2. Contrasts and features in sign languages

At the segmental level, minimal pairs are generally regarded as one of the most valuable resources for determining phonological inventories, because they are usually considered a sufficient condition to identify phonemes in spoken language (Pike Reference Pike1947; Trubetzkoy Reference Trubetzkoy1969; but cf. Harris Reference Harris1951; Chomsky Reference Chomsky1964). The situation is more complex with sign languages, mostly due to the fact that minimal pairs, as well as allophonic pairs, are more difficult to identify on the feature level (Eccarius & Brentari Reference Eccarius and Brentari2010). As a consequence, sign language phonologists struggle to properly distinguish features that are phonologically motivated from those that are simply articulatory. The difficulty in identifying minimal pairs and their associated phonological processes in the visual modality results in the fact that inventory composition and size remain poorly understood.

Figure 1 Symmetric signs in LSF.

This does not mean that there is no phonology in sign language; minimal pairs are not a necessary condition to determine phonologically active features. Other criteria that may be used include phonological processes targeting specific features, such as assimilations and diachronic or synchronic changes (see, e.g., Brentari Reference Brentari1998: 54). In addition, near-minimal pairs are worth investigating to identify the phonological inventory of a language, as well as the degree of saliency that individual features may bring in any given specific phonological context. These are the tools available to sign language phonologists when determining the inventories of specific sign languages.Footnote ² These tools will be used in the following sections to argue for the phonological status of [web] in LSF (see Morgan Reference Morgan2022 for a different view, according to which only minimal pairs at the feature level should be considered when determining the phonological inventories of sign languages).

Before illustrating the details of how [web] has been analysed in the literature, two more aspects of sign language phonology must be introduced. The first is the use of the non-dominant hand as the location of a sign and the second is the notion of relative orientation.

For location, signs are articulated either in the neutral space or on some part of the body (the head, the torso, etc.).Footnote ³ While some signs are produced with only one hand, which is typically the signer’s dominant hand, other signs require both hands.Footnote ⁴ In the latter case, the non-dominant hand produces either a symmetric or an alternating copy of the dominant hand (see the signs in Figure 1), or serves as a base upon which the dominant hand actively produces the sign (see the signs in Figure 2).Footnote ⁵ For these asymmetric signs, the non-dominant hand acts as a major location (Brentari Reference Brentari1998), which means that signs like again, mushroom and name in LSF are produced on the non-dominant hand. Like the other major locations, the hand can be divided into more precise (sub-)locations. For instance, again is produced on the palm of the non-dominant hand (Figure 2a), mushroom on the tip of the finger (Figure 2b) and name on the radial side of the selected fingers (Figure 2c).Footnote ⁶ Based on ASL data, the set of features listed in (1) has been proposed as characterising the hand-part specification for signs articulated on the non-dominant hand.Footnote ⁷

Figure 2 Signs in LSF located on various sub-parts of the non-dominant hand: (a) the palm, (b) the tip of the finger or (c) the radial side of the selected fingers.

As for (hand-)orientation, after an initial proposal saying it was captured in absolute terms by anchoring the dominant hand to the position of the signer’s body (Battison Reference Battison1978; Sandler Reference Sandler1989; van der Hulst Reference van der Hulst1993; van der Hulst & Mills Reference van der Hulst and Mills1996), the field converged in defining orientation in relative terms ‘by specifying how the hand relates to the place of articulation (Friedman Reference Friedman1976; Mandel Reference Mandel1981)’ (Crasborn & van der Kooij Reference Crasborn and van der Kooij1997: 38). Following this definition, orientation becomes a derived parameter that combines a specification of the articulator with a specification of the place of articulation of the sign.Footnote ⁸ Operationally, this is achieved by postulating a set of orientation features on the dominant hand that are distinct from handshape features and that are used to specify a facing relation with the location parameter. This set of features is identical to that used to specify the sub-location of signs articulated on the non-dominant hand, listed in (1) (Brentari Reference Brentari1998). To illustrate, we provide the description of relative orientation for the LSF one-handed sign expensive (Figure 3a), the symmetric two-handed sign window (Figure 3b) and the asymmetric two-handed sign again (Figure 3c). The back of the selected fingers of the dominant hand is facing the cheek in expensive; the tips of the fingers of both hands are facing each other in window and the tips of the fingers of the dominant hand are facing the palm of the non-dominant hand in again.

Figure 3 LSF signs illustrating relative orientation: (a) back of the fingers facing the cheek; (b) tip of the fingers of both hands facing each other (c) tip of the fingers facing the palm.

As a reviewer correctly pointed out, this way of capturing orientation leaves some redundancy in the system. In fact, multiple feature combinations can lead to the same surface orientation for some signs. To illustrate, in the LSF sign again (Figure 3c), orientation could be described by specifying a palm feature on both hands. This would suffice to capture relative orientation, although it would also require some exceptional specification to derive contact between the tip of the fingers on the dominant hand and the palm of the non-dominant hand. Phonological criteria, among which saliency is most likely the easiest to visualise, are normally used to identify the correct orientation feature, thus reducing this type of redundancy.Footnote ⁹

Independently from the chosen orientation features, the contribution of these anatomical parts is not used to determine the handshape parameter in sign language phonology (Quer et al. Reference Quer, Cecchetto, Donati, Geraci, Kelepir, Pfau and Steinbach2017). In fact, the features that determine a handshape are typically those that select the number of fingers and specify their configuration (flexed, spread, etc.). The idea that the same set of features characterises properties of both the dominant and the non-dominant hands in asymmetric signs is not particularly surprising. What is surprising is that they belong to two separate parameters, namely orientation and location. This redundancy has already been noted in the literature (see, e.g., Brentari Reference Brentari1998), and will be further addressed in §6.3.

3. Different views on webbing

The webbing part of the hand has received little attention in sign language phonology; in this section, we identify two potentially related reasons. First, it is difficult to identify contrasts based on this hand part; second, very few signs make use of it. To the best of our knowledge, webbing and its feature implementation [web] have been discussed only in the literature on ASL.

Liddell & Johnson (Reference Liddell and Johnson1989) report some examples in which they claim the webbing is involved in the articulation of ASL signs, as shown in Figure 4.Footnote ¹⁰ The signs wrestling, pregnant and football are symmetric two-handed signs. They are produced in the neutral space with the two hands interlaced to the point that the webbing parts of the two hands touch each other either throughout the articulation of the sign, as in wrestling (Figure 4a), or at the end of the movement, as in pregnant and football (Figure 4b and c).

Figure 4 Signs located on the webbing in ASL.

The main difference among these signs is the movement component. In wrestling, the movement is a directional path repeated twice, while in pregnant and football, the hands move towards each other until contact, twice in football and only once in pregnant. Since these are symmetric two-handed signs, orientation is captured by facing the relevant hand part to the plane of articulation. Following the analysis proposed in Brentari (Reference Brentari1998), the ulnar part of the hand is relevant; hence, the plane of articulation must be the horizontal one for wrestling and pregnant, and the vertical one for football.

The signs start and break are two-handed asymmetric signs (Figure 4d and e). The webbing of the non-dominant hand is the point of contact with the dominant hand either throughout the movement, as in start, or at the end of the sign, as in break. Orientation could be captured by [finger front] on the dominant hand and [ulnar] on the non-dominant hand. Finally, the webbing part of the dominant hand is used as the point of contact with the ulnar side of the non-dominant hand at the end of the movement in the sign ticket (Figure 4f). One possibility to capture the orientation of this sign is to specify [ulnar] on the non-dominant hand and either [radial] or [ulnar] on the dominant one, following what is suggested in Brentari (Reference Brentari1998). We will return to the orientation of ticket and the other ASL signs later in the discussion.

While it is clear that the webbing is involved in the articulation of these ASL signs and possibly others, the discussion has focused on two main points: (1) the phonetic/phonological status of webbing (Liddell & Johnson Reference Liddell and Johnson1986, Reference Liddell and Johnson1989; Sandler Reference Sandler1986; Brentari Reference Brentari1998) and (2) its implementation within the macro phonological categories of signs, that is, location vs. movement (Stokoe Reference Stokoe1960; Liddell & Johnson Reference Liddell and Johnson1989; Brentari Reference Brentari1998).

The lack of clear cases of (near-)minimal pairs, phonological processes targeting this specific part of the hand and other types of contrasts are sufficient reasons to treat [web] as a purely phonetic feature in ASL, as suggested in Liddell & Johnson (Reference Liddell and Johnson1989) and explicitly implemented in Brentari (Reference Brentari1998).

If it is treated as a pure phonetic feature, though, the issue is how to account for its use in signs like those in Figure 4. Stokoe (Reference Stokoe1960) treats it as a movement feature which he labelled entrant. In his model, this feature indicates that a part, generally the finger(s) of the dominant hand, intersects the space  between two fingers of the non-dominant hand. In other words, the use of the webbing is predictable given the type of movement: it should emerge every time the fingers of one of the two hands interlace with some other part of the articulators.Footnote ¹¹ Liddell & Johnson (Reference Liddell and Johnson1989) consider webbing to be relevant for the location parameter in ASL and propose a [web] feature to capture those signs in which contact with the webbing is found. However, they do not provide evidence for phonological contrast, and hence the feature is to be considered active at the phonetic level only. Furthermore, they do not provide a clear environment that would make its emergence predictable. Finally, Sandler (Reference Sandler1986) and Brentari (Reference Brentari1998) do not include it in the set of active features of ASL. More specifically, it is explicitly excluded in Brentari (Reference Brentari1998), where [web] is treated as an allophonic variant of the [ulnar] feature.Footnote ¹² Indeed, all the examples involving it are analysed as cases of [ulnar], because this part of the hand is also involved in the articulation of the signs. Since [ulnar] is a location feature when active on the non-dominant hand and an orientation feature when active on the dominant hand, its allophone [web] should belong to the same categories. The only active phonological feature in the ASL lexicon is [ulnar] in Brentari’s system, with [web] specified only at the phonetic level to meet more precise descriptive adequacy.

To summarise, [web] is rarely found in ASL signs, and phonological contrast is hard to detect in those few cases. These facts have led researchers to grant it a purely phonetic status and not to consider it as one of the active features of the ASL inventory. Finally, although it was originally identified as a movement feature, more recent proposals treat it as a location feature.

While this is most likely correct for ASL, treating [web] as a purely phonetic feature in all sign languages, and therefore excluding it from the inventory of contrastive features, may not be fully justified. In this perspective, [web] could be viewed as a particularly marked feature and therefore rarely used across sign languages.Footnote ¹³ It would be similar to rare sounds in spoken languages that are allophonic in most languages but used contrastively in a few others, such as the voiced uvular trill [ʀ], which is used contrastively in languages like Japería (Oquendo Reference Oquendo2004), as opposed to other languages, in which it is used in pre-vocalic position, as in Luxembourgish (Gilles & Trouvain Reference Gilles and Trouvain2013); for replacing /q/ before liquids, as in Selkup (Helimski Reference Helimski and Abondolo1998); or as a dialectal variant in languages such as French (Fougeron & Smith Reference Fougeron and Smith1993) or Catalan (Wheeler Reference Wheeler2005: 24).

4. The [web] feature beyond ASL

The core part of the LSF data is presented in this section, after a brief description of the methodology used for data collection. We provide evidence supporting the inclusion of the feature [web] in the inventory of active features in LSF. Finally, we provide a cursory look into how the webbing is used in LIS.

A note of caution before going into the details of LSF. In many sign languages, some signs make clear use of the webbing as an articulatory component, but its use has iconic motivations. One example is the sign flip-flop (Figure 5a). This sign is found in many sign languages, with very small articulatory variants. Here, the corresponding webbing part on the foot is mapped onto the hand. Of course, this could be a reflection of the fact that the foot as a whole is mapped onto the hand. Still, the webbing part of the non-dominant hand iconically contributes to the meaning of flip-flop, and hence it cannot act as a purely phonological feature.

Figure 5 The signs (a) flip-flop and (b) cherry in LSF.

For similar reasons, [web] is probably iconically motivated in cherry (Figure 5b): the handshape represents the petioles of a pair of cherries, and the webbing is the point of contact where the cherries fork the ear.

We avoid these iconic uses of the webbing as much as possible to motivate our claim that [web] is a phonologically active feature in LSF, as their contribution is at best phonologically marginal, being forced by faithfulness to some iconic representation of the concept. Notice, however, that iconicity is not a categorical property of signs, but rather has a more gradient nature. In this respect, some signs that we discuss may have a more or less clearly iconic nature; what is crucial to us is that the webbing part does not play an iconic/morphological role. We will come back to the role of iconicity in §6 when we discuss its impact on phonological inventories.

4.1. Methodology

The LSF data presented in this section come from three main sources. The first source is the intuitions of two Deaf native signers of LSF who participated as language consultants in this study. Our main consultant, Thomas Lévêque, is from Bordeaux, and our second consultant, Yohan Marcelino, is from Lyon. The second source is drawings from dictionaries like the IVT dictionary (Girod & Vourc’h Reference Girod and Vourc’h1992) and Delaporte’s (Reference Delaporte2007) etymological and historical dictionary of LSF. The third source is online sign repositories like SpreadTheSign (Hilzensauer & Krammer Reference Hilzensauer, Krammer, Gómez Chova, López Martínez and Candel Torres2015), and Le Dico Elix (Houriez Reference Houriez2018). The LIS data come from discussions we had with Dr. Mirko Santoro, a Deaf linguist and native signer of LIS, and have been checked with Radutzky’s (Reference Radutzky2001) drawing dictionary and SpreadTheSign. The examples presented in this article are signed by Dr. Santoro himself.

Since the relevant signs are citation forms produced in isolation, the methodology of elicitation was quite simple. After having explained the main goals of the research, we asked our consultants to name as many signs they could think of that involved the webbing either on the dominant hand or the non-dominant hand. As an example, we provided them with some LSF signs for which we already suspected that webbing was involved, such as meat and shit (see Figure 6a and c). Some of the signs proposed were clearly iconic, others much less so. We video-recorded all the signs they were able to produce in isolation and then focused on those for which the webbing was not clearly iconically motivated. In parallel, we consulted bibliographic and online resources to check whether these forms were generally attested or were part of the geographical variety or idiolect of our consultants. During the discussion of the target signs, we also looked at potential cases of (near-)minimal pairs, again by asking our consultants if articulatorily similar forms were part of the LSF lexicon and whether they could provide minimally different signs. In order to test whether allophonic forms were possible, as a final step conducted with one consultant only, each sign was presented on a video screen, and the consultant was asked whether the location/point of contact could be displaced to nearby locations, such as the ulnar or the radial side of the selected fingers.

Figure 6 The signs (a) meat , (b) psychology and (c) shit in LSF.

Similarly to ASL, we have been able to identify only a handful of signs for which the webbing is clearly used. However, these forms reveal a much stronger contrastive pattern in LSF than the one observed in ASL, as shown below.

4.2. [web] in LSF

The webbing is used in asymmetric two-handed signs like meat, psychology and shit, illustrated in Figure 6. In these examples, the feature [web] refers to a point of contact on the non-dominant hand, hence establishing the specific location of the sign. The variants of accomplice, potato and tool used in Lyon also belong to this category.

In symmetric signs, [web] is found in cheese, fries and picture, as illustrated in Figure 7. Following the traditional approach to sign description, the correct location for these signs is the neutral space and the non-dominant hand is a copy of the dominant hand. In these cases, [web] is used as an orientation feature rather than a location feature.Footnote ¹⁴

Figure 7 The signs (a) cheese , (b) fries and (c) picture in LSF.

The signs cherry and bedroom are illustrative of cases where [web] is involved in one-handed signs (see Figure 8). As in the examples documented in Figure 7, [web] is relevant in determining orientation. Slightly more complicated is the case of bedroom, which is also an iconic sign (the iconicity being in the head resting on a pillow). Here, the use of [web] may not appear as salient at first glance. In fact, one could argue that orientation is determined by considering the tip of the selected fingers (or the radial side), because they instantiate contact with the face. However, this approach falls short, since the tip of the index finger and the tip of the thumb make contact with two distinct and contrastive locations, namely the forehead and the lower part of the chin. Hence, [web] facing the cheek is probably the least problematic feature to capture orientation in a simple way.Footnote ¹⁵

Figure 8 The signs (a) cherry and (b) bedroom in LSF.

Finally, [web] is also involved on the dominant hand of two-handed asymmetric signs like begin (Figure 9), in which [web] is the point of contact with the non-dominant hand. In this case, [web] is used as a reference point to determine orientation.

Figure 9 The sign begin in LSF.

The distribution of [web] across the various types of signs demonstrates that, although marked, the feature is actively used in LSF. We also observed, in passing, that its use in determining the appropriate location and orientation results in simpler phonological descriptions. However, more is needed to argue that [web] should be treated as a phonological feature and not a simple phonetic feature in LSF. In  the  rest of this section, we present four arguments to support our claim: the presence of near-minimal pairs, faithfulness with respect to the target feature, the presence of morphological processes targeting [web] and the presence of phonological processes targeting [web].

Examples of near-minimal pairs involving [web] in LSF are shit and egg-1 (Figure 10), fries and hostel (Figure 11) and, more marginally, psychology and picture (Figure 12).

Figure 10 The near-minimal pair (a) shit and (b) egg in LSF.

Figure 11 The near-minimal pair (a) fries and (b) hostel in LSF.

Figure 12 The near-minimal pair (a) psychology and (b) picture in LSF.

For shit and egg-1, two-handed asymmetric signs with two handshapes, the location is determined by contact with the non-dominant hand at the end of the movement and corresponds to the webbing for shit and the ulnar side of the middle finger for egg-1. The two signs also slightly differ in their movement component: a straight movement in shit and an arc movement in egg-1. Finally, orientation is determined by the ulnar side of the dominant hand facing the location feature in both signs. [web] is essential to correctly capture the location contrast and, a fortiori, the orientation.

For fries and hostel, two-handed symmetric signs with a handshape produced in the neutral space, the movement of the two signs is slightly different. In fries, the two hands move towards each other in a repeated directional path, while in hostel the movement is an aperture change; that is, the handshape changes based on the flexion of the base joints. What is crucially different is the point of contact, which is on the webbing for fries and the ulnar side of the selected fingers for hostel.Footnote ¹⁶ In  this case, the location of these symmetric signs is the neutral space, which means that [web] is acting as a pure orientation feature.

The last pair is represented by the signs psychology and picture (Figure 12). Both signs use the handshape and are produced on the webbing part of the non-dominant hand, but they differ by more  than two features: one is an asymmetric sign and the other symmetric, and the two have separate movement features as well. However, the pair shows that [web] is active in producing minimally different specifications on the dominant hand to determine proper orientation. Indeed, the ulnar side of the dominant hand faces the webbing of the non-dominant hand in psychology, while the webbing is used in picture.

These pairs show that the [web] feature is systematically active in building phonological contrast. This is true in asymmetric signs like shit and egg-1 where [web] acts as a location feature, as well as in symmetric signs like fries and hostel where [web] acts as an orientation feature. If we were to analyse these LSF examples in the same way as the ASL signs, either as an allophonic alternation as suggested by Brentari (Reference Brentari1998) or by treating [web] as purely phonetic as in Liddell & Johnson (Reference Liddell and Johnson1989), we would miss the salient difference between each pair in LSF, either at the location level or the orientation level. A  similar problem emerges with Stokoe’s model, since it would not be able to distinguish different degrees of entrance in signs like fries and hostel. This is our first argument supporting the phonological status of [web] in LSF.

Our next argument is based on the degree of faithfulness to [web] and the possibility of entering into alternations with other neighbouring features in the phonological space, like [radial] or [ulnar]. To illustrate the point, we use the signs meat and psychology (repeated in Figure 13a and d, respectively). In both cases, the point of contact clearly determines the activation of [web], at least at the phonetic level. Crucially, if some sort of free allophonic alternation were possible, small modifications of the point of contact are expected to produce acceptable forms, contrary to facts. The forms shown in Figure 13 where the location on the non-dominant hand is slightly shifted towards the radial side of the selected fingers for meat (Figure 13c) and towards the ulnar side of the thumb for psychology (Figure 13e) are ill-formed. However, note that the webbing between the thumb and the index is much larger than the space between the other fingers. This allows for some leeway in the realisation of meat, and the fingers of the dominant hand may pinch non-central parts of the webbing, resulting in allophonic variants (Figure 13b). We take this as (mild) evidence that such minimal modifications are likely to trespass the phonological boundary towards distinct and contrastive features, like [ulnar] and [radial].

Figure 13 Correct and incorrect forms for meat (a–c) and psychology (d and e) in LSF.

Note that ASL has a very similar sign for meat (see, e.g., the entry reported in the online dictionary Signing Savvy (https://www.signingsavvy.com/search/meat); Cartwright Reference Cartwright2023). However, two different variants are reported in ASL-LEX, a lexical database of ASL (Sehyr et al. Reference Sehyr, Caselli, Cohen-Goldberg and Emmorey2021), meat and meat _2.Footnote ¹⁷ These two variants might be phonologically related to the one reported in Signing Savvy. If this is the case, besides the different handshape, one can appreciate the fact that the sub-location of the sign has shifted from the webbing to the radial side of the non-dominant hand. Importantly, the degree of variation documented for [web] is much higher in ASL than the one attested for LSF. This constitutes a second argument to support the phonological status of [web] in LSF, in that its relevance for accurate articulation makes it particularly salient to prevent allophonic alternations.

Besides being active in the static lexicon, the webbing is also active as a target location in morphological processes like compounding. An example is provided with the sign pervert (Figure 14). In pervert, the dominant hand represents the victim, and the non-dominant hand the attacker. Since the two members of the compound instantiated by the two hands are articulated at the same time, this sign qualifies as a non-transparent simultaneous compound in LSF (Santoro Reference Santoro2018). It is non-transparent because the compound is not the combination of the sign attacker and the sign victim, but a classifier for small individuals (i.e., the pinkie finger representing the weakness of the victim) and an open handshape representing the attacker. The two hands asymmetrically move up and down, simulating the sexual aggression. The point of contact between the two hands is on the webbing of the non-dominant hand, as in the other asymmetric signs illustrated above. Compounding is a morphological process that also targets phonological features, and the emergence of such compounds where [web] is targeted is an indicator of productivity in the language. This is our third argument supporting the phonological status of [web].

Figure 14 The sign pervert in LSF (a compound).

Finally, we argue that [web] can enter in allophonic alternations with [ulnar] in the sign for egg. The point of contact in egg-1 can shift from the ulnar side of the middle finger in the citation form (Figure 15a) to the webbing in the allophonic variant egg-2 (Figure 15b). Note that the variant egg-2 is a genuine minimal pair with shit (repeated in Figure 15c), as the only difference is now in the movement component, an arc movement for egg-2 and a straight movement for shit.

Figure 15 The two variants of egg , (a) egg-1 and (b) egg-2 , and (c) the minimally different sign shit .

Looking further into the source of this alternation, there is good evidence that the allophonic variant egg-2 is an historical relic of the older sign for egg in LSF, as this form is reported as the original sign for egg in the Dictionnaire étymologique et historique de la langue des signes française (Delaporte Reference Delaporte2007; see Figure 16a). The archaic sign for shit was also articulated differently in Old LSF. As shown in Figure 16b, the dominant hand has a handshape rather than a handshape, and the radial side enters into contact with the webbing instead of the ulnar side. The position of the non-dominant hand is also slightly different: the ulnar side of the hand faces the horizontal plane in the old form, while it is more vertical in the contemporary form.

Figure 16 Reproductions of the LSF signs (a) egg and (b) shit presented in Delaporte (Reference Delaporte2007).

It is possible to propose a historical explanation for the two variants of egg.Footnote ¹⁸ Assuming that the old sign shit was the first to evolve into its current form, there was a period when egg-2 and shit formed an actual minimal pair. In order to maximise the difference between these two forms, possibly because the contrast in movement was not very salient, egg-2 shifted its location from [web] to [ulnar], thus becoming egg-1. The result of this process is the emergence of a phonological contrast between [web] on shit and [ulnar] on egg-1. Unfortunately, we do not have data to corroborate this historical path. However, if correct, it is independent evidence that [web] was already phonologically active in Old LSF.

At the synchronic level, where the various pieces of the historical process are no longer available in the signers’ phonological knowledge, new generations of LSF signers are exposed to the three forms in Figure 15. Under this perspective, the resulting alternation is no longer one of acquiring phonological contrast, but rather a neutralisation of contrast. More importantly, to properly describe the process, the feature [web] has to be active in the LSF phonological inventory because the output of the neutralisation is not [ulnar] but [web], the more marked feature. Specifically, in order to derive the form egg-2 from egg-1, the near-minimal contrast with shit is lost in favour of the [web] feature. The direction of the alternation from [ulnar] to [web] found in LSF is then the opposite of the one claimed for ASL, where potential cases of [web] are reanalysed as [ulnar].

To summarise, we have provided evidence that [web] is an active phonological feature of LSF in all types of signs. We showed its constrastive behaviour in near-minimal pairs, its categorical behaviour with respect to neighbour features, its use in the morphological process of compound formation and its place in the phonological process of neutralisation.

4.3. A quick look into [web] in LIS

A cursory investigation into the lexicon of LIS reveals that webbing is used as a location on the non-dominant hand in asymmetric two-handed signs and as an orientation feature in both symmetric two-handed signs and one-handed signs. An example of each type is provided in Figure 17 with the signs january, team and moon. In january (Figure 17a), the ulnar side of the index finger of the dominant hand touches the entire webbing between the index finger and the thumb of the non-dominant hand. The LIS sign team (Figure 17b) is very similar to the LSF sign picture. Here too, contact is made between the webbing of the two hands. Finally, moon in LIS (Figure 17c) is similar to bedroom in LSF. To capture orientation in a simple way, the feature [web] facing the nose must be specified on the dominant hand. The alternative options of using the tip of the fingers or radial would require the use of secondary location features, as in the LSF sign bedroom.

Figure 17 Signs located on the webbing in LIS: (a) january , an asymmetric two-handed sign; (b)  team , a symmetric two-handed sign; and (c) moon , a one-handed sign.

More generally, the salience of [web] in one-handed signs like bedroom in LSF and moon in LIS reveals a systematic way this feature can be used in the lexicon of sign languages. Specifically, when the location of the sign targets a phonologically dense space (e.g., the head, where contrast can be easily produced on the eye, nose, chin, etc.), handshapes with spread fingers may face multiple locations, systematically reproducing the problem of identifying orientation in a simple way.

These data points are in line with those from LSF. Even without an exhaustive list of examples to determine the phonological/phonetic status of [web] in LIS, there are enough to show its consistent presence in signs where it is not iconically motivated.

5. The analysis of [web]

The current account available for ASL treats [web] and [ulnar] as two allophones of the same phoneme /ulnar/. This led Brentari (Reference Brentari1998) to propose a parsimonious model for ASL, and possibly for other sign languages, in which [web] is not among the features that determine the phonological inventory of a language. The data provided here show that this analysis does not extend to LSF. The key point is that [web] displays a variety of contrasts identifiable from near-minimal pairs, productivity and neutralisation, at least in LSF. These are the reasons motivating its inclusion in the pool of active features in this language. Specifically, it plays a role in determining the appropriate location on the non-dominant hand and relative orientation of the dominant hand. Furthermore, the current account may fall short in providing the correct orientation of some signs like ticket in ASL and moon in LIS.

In this section, we offer an analysis of the LSF data using a feature geometry. The analysis is not restricted to a specific model and can be easily implemented in any of the currently available models of sign language phonology with the following two minimal assumptions:

• • The non-dominant hand provides the primary location in asymmetric two-handed signs.

• • Orientation must be considered in relative terms as a relational property between a specified feature on the dominant hand and a specified feature on the location (see also §2).

Both assumptions are minimal as they have already been part of most sign language models and are empirically well supported (Battison Reference Battison1978; Liddell & Johnson Reference Liddell and Johnson1989; Sandler Reference Sandler1989; Uyechi Reference Uyechi1995; Crasborn & van der Kooij Reference Crasborn and van der Kooij1997; Brentari Reference Brentari1998).

Once these are in place, the account for the LSF data is straightforward. The minimal move is to include [web] to the existing feature inventory. In other words, [web] is simply added to the list of features in (1), which represents both the active features of the non-dominant hand, that is, location features, and the active features that determine the orientation of the dominant hand.

For asymmetric two-handed signs like meat, psychology and shit, it is enough to specify [web] as the location feature on the non-dominant hand. For symmetric two-handed signs like picture, cheese and fries, [web] must be specified as the orientation feature on the dominant hand. A similar analysis extends to one-handed signs like bedroom.

An anonymous reviewer pointed out that in asymmetric signs like begin (Figure 9) where the fingers are spread, [web] can be predictable if a location at the radial or ulnar side of the hand is chosen. This is essentially Brentari’s (Reference Brentari1998) proposal. While this may partially work for ticket in ASL, it definitely does not work for LSF. In fact, phonologically similar signs like hotel and danger (Figure 18), as well as the sign not-bad, all involving a handshape on the dominant hand and located on the radial side of the non-dominant hand, fail to make contact with the webbing.

Figure 18 Asymmetric signs with spread fingers located on the radial side of the selected fingers instead of the webbing in LSF.

Once present in the pool of active features, [web] can then be targeted in morpho-phonological processes such as the creation of compound signs like pervert in LSF.

The fact that [web] does not normally alternate with phonetically similar features like [ulnar] or [radial] in signs like meat and psychology may be due to its marked status and to the fact that webbing is the contact/endpoint of the sign movement, making it perceptually salient. These factors make [web] resistant to change, assimilation or location shift.Footnote ¹⁹

As for the alternations between egg-1 and egg-2, it is unclear to us whether there is any phonetic or phonological environment conditioning the alternation. Our main informant uses both forms relatively freely. Here, we can tentatively postulate a neutralisation rule that takes the sign egg-1 as input and returns the sign egg-2 as its output. The process would then be sensitive to the relevant feature only. Specifically, the input feature would be [ulnar], the location feature of the non-dominant hand, which is changed into [web]. What is interesting in the alternation is that the process targets the relatively less marked [ulnar] feature and returns the more marked one, namely [web].

Extending this analysis to other languages is relatively straightforward. If phonologically active, [web] can be used to account for location and orientation. For instance, the sign january in LIS would specify [web] as a location feature on the non-dominant hand and [ulnar] as an orientation feature on the dominant hand. Orientation in the sign moon in LIS can be captured by specifying [web] on the dominant hand and [nose] as location.Footnote ²⁰