Signers frequently produce signs with the weak hand that are held in a stationary configuration as the strong hand continues producing signs. Semantically they help guide the discourse by serving as conceptual landmarks as the discourse continues. Since they maintain a physical presence that helps guide the discourse as it proceeds I am calling them buoys. Some buoys appear only briefly whereas others may be maintained during a significant stretch of signing.

List buoys

Signers use list buoys for making associations with from one to five entities. The five list buoys I describe here are produced with handshapes corresponding to those found in the numeral signs ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR, and FIVE. These five numeral signs are normally produced by the strong hand ahead of the shoulder with the fingertips oriented upward. Although the five list buoys are produced with the same handshapes, their forms differ from these numeral signs in three ways. First, list buoys are normally produced by the weak hand rather than the strong hand. Second, list buoys are typically located ahead of the chest rather than ahead of the shoulder, and third, the fingers are oriented to the side rather than vertically upward. The list buoys need not be completely horizontal, but they do need to be inclined away from complete verticality.

These differences can be seen by comparing the numeral sign TWO (Figure 8.1a) with the TWO-LIST buoy (Figure 8.1b). Their forms, meanings, and functions are all distinct.