Phonological deletion and addition in Brazilian Sign Language

a study based on spontaneous data

Abstract

Similar to spoken languages, sign languages ​​are made up of a phonological component. This is equivalent to saying that such languages ​​also have an inventory of distinctive units and rules that govern their combination (phonotactics). In addition, signed languages ​​also present processes that can result in assimilation, metathesis (change of position), deletion or addition of phonological material in the production of their lexical items. This work, an excerpt from the dissertation by Silva (2024) on phonological processes in Brazilian Sign Language, Libras, reports the results obtained in the aforementioned investigation in relation to two of these processes, namely, deletion and addition. These results arise from the analysis of spontaneous data obtained from 59 YouTube videos, containing productions by the same deaf signer from the state of Goiás. From a total of 15 hours and 58 minutes of recording, 54 occurrences of deletion and addition were identified, which were subclassified, following Silva (2024), in the first case, as deletion of movement repetition, non-realization of contact, deletion of the non-dominant hand, of the movement and of the final hold or even as distalization (realization of the movement with a joint further away from the trunk). In the second case, the occurrences were subclassified as addition of the non-dominant hand and movement, increase in trajectory and proximalization (realization of the movement with a joint closer to the trunk). Our results show, in relation to deletion, that such process manifested itself through deletion of (1) repetition of the movement in 29% of the cases, (2) non-realization of contact and (3) deletion of the non-dominant hand both equally in 19%, (4) of movement in 14% and (5) of final suspension in 10% and (6) distalization in 10%. As for addition, we observed their manifestation through (1) addition of the non-dominant hand in 36% and (2) of movement in 36%, (3) increase in the movement trajectory in 18% and (4) proximalization in 9%. Some cases of deletion of the repetition of the movement seem to be motivated by the medial position of the sign in the utterance and some cases of deletion and addition of the non-dominant hand result from an assimilatory process. For the other cases of deletion and addition, however, the small size of our sample prevented us from raising possible motivations for their occurrence.