlinguistic. The linguistic tradition generally distinguishes between two different kinds of iconic signs: (1) onomatopoeic/ phonosymbolic signs of different types and (2) motivated signs. Onomatopoeic signs, such as the English word meow, which refers to a cat's cry, refer to a concrete perceptual object that is evoked via the acoustical image suggested by the expression of the sign. Motivated signs, on the other hand, are generally considered iconic only in a much more mediated way. Motivated signs are signs whose expressive form mirrors the existence of semantic associations that are active either in the language system or in the grammar. …

Sign linguistics has always had to deal with the notion of iconicity because sign languages are much more iconic than vocal languages. Formal sign linguists have often tried to explain iconicity apart from descriptions of sign language, considering it as contradictory to the arbitrariness that must rule language organization as a natural consequence of the autonomy and the separateness of language. More recently, functional sign linguists have highlighted the presence of iconicity as a function of the peculiar visual-gestural modality of sign languages. This article provides quantitative information on the incidence of iconicity in the lexicon of Italian Sign Language (LIS). It observes how the principles of arbitrariness govern the great amount of iconicity that occurs in the LIS lexicon. It also tries to interpret both the high incidence of iconicity and the necessary presence of arbitrariness as responses to a deep need for economy. In order to explain why the arbitrary organization of the LIS lexicon does not prevent a high incidence of iconicity, I propose a revisited notion of arbitrariness based on Saussure’s original formulation of arbitrariness.

Normal communication of deaf people in ordinary life still remains an unrealized task, despite the fact that Sign Language Recognition (SLR) made a big improvement in recent years. We want here to address this problem proposing a portable and low cost system, which demonstrated to be effective for translating gestures into written or spoken sentences. This system relies on a home-made sensory glove, used to measure the hand gestures, and on Wavelet Analysis (WA) and a Support Vector Machine (SVM) to classify the hand's movements. In particular we devoted our efforts to translating the Italian Sign Language (LIS, Linguaggio Italiano dei Segni), applying WA for feature extractions and SVM for the classification of one hundred different dynamic gestures. The proposed system is light, not intrusive or obtrusive, to be easily utilized by deaf people in everyday life, and it has demonstrated valid results in terms of signs/words conversion.

One of the most important challenges for embodied and grounded theories of cognition concerns the representation of abstract concepts, such as "freedom". Many embodied theories of abstract concepts have been proposed. Some proposals stress the similarities between concrete and abstract concepts showing that they are both grounded in perception and action system while other emphasize their difference favouring a multiple representation view. An influential view proposes that abstract concepts are mapped to concrete ones through metaphors. Furthermore, some theories underline the fact that abstract concepts are grounded in specific contents, as situations, introspective states, emotions. These approaches are not necessarily mutually exclusive, since it is possible that they can account for different subsets of abstract concepts and words. One novel and fruitful way to understand the way in which abstract concepts are represented is to analyze how sign languages encode concepts into signs. In the present paper we will discuss these theoretical issues mostly relying on examples taken from Italian Sign Language (LIS, Lingua dei Segni Italiana), the visual-gestural language used within the Italian Deaf community. We will verify whether and to what extent LIS signs provide evidence favoring the different theories of abstract concepts. In analyzing signs we will distinguish between direct forms of involvement of the body and forms in which concepts are grounded differently, for example relying on linguistic experience. In dealing with the LIS evidence, we will consider the possibility that different abstract concepts are represented using different levels of embodiment. The collected evidence will help us to discuss whether a unitary embodied theory of abstract concepts is possible or whether the different theoretical proposals can account for different aspects of their representation.

This work presents the development and testing of BAR LIS (BAR in Italian Sign Language), a web application created in collaboration with the Ancona division of Ente Nazionale Sordi (ENS) and presented during X Masters Awards 2012 event in Senigallia, Italy. BAR LIS was structured as a small dictionary of words and related signs in LIS, Italian Sign Language (presented as 3D rendered animations) in order to ease communication between people attending the X Masters event and hearing impaired personnel of the ENS stall, which included a small coffee shop. A more extensive set of words was later created and tested with ENS members in order to study the impact of resolution of 3D models on comprehensibility and quality of the signs.

The chapter reports further sparse evidence favouring the WAT theory showing that linguistic information plays a major role for the representation of abstract concepts. We start illustrating a computational linguistic study that indicates that a rich linguistic context is more relevant for abstract than for concrete concepts (Recchia and Jones 2012). We then turn to the analysis of examples taken from the Italian Sign Language (LIS) that shows that for signs referring to abstract concepts (e.g., “literature,” “philosophy,” and “truth”), strategies based on the exploitation of language such as initialization are used (Gianfreda et al. in press; Borghi et al., submitted). The larger part of the chapter is dedicated to the review of cross-linguistic studies. The aim of this review is to provide support to one of the main tenets of the WAT proposal, i.e., the hypothesis that abstract concepts are more influenced by linguistic variability. The analysis takes into account concepts that can be considered as progressively more abstract: it starts with studies on concrete objects as containers, then it focuses on motion and locomotion verbs, on spatial relations, and then it turns to studies on abstract entities such as “time” and “number,” and on abstract verbs such as mental states verbs. The evidence reported suggests indeed that the differences between different languages influence more conceptual representation of abstract concepts than of concrete ones.

We describe an educational experience designed to teach Italian Sign Language (LIS) to a group of hearing children. The hypothesis underlying this experience was that learning a visual-gestural language such as LIS may improve children's attentional abilities, visual discrimination, and spatial memory. To examine this hypothesis, we conducted two studies. The first involved an educational experience lasting two years with a group of hearing children attending a Sign Language class from first to second grade. The Raven PM 47 TEST was administered at the beginning and at the end of each school year to children attending the LIS classes and to a control group of children enrolled in the same school but not exposed to LIS. The second study involved an educational experience in first grade. The Raven PM 47 and Corsi's block tapping tests were administered at the beginning and at the end of the school year to the children attending the LIS classes, to children enrolled in the same school but at tending an English class, and to children not exposed to a second language. We found that in both studies the LIS group performed better than the other groups. These results suggest that learning a sign language may lead to a cognitive advancement in hearing children.

This work proposes a preliminary study of an automatic recognition system for the Italian Sign Language (Lingua Italiana dei Segni - LIS). Several other attempts have been made in the literature, but they are typically oriented to international languages. The system is composed of a feature extraction stage, and a sign recognition stage. Each sign is represeted by a single Hidden Markov Model, with parameters estimated through the resubstitution method. Then, starting from a set of features related to the position and the shape of head and hands, the Sequential Forward Selection technique has been applied to obtain feature vectors with the minimum dimension and the best recognition performance. Experiments have been performed using the cross-validation method on the Italian Sign Language Database A3LIS-147, maintaining the orthogonality between training and test sets. The obtained recognition accuracy averaged across all signers is 47.24%, which represents an encouraging result and demonstrates the effectiveness of the idea.

This paper presents the architecture of a translator from written Italian into Italian Sign Language. We describe the main features of the four modules of this architecture, i.e. a dependency parser for Italian, an ontology based semantic interpreter, a generator based on expert-systems and combinatory categorial grammars, a planner to position signs in space. The result of this translation chain is signed by a virtual character. Finally, we report the results of a first "intrinsic" experiment for the evaluation of translation quality.

It has been reported that in at least some sign languages such as ASL, nominal signs possess little or no inflectional morphology. Previous analyses of Italian Sign Language (LIS), have shown that LIS nouns exhibit some inflectional properties, and these influence the behavior of verbs. Most of these data, however, were limited to one variety of LIS used in Palermo, Sicily. The purpose of the present paper is twofold: (1) to provide new data on LIS nominal morphology, extending our analyses to other varieties of LIS used in such different Italian cities as Rome and Trieste, and thus assessing the generalizability of previous findings on the topic; (2) to explore whether there is any significant interaction between nominal morphology and classifier predicates. In order to achieve our objectives, we analyze and describe spontaneous and elicited productions of nominal signs, and judgements of grammatical acceptability given by native LIS signers over sentences containing different classes of nominal signs, in different contexts (with inflecting/or noninflecting verbs; with classifier-predicates). Examining our findings in a cross-linguistic perspective, we then attempt to clarify whether the data on LIS provide indications concerning the role of modality-specific vs. language-specific factors in shaping the lexicon and morphology of a particular sign language.

Sign Languages (SL) do not have a written form and most of the systems intended to represent them have shown many failures. This study is focused on SignWriting (SW), which seems to be the best system, among the existing ones, to represent the forms of SL. The aim of this work is to understand how, despite the apparent complexity of the system, SW appears to be so easy to use; moreover, this work wants to show SW capacities as a tool to encourage metalinguistic observations on LIS. At first the system itself is analyzed as well as its most common problems. This approach outlines most of these difficulties, allowing to understand them, which in turn favors the development of the system. Users’ observations cover not only the system itself but also its adequacy for the writing of SL, highlighting its potential to raise metalinguistic thinking. The final part of the analysis is dedicated to the proposals for some improvements of SW, on the basis of the data gathered and the analysis carried out. These improvements aim at teaching and informatization of SW. In conclusion, SW seems to be a promising system, effective to represent the forms of SL, despite some problems and the need for improvements.; Les Langues des signes (LS) ne possèdent pas de forme écrite et la plupart des systèmes élaborés pour leur représentation souffrent de nombreuses lacunes. Cette étude se concentre sur SignWriting (SW), le système qui semble représenter le mieux les formes des LS. Ce travail a pour but de comprendre comment, face à l’apparente complexité du système, SW s'avère d'un emploi facile; de plus, il vise à exposer les capacités de SW en tant qu’outil pour promouvoir les réflexions métalinguistiques sur la LIS. En premier lieu est analysé le système lui-même et les problématiques plus fréquentes. Cette approche regroupe et amène à comprendre une partie de ces difficultés, favorisant ainsi le développement du système. Les considérations des utilisateurs visent aussi bien le système que ses aptitudes pour l’écriture de la LS, en soulignant ses potentialités à inspirer des réflexions métalinguistiques. La conclusion de l’analyse est consacrée aux propositions visant l'amélioration de SW, sur la base des données et des analyses effectuées, en vue de son enseignement et de son informatisation. En conclusion, SW se révèle comme un système riche en possibilités et efficace pour la représentation des formes des LS, en dépit de problématiques importantes et de la nécessité d’améliorations.; Le Lingue dei Segni (LS) sono prive di una forma scritta e la maggior parte dei sistemi elaborati per la loro rappresentazione ha mostrato numerose lacune. Questo studio si concentra su SignWriting (SW), che tra tutti sembra meglio riuscire a rappresentare le forme delle LS. Scopo del lavoro è capire come, a fronte di un’apparente complessità del sistema, SW risulti così facile da usare; inoltre, esso mira a mostrare le capacità di SW come strumento per promuovere le riflessioni metalinguistiche sulla LIS. Dapprima viene analizzato il sistema stesso ma anche le sue principali problematiche. Tale approccio raggruppa e porta a comprendere gran parte di tali difficoltà, favorendo quindi lo sviluppo del sistema. Le considerazioni degli utenti spaziano sia sul sistema che sulle sue attitudini per la scrittura della LS, sottolineandone la potenzialità a suscitare riflessioni metalinguistiche. La parte finale dell’analisi è dedicata a proposte di migliorie per SW, basate sui dati e le analisi effettuate, sia in vista del suo insegnamento che della sua informatizzazione. In conclusione, SW appare come un sistema ricco di possibilità ed efficace per rappresentare le forme delle LS, nonostante alcuni problemi rilevanti e la necessità di miglioramento.

In this work a new video database of Italian Sign Language (Lingua Italiana dei Segni - LIS) is proposed. Several other attempts have been made in the literature, but they are typically oriented to international languages (like the American Sign Language - ASL). As in speech, also this kind of language presents different peculiarities strictly depending on the geographical location where it is used. The authors have firstly observed that a specific database for LIS is missing and this shoved them to develop the one here presented. It has been conceived to be used in Automatic Sign Recognition and Synthesis (often referred as Automatic Translation into Sign Languages) applications, which represent an important technological opportunity to augment the social inclusion of people with severe hearing impairments. The Database, namely A3LIS-147, is free and available for download.

International audience; no abstract

Si è approfondito l'aspetto metaforico dei Segni, basandosi su studi di linguistica cognitiva, portati avanti da George Lakoff sulla base di lingue vocali ed applicato alle espressioni metaforiche, prendendo in esame gli elementi della sintassi. La linguistica cognitiva, secondo Lakoff, studia la costruzione di espressioni linguistiche che fanno riferimento a dei processi cognitivi alla base dei quali sono presenti delle Metafore Concettuali, ossia l'organizzazione coerente delle esperienze, grazie alle quali può essere costruita la frase astratta. Allo stesso modo si è analizzata la costruzione dei singoli segni, che presuppongono lo stesso meccanismo compiuto per lo studio delle metafore concettuali. La teoria nasce dall'ipotesi che i Segni siano composti da unità minime dotate di significato iconico che influenzano in maniera pregnante di volta in volta i vari Segni dando origine a dei Modelli Concettuali specifici. I vari Segni, poi, possono ancora essere riuniti in Strategie Cognitive che, secondo la teoria di Pierce denominata "Categorie: Primità, Secondità,e Terzità", sono paragonate a delle forme mentali. Le "Categorie" di Pierce sono state rivisitate in ottica segnica e rinominate: "Forma", "Azione" e "Ratio"; quest'ultima ulteriormente suddivisa in "Proiezione", "Contenenza Palmare", "Contenenza Spaziale" e "Trasparenza". Sono stati somministrati dei test a 3 categorie di persone: Sordi Segnanti, Udenti Segnanti e Udenti non Segnanti. Sulla base dell'analisi dei risultati l'ipotesi è stata confermata, come da allegati. Si sono analizzati i vari Cheremi presenti in specifici segni e suddivisi sulla base delle categorie rivisitate di Pierce, fornendo per ciascun Cherema un esempio di Segno con la spiegazione e l'etimologia dello stesso dotandolo, talvolta, anche della metafora sottesa. Sono state inserite anche le Componenti Non Manuali tra i Cheremi, facendo riferimento allo studio di Ekman e Friesen in: "Unmaskingthe face: a guide to recognizing emotions from facial clues". Infine sono stati scomposti 95 Segni suddividendoli sulla base delle metafore e delle Strategie Cognitive. Di seguito si riporta qualche esempio. Parola/segno: Guerra L'iconicità delle configurazioni rappresenta le armi che si utilizzano in guerra, così come l'orientamento delle punte delle dita, che varia a seconda del discorso. L'Iconicità del movimento rappresenta a pieno l'azione dello sparare, assunto a Modello Concettuale. E di conseguenza la Strategia Cognitiva risulta essere proprio l'azione. Parola/segno: Mare L'Iconicità della Configurazione denota la posizione delle stesse sull'acqua durante il nuoto. L'Orientamento del palmo rivolto verso il basso indica la presenza del liquido al di sotto. Il Modello Concettuale è rappresentato dal nuotare e la Strategia Cognitiva dall'Azione del nuotare. Parola/segno: brillante Le iconicità del Segno brillante inteso come gioiello rivelano a pieno il luccichio dei raggi di un anello con un brillante. Pur non avendo doppia articolazione il segno brillante rientra nella Ratio Proiezione perché l'unione delle iconicità dei vari parametri riconducono ad un Modello Concettuale basato su luccichio e raggi, che riportano ad un emissione di senso tipico della proiezione. Parola/segno: libro Le iconicità del Segno libro riportano ad un oggetto con una consistenza rigida e piena che consente una propria apertura ed all'interno del quale sono presenti degli elementi visibili al segnante. Gli elementi visibili sono le parole scritte sulle pagine del libro che possono essere presenti solo sul palmo della mano e mai sul dorso. In questo segno la Strategia Cognitiva, Contenenza Palmare, è lampante. Essa infatti, deriva dal Modello che richiama una superficie sulla quale sono presenti degli elementi. Parola/segno: mura Il Segno mura è inteso come cinta fortificata che circonda le città storiche. È chiaro il Modello Concettuale di barriera, ossia il limite invalicabile e fortificato delle città. Le Iconicità dei Parametri esprimono a pieno l'idea di una lastra che crea un limite tra ciò che è all'esterno (dal dorso delle mani in avanti) e ciò che è all'interno (lo spazio compreso tra il palmo delle mani ed il corpo del segnante). La specularità delle punte delle dita dimostra l'unitarietà, la continuità dell'elemento segnato, ossia la continuità delle mura. A seconda dell'estensione del Movimento l'Iconicità esprime la dimensione delle mura. Le Strategie sono la Forma piena, consistente ed ampia e la Contenenza Spaziale. Parola/segno: vento Così come aria il segno vento ha la stessa configurazione che però in questo caso rappresenta l'aumento dell'ossigeno precedente che associato all'orientamento speculare della mano crea l'immagine di correnti d'aria che attraversano lo spazio che separa le dita. In questo caso il modello oltre ad essere l'impalpabilità è il movimento che il vento compie. E quindi la Strategia Cognitiva è rappresentata dell'Azione che compie il vento nel suo muoversi e la Ratio Trasparenza. In conclusione, si ritiene che segni derivano, da basi iconiche naturali che hanno subito nel tempo una trasformazione, anch'essa naturale, sviluppando delle caratteristiche, costantemente iconiche, rintracciabili attraverso i Parametri, anziché essere costruiti artificialmente su basi iconiche e/o simboliche preesistenti. Su queste convinzioni si può quindi affermare che tutte le Lingue dei Segni abbiano uno sviluppo iconico naturale, in quanto il canale comunicativo che utilizzano fin dalla notte dei tempi è quello visivo con percezione simbolica., No abstract available, Giuseppe Amorini ; Luigi Lerose, Abweichender Titel laut Übersetzung der Verfasserin/des Verfassers, Klagenfurt, Alpen-Adria-Univ., Diss., 2012, Ehrenwörtl. Erklärung in engl. Sprache

Profound and severe deafness in infants negatively affects spoken language acquisition. To date, many clinicians suggest cochlear implant and an oral education, with the exclusion of sign languages, as intervention strategy, believing that sign language may slow down spoken language development. This study investigates the first steps of language development in one deaf child, with cochlear implant and born from hearing parents, who was early exposed to both Italian Sign Language and Spoken Italian. The development of lexical comprehension and production, the growth of vocabulary size in spoken Italian and the relations between Italian Sign Language and Spoken Italian, were studied from 2.5 to 4.5 years. Results showed that vocabulary size (in terms of number of words/signs produced, i.e. the conceptual vocabulary score) grew consistently with chronological age. Furthermore, the growth rate of vocabulary size in spoken Italian matched with the growth rate found in a cross-sectional sample of monolingual hearing peers. As to the relation between the two languages, three phases were observed : i) before the implant the child relied almost exclusively on sign language ; ii) from 5 to 10 months after the implant the child began to use spoken Italian, but words were always accompanied by the corresponding signs ; iii) from about 1 year and a half after the implant onwards the child used words without the support of signs, but continued to rely on sign language when he was unable to retrieve lexical labels in spoken Italian. These findings suggest that early acquisition of sign language may facilitate the construction of conceptual representations and effectively scaffold the development of spoken language also in deaf children with cochlear implant.

This paper presents the ATLAS Editor for Assisted Translation (ALEAT), a novel tool for the Computer Assisted Translation (CAT) from Italian written language to Italian Sign Language (LIS) of Deaf People. The tool is a web application that has been developed within the ATLAS project, that targets the automatic translation from Italian written language to Italian Sign Language in the weather forecasts domain. ALEAT takes a text as input, written according to the Italian Language grammar, performs the automatic translation of the sentence and gives the result of the translation to the user by visualizing it through a virtual character. Since the automatic translation is error-prone, ALEAT allows to correct it with the intervention of the user. The translation is stored in a database resorting to a novel formalism: the ATLAS Written Extended LIS (AEWLIS). AEWLIS allows to play the translation through the ATLAS visualization module and to load it within ALEAT for successive modifications and improvement.

Sign languages are visual-gestural languages used by deaf people to communicate with others. As with spoken languages, Sign languages vary among countries and have their own vocabulary and grammar. Since they suffer of an extreme variability within the same country as they don't have a standard lexicon. This paper describes a LIS Sign Bank, a large scale LIS lexicon automatically linked to Word Net, that allows a rich extension with meanings. The development of large parallel corpus between Italian and Italian Sign Language (Lingua Italiana dei Segni, LIS) is described1.

In this paper we describe an interlingua translation system from Italian to Italian Sign Language. The main components of this systems are a broad coverage dependency parser, an ontology based semantic interpreter and a grammar-based generator. we provide the description of the main features of these components.

In this paper, we describe a virtual interpreter of the Italian sign language (Italian Sign Language, LIS). developed as part of the on--going ATLAS project, on the automatic translation from Italian to Italian Sign Language. The translation system communicates with the user through a virtual signer: the system takes as input a formal representation of a sign language sentence and produces the corresponding animation of the avatar. The architecture of the virtual signer consists of a resource planner, an executor of the planned sign animations, and an animation system.

This article presents the preliminary results of a research on the use of SignWriting (SW) to write the Italian Sign Language (LIS). It analyzes three texts, all based on the "Pear Story" by Chafe (1980): a text transcribed in SW from a face-to-face signed narrative, and two texts directly created in LIS-written using SW. The authors analyze the differences and similarities between the texts, which arise from a different mode of communication. Finally, they point out that SW allows to develop new analysis of the LIS and stimulates metalinguistic reflections that were impossible without an adequate system of notation., Cet article présente les résultats préliminaires d’une recherche sur l’utilisation du SignWriting (SW) pour écrire la langue des signes italienne (LIS). Trois textes, tous basés sur la «Pear Story» de Chafe (1980), sont analysés: il s’agit d’un texte transcrit en SW à partir d’une narration en signes face-à-face, et de deux textes conçus directement en LIS-écrite en utilisant SW. Les auteurs analysent les différences et les similitudes entre les textes, dues à la différente modalité de communication. Enfin, ils soulignent que SW permet de développer de nouveaux instruments d’analyse de la LIS et qu’il stimule des réflexions métalinguistiques qui étaient impossibles sans un système de notation adéquat., Questo articolo presenta i risultati preliminari di una ricerca sull'uso di SignWriting (SW) per scrivere la lingua dei segni italiana (LIS). Vengono analizzati tre testi, tutti basati sulla "Pear Story" di Chafe (1980): un testo trascritto in SW da una narrazione segnata in faccia-a-faccia, e due testi direttamente concepiti in LIS-scritta utilizzando SW. Gli autori analizzano le differenze e le somiglianze tra i testi, derivanti dalla diversa modalità di comunicazione. Infine, essi sottolineano che SW permette di sviluppare nuove analisi della LIS e stimola riflessioni metalinguistiche che erano impossibili senza un adeguato sistema di annotazione.

Although signed and speech-based languages have a similar internal organization of verbal short-term memory, sign span is lower than word span. We investigated whether this is due to the fact that signs are not suited for serial recall, as proposed by Bavelier, Newport, Hall, Supalla, and Boutla (2008. Ordered short-term memory differs in signers and speakers: Implications for models of short-term memory. Cognition, 107, 433-459). We administered a serial recall task with stimuli in Italian Sign Language to 12 deaf people, and we compared their performance with that of twelve age-, gender-, and education-matched hearing participants who performed the task in Italian. The results do not offer evidence for the hypothesis that serial order per se is a detrimental factor for deaf participants. An alternative explanation for the lower sign span based on signs being phonologically heavier than words is considered. © The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.