Wilbur Ronnie B
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.
Lang Speech. 2009;52(Pt 2-3):245-85. doi: 10.1177/0023830909103174.
Spoken languages are characterized by flexible, multivariate prosodic systems. As a natural language, American Sign Language (ASL), and other sign languages (SLs), are also expected to be characterized in the same way. Artificially created signing systems for classroom use, such as signed English, serve as a contrast to natural sign languages. The present article explores the effects of changes in signing rate on signs, pauses, and, unlike previous studies, a variety of nonmanual markers. Rate was a main effect on the duration of signs, the number of pauses and pause duration, the duration of brow raises, the duration of licensed lowered brows, the number and duration of blinks, all of which decreased with increased signing rate. This indicates that signers produced their different signing rates without making dramatic changes in the number of signs, but instead by varying the sign duration, in accordance with previous observations (Grosjean, 1978, 1979). These results can be brought to bear on three different issues: (1) the difference between grammatical nonmanuals and non-grammatical nonmanuals; (2) the fact that nonmanuals in general are not just a modality effect; and (3) the use of some nonmanuals as pragmatically determined as opposed to overt morphophonological markers reflecting the semantic-syntax-pragmatic interfaces.
口语语言的特点是具有灵活多变的韵律系统。作为一种自然语言，美国手语（ASL）以及其他手语（SLs）也预计具有相同的特点。为课堂使用而人工创建的手语系统，如手语英语，与自然手语形成对比。本文探讨了手语速度变化对手势、停顿以及（与以往研究不同的是）各种非手势标记的影响。速度对手势持续时间、停顿次数和停顿持续时间、扬眉持续时间、许可的低眉持续时间、眨眼次数和持续时间都有主要影响，所有这些都随着手语速度的增加而减少。这表明手语者在产生不同的手语速度时，并没有对手势数量进行大幅改变，而是根据之前的观察结果（格罗斯让，1978年，1979年）通过改变手势持续时间来实现。这些结果可以应用于三个不同的问题：（1）语法性非手势与非语法性非手势之间的差异；（2）一般来说，非手势不仅仅是一种模态效应这一事实；（3）一些非手势的使用是由语用决定的，而不是反映语义-句法-语用接口的明显形态音位标记。
