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Numeral incorporation refers to the use of numerals within a sign, often interpreted as a numeral handshape appearing with another morpheme. For example in ASL the sign for ‘three weeks’ is produced with the dominant hand forming the sign for ‘three’, moving forwards away from the body on the non-dominant arm (see Figure 2.3 below).

23 Figure 2.3 ASL sign for ‘three weeks’

This process of numeral incorporation is “specific to sign language” (de Vos 2012:96) and found in many signed languages (Sagara & Zeshan 2013). With regards to numeral incorporation, there have been a number of studies that define numeral incorporation and how it is formed within sign languages. Liddell (1997:201) notes that there is ambiguity in terms of how numeral incorporation is constituted. Does the process combine:

 a simultaneous compound, i.e. two signs?

 a sign and a handshape?

 a handshape and a bound root?

The first of these options concerns the analysis of numeral incorporation as a simultaneous compound of two discrete signs. For example, the signs TWO-WEEK and THREE-WEEK in ASL all have the basic sign WEEK, and the same handshapes as the basic numbers TWO and THREE. Stokoe (1965) and Frishberg & Gough (1973, cited in Liddell 1997) were the first people to formally study numeral incorporation in sign languages, and move the analysis to the second option, stating that numeral incorporation is configured by a sign (e.g. WEEK) + handshape (e.g. SEVEN). Chinchor (cited in Liddell 1997) later proposed that some numeral incorporation forms do combine two signs, rather than a sign and a handshape, and so the debate regarding how to analyse numeral incorporation has continued. Following the same example, Chinchor’s analysis would be: sign (e.g. WEEK) + sign (e.g. SEVEN). Each sign must be reduced, e.g. WEEK gives up its handshape and SEVEN gives up its location and movement. So the sign SEVEN-WEEK is the handshape of SEVEN and the location and movement of WEEK. However, Chinchor accepts that this analysis does not match the signs ONE-O’CLOCK or TWO-O’CLOCK (wrist turning), because there is no sign that means ‘o’clock’. Chinchor goes on further to propose a two-way

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classification of numeral-incorporated signs (p. 204): the first comprises forms with an independent base sign (2-MINUTE, 2-HOUR) and the second group consisting of forms with no related independent base sign (2-O’CLOCK, 2-MORE). The analysis of numeral incorporation according to this two-way classification is of interest to this research study, as it leads to an understanding of iconicity, which is discussed in detail in Chapter 6.

The analysis of handshape + root, i.e. the third configuration above, was introduced to sign linguistics by Liddell, Ramsey, Powell & Corina (1984). Liddell et al. (1984) proposed, for example, that TWO and HOUR are both bound roots because we are using the handshape from TWO and the location/movement from HOUR (the handshape, or the location/movement, cannot stand alone so they are not free roots - they are bound roots.) The morphological analysis of the root has also been debated in sign linguistics. For example, Liddell (1997) suggests that in the case of numeral incorporation including ‘contact at the chin’, this place of articulation may be analysed as a morpheme or merely the initial location for the larger incorporated form. Possible constraints on numeral incorporation are that it is unlikely to occur in two-handed symmetrical signs (e.g. TAG ‘day’ in German Sign Language, Mathur and Rathmann 2010:64-67), and where a particular handshape might cause confusion with other signs. Stokoe (1965, cited in Liddell 1997) notes that in ASL, ‘five weeks’ cannot be shown by an incorporated form because the ‘5’ handshape is so frequently used). With regards to Japanese Sign Language, research has found that the options for numeral incorporation are dictated by the handshape of the number involved. Ktejik’s (2013) recent study of numeral incorporation in JSL provides:

*…+ an explanation of the numeral morphemes which are bound to root morphemes. Fourteen different paradigms are presented and, from these paradigms, two rules for numeral incorporation are proposed (Ktejik 2013: 186).

The findings from this research correlate with Ktejik’s initial observations and they support the existence of fourteen different paradigms, however this research also finds that there is more variation in ordinal numerals and this is discussed further in section 5.2. The two rules for incorporation in JSL are stated by Ktejik (2013:207) as: “numerals with a single handshape can be incorporated” and “if the numeral contains any internal movement (e.g., bending of the fingers or shaking of the hand) that movement is not displayed in the surface form of the sign”.

Cross-linguistic studies have also considered the extent to which the use of numeral incorporation is similar across sign languages. Fischer, Hung & Shih-Kai (2011) carried out research on the use of numeral incorporation in Taiwan Sign Language along with other members of the JSL family. In this research the main comparison remained between ASL and TSL and paid attention to numerals both in measurement terms and with regards to predicates of motion and location. The methodologies of this research involved data elicitation (via

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discussion of presented materials) and the use of two consultants. In the data findings, Fischer et al. note that in general ASL numerals with internal movement cannot be incorporated. A further finding that strikes interest is TSL’s use of numeral classifiers for non-human entities whose citation forms do not seem to lend themselves to numeral-based modification, e.g. ‘bird’. For example, in TSL, ‘three birds in a tree’ can be articulated as pictured in Figure 2.4, i.e. using a numeral classifier for ‘three’ making contact with the sign for ‘tree’. In some other sign languages, such a classifier would only be used to refer to humans.

Figure 2.4 ‘Three birds in a tree’ in TSL (from Fischer, Hung & Shih-Kai 2011)

Fuentes & Massone (2010) conducted research into numeral systems in Catalan Sign Language (LSC) and Argentine Sign Language (ArgSL). The focus of this study was on numeral- incorporating roots, and the research considered whether the origin of the numerals affects the way in which roots are formed. For example, in LSC most numerals derive from manual counting, while numerals in LSA do not. The study used inventories of numeral-incorporating roots for both sign languages in order to compare the two varieties, and Fuentes & Massone conclude that the lexical numerals may be derived from counting in LSC but, for both languages, the numeral-incorporating roots do not derive from manual counting.