The Geometry of Visual Phonology

This work is based on the premise that a theory of visual phonology must depend on the propertiesof the signs themselves to reveal their underlying structure. To that end, drawings of signs from American Sign Language (ASL) are accompanied by written descriptions to allow both non-signers and experts to follow the arguments for each construct and principle adopted into the model. The result is the discovery of the underlying geometry of sign structures in which the manual articulators are modeled as rigid bodies and the signing space as a set of embedded rectangular prisms. The static and dynamic properties of signs are captured by new constructs, the transition unit ance cell, that callinto question the primacy of the segment and syllable. Unlike previous work that seeks to extend the segment and syllable to signed languages, this work ssets the stage for signed languages to provide independent evidence for the general organizational principles of a universal theory of phonology.

Linda Uyechi was a lecturer in the Department of Linguistics at Stanford University at the time of this publication.

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