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Modality-dependent aspects of sign language production: Evidence from slips of the hands and their repairs in German Sign Language
Annette Hohenberger, Daniela Happ, and Helen Leuninger

5.1

Introduction

In the present study, we investigate both slips of the hand and slips of the tongue in order to assess modality-dependent and modality-independent effects in language production. As a broader framework, we adopt the paradigm of generative grammar, as it has been developed over the past 40 years (Chomsky 1965; 1995, and related work of other generativists). Generative grammar focuses on both universal and language-particular aspects of language. The universal characteristics of language are known as Universal Grammar (UG). UG denes the format of possible human languages and delimits the range of possible variation between languages. We assume that languages are represented and processed by one and the same language module (Fodor 1983), no matter what modality they use. UG is neutral with regard to the modality in which a particular language is processed (Crain and Lillo-Martin 1999). By adopting a psycholinguistic perspective, we ask how a speakers or signers knowledge of language is put to use during the production of language. So far, models of language production have been developed mainly on the basis of spoken languages (Fromkin 1973; 1980; Garrett 1975; 1980; Butterworth 1980; Dell and Reich 1981; Stemberger 1985; Dell 1986; MacKay 1987; Levelt 1989; Levelt, Roelofs, and Meyer 1999). However, even the set of spoken languages investigated so far is restricted (with a clear focus on English). Thus, Levelt et al. (1999:36) challenge researchers to consider a greater variety of (spoken) languages in order to broaden the empirical basis for valid theoretical inductions. Yet, Levelt and his colleagues do not go far enough. A greater challenge is to include sign language data more frequently in all language production research. Such data can provide the crucial evidence for the assumed universality of the language processor and can inform researchers what aspects of language production are modality dependent and what aspects are not.
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5.2

Goals and hypotheses

We follow Levelt (1983; 1989; 1999; Levelt et al. 1999) in adopting a model of language production with one component that generates sentences (the processor) and another that supervises this process (the monitor). Therefore, we have formulated two hypothesis pairs with regard to the processor and the monitor (see also Leuninger, Happ, and Hohenberger 2000a): r Hypothesis 1a: The language processor is modality neutral (amodal). r Hypothesis 1b: The content of the language processor (phonology, morphology, syntax) is modality dependent. r Hypothesis 2a: The monitor is modality neutral. r Hypothesis 2b: The content of the monitor is modality dependent. This twofold hypothesis pair is well in line with what other sign language researchers advocate with regard to modality and modularity (Crain and LilloMartin 1999:314; Lillo-Martin 1999; Lillo-Martin this volume): while the input and output modules of spoken and signed languages are markedly different, the representations and processing of language are the same because they are computed by the same amodal language module. The goal of our study is to investigate these hypotheses as formulated above. We are interested in nding out, in the rst place, how a purported amodal language processor and monitor work in the two different modalities. Therefore, we investigate signers of German Sign Language (Deutsche Geb ardensprache or DGS) and speakers of German, and present them with the same task. The tension between equality and difference is, we feel, a very productive one and is at the heart of any comparative investigation in this eld. Hypotheses 1b and 2b deserve some elaboration. By stating that the content of the language processor and the monitor are modality dependent we mean that phonological, morphological, and syntactic representations are different for signed and spoken languages. Some representations may be the same (syntactic constructions such as wh-questions, topicalizations, etc.); some may be different (signed languages utilize spatial syntax and have a different pronominal system); some may be absent in one of the languages but present in the other (signed languages utilize two-handed signs, classiers, facial gestures, other gestures, etc., but spoken languages do not utilize these language devices). If modality differences are to be found they will be located here, not in the overall design of the processor. The processor will deal with and will be constrained by those different representations. As the function of the processor is the same no matter what language is computed conveying language in real-time the processor dealing with signed language and the one dealing with spoken language will have to adapt to these different representations, exploit possible processing advantages, and compensate for possible disadvantages (Gee and Goodhart 1988). One prominent dimension in this respect is simultaneity/linearity of

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grammatical encoding. In the sense of UG, the format of linguistic representations, however, is the same for both modalities. Both modalities may draw on different offers made available by UG, but, crucially, this format will always be UG-constrained. Natural languages if signed or spoken will never fall out of this UG space. The extent to which a particular language will draw upon simultaneity or linearity as an option will, of course, depend on specic (Phonetic Form or PF) interface conditions of that language.1 Different interface-conditions select different options of grammatical representations, all of which are made available by UG. Therefore, UG-constrained variation is a fruitful approach to the modality issue. In this respect, we distinguish three sources of variation: r Intra-modal variation between languages: This variation pertains to crosslinguistic differences between spoken languages (e.g. English vs. German) or crosslinguistic differences between signed languages (e.g. ASL vs. DGS). r Inter-modal variation (e.g. German vs. DGS): This variation is highly welcome as it can test the validity of the concept of UG and the modularity hypothesis. r Typological variation: It is important not to mix modality and typological effects. The mapping of languages onto the various typological categories (fusional, isolating, agglutinating languages, or, more generally, concatenative vs. nonconcatenative languages) can cut across modalities. For example, spoken languages as well as signed languages may belong to the same typological class of fusional/nonconcatenative languages (Leuninger, Happ, and Hohenberger 2000a).2 Sign languages, however, seem to uniformly prefer nonconcatenative morphology and are established at a more
1

In Chomskys minimalist framework (1995), syntax has two interfaces: one phonetic-articulatory (Phonetic Form, PF) and one logical-semantic (Logical Form, LF). Syntactic representations have to meet wellformedness constraints on these two interfaces, otherwise the derivation fails. LF is assumed to be modality neutral; PF, however, imposes different constraints on signed and spoken languages. Therefore, modality differences should be expected with respect to the PF interface. In this sense, spoken German shares some aspects of nonconcatenativity with German Sign Language. Of course, DGS displays a higher degree of nonconcatenativity due to the many features that can be encoded simultaneously (spatial syntax, facial gestures, classiers, etc.). In spoken German, however, grammatical information can also be encoded simultaneously. Ablaut (vowel gradation) is a case in point: the alternation of the stem such as /gXb/ yields various forms: geben (to give, innitive), gib (give, second person singular imperative), gab (gave, rst and be (give, subjunctive mode). third person singular past tense), die Gabe (the gift, noun), g a Here, morphological information is realized by vowel alternation within the stem a process of inxation and not by sufxation, the default mechanism of concatenation. A forteriori, Semitic languages with their autosegmental morphology (McCarthy 1981) and tonal languages (Odden 1995) also pattern with DGS. In syntax, sign languages also pattern with various spoken languages with respect to particular parametric choices. Thus, Lillo-Martin (1986; 1991; see also Crain and Lillo-Martin 1999) shows that ASL shares the Null Subject option with Italian (and other Romance languages) and the availability of empty discourse topics with languages such as Chinese.

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extreme pole on the continuum of isolating vs. fusional morphology (see Section 5.5.3.1). 5.3 A serial model of language production

As we investigate DGS production from a model-theoretic viewpoint, we tie our empirical research to theories of spoken language production that have been proposed in the literature. We adopt Levelts model (1989; 1992; 1999; Levelt et al. 1999) which is grounded in the seminal work of Garrett (1975; 1980) and Fromkin (1973; 1980).3 Levelts speaking model (1989) comprises various modules: the conceptualizer, the formulator, the articulator, the audition, and the speech-comprehension system. Levelt also includes two knowledge bases: discourse/world knowledge and the mental lexicon. Furthermore, in the course of language planning, Levelt distinguishes several planning steps from intention to articulation, (the subtitle of Levelt 1989), namely conceptualizing, formulating, and articulation. Formulating proceeds in two discrete steps: grammatical encoding (access to lemmas, i.e. semantic and syntactic information) and phonological encoding (access to lexemes, i.e. phonological word forms). This two-stage approach is the dening characteristic of Levelts and Garretts discrete serial production models. Figure 5.1 depicts Levelts model of language production. The serial process of sentence production is shown on the left-hand side of the diagram. The monitorwhich is located in the conceptualizer and conceived of as an independent functional modulemakes use of the speech comprehension system shown on the right-hand side via two feedback loops: one internal (internal speech) and one external (overt speech). How can the adequacy of this model and the validity of our hypotheses be determined? Of the different empirical approaches to this topic (all of which are discussed in Levelt 1989; Jescheniak 1999), we chose language production errors, a data class that has a long tradition of investigation in psycholinguistic research. The investigation of slips of the tongue in linguistic research dates back to the famous collection of Meringer and Mayer (1895); this collection instigated a long tradition of psycholinguistic research (see, amongst others, Fromkin 1973; 1980; Garrett 1975; 1980; Dell and Reich 1981; Cutler 1982; Stemberger 1985; 1989; Dell 1986; MacKay 1987; Berg 1988; Leuninger 1989; Dell and OSeaghdha 1992; Schade 1992; 1999; Poulisse 1999).
3

With the adoption of a serial model of language production, we do not intend to neglect or disqualify interactive models that have been proposed by connectionists or cascading models. The sign language data that we discuss here must, in principle, also possibly be accounted for by these models. The various models of language production are briey reviewed in an article by Jescheniak (1999) and are discussed in depth in Levelt, Roelofs, and Meyer (1999).

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CONCEPTUALIZER Message generation Monitoring Parsed speech Discourse model, situation knowledge, encyclopedia, etc.

Preverbal message FORMULATOR Grammatical encoding Surface structure Phonological encoding Phonetic plan (internal speech) ARTICULATOR overt speech SPEECH--COMPREHENSION SYSTEM LEXICON lemmas forms

Phonetic string AUDITION

Figure 5.1

Levelts (1989:9) model of language production

The investigation of slips of the hand is still relatively young. Klima and Bellugi (1979) and Newkirk, Klima, Pedersen, and Bellugi (1980) were the rst to present a small corpus of slips of the hand (spontaneous as well as videotaped slips) in American Sign Language (ASL). Sandler and Whittemore added a second small corpus of elicited slips of the hand (Whittemore 1987). In Europe, as far as we know, our research on slips of the hand is the rst. Slips (of the tongue or of the hand) offer the rare opportunity to glimpse inside the brain and to obtain a momentary access to an otherwise completely covert process: language production is highly automatic and unconscious (Levelt 1989). Slips open a window to the (linguistic) mind (Wiese 1987). This is the reason for the continued interest of psycholinguists in slips. They are nonpathological and involuntary deviations from an original plan which can occur at any stage during language production. Slips are highly characteristic of spontaneous language production. Although a negative incident, or an error, a slip reveals the normal process underlying language production. In

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analyzing the error we can nd out what the production process normally looks like.4 5.4 Method: Elicitation of slips of the hand

Traditionally, slips (of the tongue and hand) have been studied in a non-intrusive way, by means of recording them ex post facto in a paper-and-pencil fashion. Alternatively, more restricted experimental methods have been invoked to elicit slips at a higher rate (Baars, Motley, and MacKay 1975; Motley and Baars 1976; Baars 1992). In order to combine the advantages of both methods naturalness as well as objectivity of the data we developed the following elicitation task. We asked 10 adult deaf signers to sign 14 picture stories of varying lengths under various cognitive stress conditions (unordered pictures, signing under time pressure, cumulative repetition of the various pictures in the story, combinations of the conditions).5 Figure 5.2 shows one of the short stories that had to be verbalized.6 The signers who were not informed about the original goal of the investigation were videotaped for 3045 minutes. This raw material was subsequently analyzed by the collaborators of the project. Importantly, a deaf signer who is competent in DGS as well as linguistic theory participated in the project. We see these as indispensable preconditions for being able to identify slips of the hand. Then, video clips of the slip sequences were digitized and fed into a large computer database. Subsequently, the slips and their corrections were categorized according to the following main criteria:7 r type of slip: anticipation, perseveration, harmony error,8 substitution (semantic, formal, or both semantic and formal), blend, fusion, exchange, deletion; r entity: phonological feature, morpheme, word, phrase; r correction: yes/no; if yes, then by locus of correction: before word, within word, after word, delayed.
4 5 6

7 8

This is also the logic behind Caramazzas (1984) transparency condition. On the limitations of speech errors as evidence for language production processes, see also Meyer (1992). Cognitive stress is supposed to diminish processing resources which should affect language production as a resource-dependent activity (compare Leuninger, Happ, and Hohenberger 2000a). We thank DawnSignPress, San Diego, for kind permission to use the picture material of two of their VISTA course books for teaching ASL (Smith, Lentz, and Mikos 1988; Lentz, Mikos, and Smith 1989). The complete matrix contains additional information which is not relevant in the present context. Whereas the other pertinent slip categories need no further explanation, we briey dene harmony error here. By harmony we denote an error that has two sources, one in the left and one in the right context, so that it is impossible to tell whether it is an anticipation or a perseveration. Note that Berg (1988) calls these errors doppelquellig (errors with two sources), and Stemberger (1989) calls them A/P errors (anticipation/perseveration). We prefer the term harmony as it captures the fact well that two identical elements in the left and right context harmonize the element in their middle.

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Figure 5.2 Picture story of the elicitation task

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(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 5.3a SEINE [Y-hand]; 5.3b ELTERN [Y-hand]; 5.3c correct: SEINE [B-hand]

Our scoring procedure is illustrated by the following slip of the hand: (1) SEINE [B-hand Y-hand] his his parents ELTERN9 parents

In (1) the signer anticipates the Y handshape of ELTERN (see Figure 5.3b) when signing the possessive pronoun SEINE (see Figure 5.3a) which is correctly signed with the B handshape (see Figure 5.3c). The other three phonological features hand orientation, movement, and place of articulation are not affected. The slip is apparently unnoticed by the signer as evidenced by the fact that it was not corrected. Scoring for example (1): r type of slip: anticipation; r entity: phonological feature (handshape); r correction: no. In Section 5.5, we present our major empirical ndings on slips of the hands and compare them to slips of the tongue.
9

We represent the slips of the hand by using the following notations: SEINE [B-hand Y-hand] S(OHN) GEHT-ZU // mouth gesture NICHT-VORHANDEN The slip is given in italics. In brackets, we rst note the intended form followed by the erroneous form after the arrow. In parentheses, we note parts of the sign which are not spelled out. The hyphen indicates a single DGS sign as opposed to separate words in spoken German. The double slash indicates the point of interruption. Nonmanual parts of a sign (in this case, mouth gestures) are represented on an additional layer.

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Table 5.1 DGS slip categories, cross-classied with affected entity

Affected entity n 9 12 9 1 3 4 35 4 1 2 3 % Word Phonology: sum Handshape Move Place Other h1+h2 Hand orientation Combination 5 1 Morpheme 3 2

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32 31 13

16 11 10

5 3 2

120
1 30 18 1 2 2 78 38.4 112 55.2 203 100.0

1 3 1 1 1 1 1 12 6

Anticipation Perseveration Harmony Substitution semantic formal semantic and formal Blend Fusion Exchange Deletion

44 45 13 5 38 1 1 32 18 2 4

21.7 22.1 6.4 2.5 18.7 0.5 0.5 15.7 8.8 1.0 2.0

Total Total (as percentage)

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5.5 5.5.1

Results Distribution of slip categories and affected entities

In Table 5.1 we analyze the distribution of the various slip categories crossclassied with entities.10 In these data, the slip categories that contain the most errors are anticipation and perseveration; these are syntagmatic errors. The next largest categories are semantic substitutions and blends; these are paradigmatic errors. In a syntagmatic error, the correct serialization of elements is affected. Observationally, a phonological feature, such as a handshape, is spelled out too early (anticipation)11 or too late (perseveration).12 If a phonological feature is affected, this error is located in the formulator module; strictly speaking this happens during the access of the lexeme lexicon where the phonological form of a word is specied. In a paradigmatic error, elements that are members of the same paradigm are affected. A paradigm may, for example, consist of verbs that share semantic features. Typically, one verb substitutes for a semantically related one; for example SIT substitutes for STAND. Semantic substitutions take place in the formulator again, but this time during access of the lemma-lexicon where semantic and grammatical category information is specied. The most frequently affected entities are sign words, followed by phonological parameters. Morphemes and phrases are only rarely affected. Most slip categories co-occur with all entities. There are, however, preferred co-occurrences that are presented in Section 5.5.2. 5.5.2 Selection of original slips of the hand

In this section we present a qualitative analysis of a small collection of slips of the hand that exemplify the major results in Section 5.5.1. The errors may or may not be corrected. Typically, paradigmatic errors such as semantic substitutions
10

11 12

The categories and the affected entities are those described in Section 5.3. The phonological features are further specied as handshape, hand orientation, movement, and place of articulation. The category other concerns other phonological errors; for example the proper selection of ngers or the contact. The category h1 and h2 concerns the proper selection of hands, e.g. a one-handed sign is changed into a two-handed sign. The category combination concerns slips where more than one phonological feature is changed. Compare example (1) in Section 5.4. In a serial, modular perspective (as in Garrett, Levelt), the problem with syntagmatic errors concerns the proper binding of elements to slots specied by the representations on the respective level. From a connectionist perspective, the problem with syntagmatic errors concerns the proper timing of elements. Both approaches, binding-by-evaluation and binding-by-timing are competing conceptions of the language production process (see also Levelt, Roelofs, and Meyer 1999).

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(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 5.4a substitution: VA(TER); 5.4b conduite: SOHN; 5.4c target/correction: BUB

and blends referred to in Section 5.4.1 affect words. Example (2) is a semantic substitution (with a conduite dapproche13 ): (2) (Context: A boy is looking for his missing shoe) VA(TER) [BUB VATER] S(OHN) [conduite: BUB SOHN] BUB father son boy the father, son, boy

The signer starts with the erroneously selected lemma VATER (father) given in Figure 5.4a. That BUB and not VATER is the intended sign can be inferred from the context in which the discourse topic is the boy who is looking for his missing shoe. After introducing the boy, the signer goes on to say where the boy is looking for his shoe. Apart from contextual information, the repair BUB also indicates the target sign. Immediately after the onset of the movement of VATER, the signer changes the handshape to the F-hand with which SOHN (son) is shown in Figure 5.4b.14 Eventually, the signer converges on the target sign BUB (boy) as can be seen in Figure 5.4c. Linearization errors such as anticipation, perseveration, and harmony errors typically affect phonological features. Example (3) is a perseveration of the handshape of the immediately preceding sign:
13

14

A conduite dapproche is a stepwise approach to the target word, either related to semantics or to form. In (2) the target word BUB is reached only via the semantically related word SOHN, the conduite. In fact the downward movement is characteristic of TOCHTER (daughter); SOHN (son) is signed upwards. We have, however, good reasons to suppose that SOHN is, in fact, the intended intermediate sign which only coincidentally surfaces as TOCHTER because of the compelling downward movement from VATER to the place of articulation of BUB. Thus, the string VATERSOHNBUB behaves like a compound.

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(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 5.5a VATER [B-hand]; 5.5b slip: MOTHER [B-hand]; 5.5c correct: MOTHER [G-hand]

(3)

(Discourse topic: the boy) (ER) GEHT-ZU VATER MUTTER [G-hand B-hand] SAGTBESCHEID (He) goes-to father mother tells-them (The boy) goes to father and mother, and tells them . . .

In (3) the B handshape of VATER (father) as can be seen in Figure 5.5a is perseverated on the sign for MUTTER (mother), as shown in Figure 5.5b. MUTTER is correctly signed with the G-hand as can be seen in Figure 5.5c. With regard to serial handshape errors, we need to explain how erroneous phonological processes are distinguished from non-erroneous ones. First, Zimmer (1989) reports on handshape anticipations and perseverations on the nondominant hand which occur frequently in casual registers. While we acknowledge the phenomenon Zimmer describes, it is important not to mix these cases with the ones reported here; these ones concern the dominant hand only.15 Second, it has been observed that signers of ASL and of Danish Sign Language may systematically assimilate the index [G] handshape to the preceding or following sign with rst person singular, but not with second and third person singular. Supercially, these cases look like anticipations and perseverations. While we also observe this phenomenon in DGS, it does not seem to have a comparable systematic status as in ASL.16 In (1) above SEINE ELTERN (his parents) it is the third person singular possessive pronoun SEINE (his) which is affected. This clearly cannot be accounted for along the lines of Zimmer (1989). Handshape is the most prominent phonological feature to be affected by linearization errors. Our ndings with regard to the high proportion of handshape errors among the phonological slips reproduce earlier ndings of Klima and
15

16

In fact we found only one perseveration that concerns the nondominant hand of a P2-sign (in the sense of Sandler 1993). The nondominant hand is rarely affected, and this fact might mirror the minor signicance of the nondominant hand in sign language production. We found only four such cases (three anticipations and one perseveration) which involved rst person singular.

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(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 5.6a MANN [forehead]; 5.6b slip: FRAU [forehead]; 5.6c correct: FRAU [breast]

Bellugi (1979; see also Newkirk et al. 1980, and Section 5.5.3). They report 49.6 percent of handshape errors which equals our ratio of 47.4 percent. Our result is also conrmed by ndings in sign language aphasia, where phonological paraphasia mostly concerns the handshape parameter (Corina 1998). Other phonological features such as hand orientation, movement, and place of articulation are only rarely affected. In (4) we introduce a place of articulation error: (4) (Context: The signer suddenly realizes that the character he had referred to as a man is, in fact, a woman) MANN FRAU [POA: MANN] man woman The man is a woman. In (4) the signer perseverates the place of articulation of MANN [forehead] (see Figure 5.6a) on the sign FRAU (see Figure 5.6b). The correct place of articulation of FRAU is at the chest (see Figure 5.6c). All other phonological parameters (hand orientation, movement, handshape) are from FRAU. Fusions are another slip category that are sensitive to linearization. Here, two neighboring signs fuse. Each loses parts of its phonological specication; together they form a single sign (syllable), as in (5): (5) (Context: A boy is looking for his missing shoe)17 mouth gesture: blowing SCHUH DA (ER) NICHT-VORHANDEN [F-hand V-hand] SCHAUT [path movement circular movement] shoe here (he) not-there looks He looks for the shoe, and nds nothing.

17

We represent the fusion by stacking the glosses for both fused signs, SCHAUT and NICHTVORHANDEN, as phonological features of both signs realized simultaneously. The nonmanual feature of NICHT-VORHANDEN the mouth gesture (blowing) has scope over the fusion. The [F]-handshape of NICHT-VORHANDEN, however, is suppressed, as is the straight or arc movement and hand orientation of SCHAUEN.

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In (5), the signer fuses the two signs SCHAUT (looks) and NICHTVORHANDEN (nothing). The [V] handshape is from SCHAUT; the circular movement, the hand orientation, and the mouth gesture (blowing out a stream of air) is from NICHT-VORHANDEN. The fused elements are adjacent and have a syntagmatic relation in the phrase. Their positional frames are fused into a single frame; phonological features stem from both signs. Interestingly, a nonmanual feature (the mouth gesture) is also involved.18 Fusions in spoken languages are not a major slip category but have been reported in the literature (Shattuck-Hufnagel 1979; Garrett 1980; Stemberger 1984). Fusions are similar to blends, formationally, but involve neighboring elements in the syntactic string, whereas blends involve paradigmatically related semantic items. Stemberger (1984) argues that they are structural errors involving two words in the same phrase for which, however, only one word node is generated. In our DGS data, two neighboring signs are fused into a single planning slot, whereby some phonological features stem from the one sign and some from the other; see (5). Slips of this type may relate to regular processes such as composition by which new and more convenient signs are generated synchronically and diachronically. Therefore, one might speculate that fusions are more frequent in sign language than in spoken language, as our data suggest. This issue, however, is not well understood and needs further elaboration. Word blends are frequent paradigmatic errors in DGS. In (6) two semantically related items HOCHZEIT (marriage) and HEIRAT (wedding) compete for lemma selection and phonological encoding. The processor selects both of them and an intricate blend results; this blend is complicated by the fact that both signs are two-handed signs: (6) HEIRAT PAAR// HOCHZEIT// HEIRAT PAAR marriage couple// wedding// marriage couple wedding couple

The two competing items in the blend (6) are HEIRAT (marriage) (see Figure 5.7b) and HOCHZEIT (wedding) (see Figure 5.7c).19 In the slip (see Figure 5.7a), the dominant hand has the [Y] handshape of HOCHZEIT and also performs the path movement of HOCHZEIT, while the orientation and conguration of the two hands is that of HEIRAT. For the sign HEIRAT, the dominant hand puts the ring on the non-dominant hands ring nger as in the
18

19

It is important not to confuse fusions and blends. Whereas in fusions neighboring elements in the syntagmatic string interact, only signs that bear a paradigmatic (semantic) relation engage in a blend. While SCHAUT and NICHT-VORHANDEN have no such relation, the signs involved in blends like (6) do. Note that this blend has presumably been triggered by an appropriateness repair, namely the extension of PAAR (couple) to HEIRATSPAAR (wedding couple).

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(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 5.7a slip: HEIRAT/HOCHZEIT; 5.7b correction: HEIRAT; 5.7c correct: HOCHZEIT

wedding ceremony. In the slip, however, the dominant hand glides along the palm of the non-dominant hand and not over its back, as in HOCHZEIT. Interestingly, features of both signs are present simultaneously, but distributed on the two articulators, the hand; this kind of error is impossible in spoken languages. The blend is corrected after the erroneous sign. This time, one of the competing signs, HEIRAT, is correctly selected. 5.5.3 Intra-modal and inter-modal comparison with other slip corpora

In this section we present a quantitative and a qualitative analysis of our slips of the hand data. We then compare our slip corpus with the one compiled by Klima and Bellugi (1979), which also appears in Newkirk et al. (1980). With respect to word and morpheme errors, the latter is not very informative. Klima and Bellugi report that only nine out of a total of 131 slips were whole signs being exchanged. No other whole word errors (substitutions, blends) are reported. With respect to the distribution of phonological errors, however, we can make a direct comparison. The ASL corpus consists of 89 phonological slips that are distributed as shown in Table 5.2. We present our data so that it is directly comparable to Klima and Bellugis.20 As can be seen in Table 5.2, the distribution in both slip collections is parallel. As expected, hand conguration (especially handshape) has the lions share in the overall number of phonological slips. The reason why handshape is so frequently involved in slipping may have to do with inventory size and the motoric programs that encode handshape. In DGS the signer has to select the correct handshape from a set of approximately 32 handshapes (Pfau 1997) which may lead to mis-selection to a certain
20

In the rearrangement of our own data from Table 5.1 we only considered the rst four parameters and left out the minor categories (other, h1 + h2, combination; see footnote 10 above). Note that we have combined handshape and hand orientation into the single parameter hand conguration in Table 5.2.

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Table 5.2 Frequency (percentages in parentheses) of phonological errors by parameter in ASL (Klima and Bellugi 1979) and in DGS
Parameter Hand conguration Place of articulation Movement Total ASL 65 (73) 13 (14.6) 11 (12.4) 89 (100) DGS 47 (82.5) 5 (8.8) 5 (8.8) 57 (100)

degree. One might conjecture that the bigger the inventory, the more error-prone the process of selection both because there is higher competition between the members of the set and because the representational space has a higher density. Furthermore, the motor programs for activating these handshapes involve only minor differences; this might be an additional reason for mis-selection. Note that the inventory for hand orientation is much smaller there are only six major hand orientations that are used distinctively and the motor programs encoding this parameter can be relatively imprecise. Hand orientation errors, accordingly, are less frequent. In spoken language, phonological features are also not equally affected in slips; the place feature (labial, alveolar, palatal, glottal, uvular, etc.) is most frequently involved (Leuninger, Happ, and, Hohenberger 2000b). In order to address the question of modality, we have to make a second comparison, this time with a corpus of slips of the tongue. We use the Frankfurt corpus of slips of the tongue.21 This corpus includes approximately 5000 items. Although both corpora differ with respect to the method by which the data were gathered and with respect to categorization, we provide a broad comparison. As can be seen from Tables 5.1 and 5.3,22 there is an overall congruence for affected entities and slip categories. There are, however, two major discrepancies. First, there are almost no exchanges in the sign language data, whereas they are frequent in the spoken language data. Second, morphemes are rarely affected in DGS, whereas they are affected to a higher degree in spoken German. These two results become most obvious in the absence of stranding errors in DGS. In Section 5.5.3.1 we concentrate on these discrepancies, pointing out possible modality effects.
21 22

We are in the process of collecting slips of the tongue from adult German speakers in the same setting, so we have to postpone the exact quantitative intermodal comparison for now. In Table 5.3 the following categories from Table 5.1 are missing: harmony, formal, and semantic and formal substitutions. These categories were not included in the set of categories by the time this corpus had been accumulated. Harmony errors are included in the anticipation and perseveration category.

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Table 5.3 Slip categories/affected entities for the German slip corpus
Affected entity Slip of the tongue type Anticipation Perseveration Substitution, semantic Blend Exchange Fusion Deletion Addition Total Total (as percentage) n 1024 906 1094 923 774 13 182 35 4951 100.0 % 20.7 18.3 22.1 18.6 15.6 0.3 3.7 0.7 Word 143 155 783 658 200 10 46 8 2003 40.5 Phoneme 704 644 147 13 439 2 78 17 2043 41.3 Morpheme 177 107 164 242 135 1 58 10 894 18.1 Phrase

10

10 0.2

5.5.3.1 Absence of stranding errors. One of the most striking differences between the corpora is the absence of stranding errors in DGS. Surprising as this result is from the point of view of spoken languages, it is in line with Klima and Bellugis earlier ndings for ASL. They, too, did not nd any stranding errors (Klima and Bellugi 1979). In this section we explore possible reasons for this nding. In spoken languages, this category is well documented (for English, see Garrett 1975; 1980; Stemberger 1985; 1989; Dell 1986; for Arabic, see Abd-ElJawad and Abu-Salim 1987; for Spanish, see Del Viso, Igoa, and Garc a-Albea 1991; for German, see Leuninger 1996). Stranding occurs when the free content morphemes of two words, usually neighbors, are exchanged whereas their respective bound grammatical morphemes stay in situ. A famous English example is (7a); a German example which is even richer in bound morphology is (7b): (7) a. turking talkish talking Turkish (from Garrett 1975); b. mein kollegischer Malaye mein malayischer Kollege; my colleagical Malay my Malay colleague (Leuninger 1996:114).

In (7a) the word stems talk- and turk-, guring in a verb and an adjective, respectively, are exchanged, leaving behind the gerund -ing and the adjectival morpheme -ish. This misordering is suppposed to take place at a level of processing where the word form (morphological, segmental content) is encoded, on the positional level (Garretts terminology) or lexeme level (Levelts terminology). In (7b), the stems malay- and kolleg-, guring in an adjective and a noun, respectively, are exchanged, leaving behind the adjectival morpheme -isch as well as the case/gender/number morpheme -er of the adjective and the nominalizing morpheme -e of the noun.

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The absence of this category in DGS and ASL calls for some explanation. First of all, we have to exclude a sampling artifact. The data in both corpora (DGS vs. spoken German) were collected in a very different fashion: the slips of the tongue stem from a spontaneous corpus; the slips of the hand from an elicited corpus (for details, see Section 5.4). The distribution of slip categories in the former type of corpora is known to be prone to listeners biases (compare Meyer 1992; Ferber 1995; see also Section 5.4). Stranding errors are perceptually salient, and because of their spectacular form they are more likely to be recorded and added to a slip collection. In an objective slip collection, however, this bias is not operative.23 Pending the exact quantication of our elicited slips of the tongue, we now turn to linguistic reasons that are responsible for the differences. The convergent ndings in ASL as well as in DGS are signicant: if morphemes do not strand in either ASL or DGS this strongly hints at a systematic linguistic reason. What rst comes to mind is the difference in morphological type: spoken German is a concatenative language to a much higher degree than DGS or ASL. Although spoken German is fusional to a considerable degree (see Section 5.2), it is far more concatenative than DGS in that morphemes typically line up neatly one after the other, yielding, for example, mein malay-isch-er Kolleg-e (my Malay colleague) with one derivational morpheme (-isch), one stemgenerating morpheme (-e) and one case/agreement morpheme (-er). In DGS this complex nominal phrase would contain no such functional morphemes but take the form: MEIN KOLLEGE MALAYISCH (my Malay colleague). For this reason, no stranding can occur in such phrases in the rst place. Note that this is not a modality effect but one of language type. We can easily show that this effect cuts across languages in the same modality, simply by looking at the English translation of (7b): my Malay colleague. In English comparable stranding could also not occur because the bound morphemes (on the adjective and the noun) are not overt, as in DGS. English, however, has many other bound morphemes that are readily involved in stranding errors (as in 7a), unlike in DGS. Now we are ready for the crucial question, namely, whether we are to expect no stranding errors in DGS (or ASL) at all? The answer is no. Stranding errors should, in principle, occur (see also Klima and Bellugi 1979).24 What we have to determine is what grammatical morphemes could be involved in such sign morpheme strandings. The answer to this question relates to the second reason for the low frequency of DGS stranding errors: high vs. low separability of
23

24

A preliminary inspection of our corpus of elicited slips of the tongue suggests that stranding errors are also a low-frequency error category in spoken languages, so that the apparent difference is not one between language types but is, at least partly, due to a sampling artifact. Klima and Bellugi (1979) report on a memory study in which signers sometimes misplaced the inection. Although this is not the classical case of stranding (where the inections stay in situ while the root morphemes exchange), this hints at a possible separability of morphemes during online production.

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Figure 5.8

A polymorphemic form in ASL (Brentari 1998:21)

grammatical morphemes. This difference is a traditional one of descriptive linguistics and dates back to the early days of research into Indo-European languages (Kean 1977). Sign languages such as DGS are extremely rich with inectional and derivational morphemes and, crucially, are able to realize them at the same time. Figure 5.8 describes a polymorphemic ASL sign in which nine morphemes (content morphemes and classiers) are simultaneously realized in one monosyllabic word (Brentari 1998:21) meaning something like: (8) two, hunched, upright-beings, facing forward, go forward, carefully, side-by-side, from point a, to point b .

Of these many morphemes, however, only a few such as the spatial loci could, if ever, be readily involved in a stranding error. Fusional as these sign language morphemes are, they are much more resistant to being separated from each other than concatenated morphemes.25 There are, however, grammatical sign language morphemes that should allow for stranding errors, hence be readily separable; for example aspectual, plural, and agreement morphemes. In a hypothetical sentence like (9): (9) ICH PERSON+++ I personplural I ask each of them.
ICH FRAGJEDEN-EINZELNEN I askeach-of-them

the plural morpheme +++ (realized by signing PERSON three times) and the AGR-morpheme each of them (realized by a zigzag movement of the verbal stem FRAG) could, in principle, strand while the free content morphemes
25

In Stemberger (1985:103), however, there is little difference in the stranding of regular (high separability) vs. irregular (low separability) past tense in English speech errors.

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PERSON and FRAG- (to ask) could be exchanged. This would result in the hypothetical slip (9 ): (9 ) ICH FRAG+++ I askplural
ICH PERSONJEDEN-EINZELNEN I personeach-of-them

The same holds true of aspectual morphemes such as durative or habituative which are realized as movement alternations of the verbal stem. Thus, BEZAHLENHABIT (to payhabitual ) is realized as multiple short repetitions of the stem BEZAHL (to pay), whereas FAHRENDURATIVE (to drivedurative) is realized as prolonging the entire sign FAHREN (to drive). Morphemes that have a distinct movement pattern altering the sign in the temporal dimension (repetition of the sign or stem, or specic movement: long, zigzag, or arc movement) are likely candidates for stranding errors. As their incidence in spontaneous signing is, however, low, the probability of a stranding slip in a corpus is negligible (see also Klima and Bellugi 1979:141).26 Finally, we address the issue as to whether or not our explanation can be restricted to a difference in typology rather than modality. The former line of argumentation would be highly welcome in terms of parsimony of linguistic explanation and, hence, Occams razor. We would simply apply a categorial difference which is already known to distinguish spoken languages. If we can show that the difference between spoken German and DGS (and, inductively, between spoken and signed languages in general) boils down to a typological difference, this would have two highly desired outcomes. First, we could show that signed languages can be typologically characterized, as can any spoken language. Signed languages would simply be an additional but, of course, very important class of languages which are subject to the same universal characteristics. This would strengthen the universality issue. Second, Occams razor would be satised in showing that it was unneccessary to invoke the broader concept of modality, and that the smaller and already well-established concept of typology sufces to explain the behavior of sign languages such as DGS. There is, however, one consideration that makes it worth invoking modality. Whereas the class of spoken languages divides into various subgroups with regard to morphological type (Chinese being an isolating language, Turkish being a concatenative language, the Indo-European languages being inectional languages) sign languages seem to behave in a more uniform way: across the board, they all seem to be highly fusional languages realizing multiple morphemes at the same time. This hints at a common characteristic which is rooted in pecularities of the modality.
26

We are condent, though, to be able to elicit these errors in an appropriate setting where the stimulus material is more strictly controlled than in the present study.

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Gee and Goodhart (1988) have convincingly argued that spoken and signed languages differ with respect to the amount of information that can be conveyed in a linguistic unit and in a particular time. This topic is intimately related to language production and therefore deserves closer inspection (Leuninger et al. 2000a). Spoken languages, on the one hand, make use of very ne motoric articulators (tongue, velum, vocal chords, larynx, etc.). The places of articulation of the various phonemes are very close to each other in the mouth (teeth, alveolar ridge, lips, palate, velum, uvula, etc.). The oral articulators are capable of achieving a very high temporal resolution of signals in production and can thus convey linguistic information at a very high speed. Signed languages, on the other hand, make use of coarse motoric articulators (the hands and arms, the entire body). The places of articulation are more distant from each other. The temporal resolution of signed languages is lower. Consequently, sign language production must take longer for each individual sign. The spatio-temporal and physiological constraints of language production in both modalities are quite different. On average, the rate of articulation for words doubles that of signs (45 words per second vs. 2.32.5 signs per second; see Klima and Bellugi 1979). Surprisingly, however, signed and spoken languages are on a par with regard to the ratio of propositional information per time rate. Spoken and signed sentences roughly have the same production time (Klima and Bellugi 1979). The reason for this lies in the different information density of each sign.27 A single monosyllabic sign is typically polymorphemic (remember the nine morphemes in (8); compare Brentari 1998). The condensation of information is not achieved by the high-speed serialization of segments and morphemes but by the simultaneous output of autosegmental phonological features and morphemes. Thus, we witness an ingenious trade-off between production time and informational density which enables both signed and spoken languages to come up with what Slobin (1977) formulated as a basic requirement of languages, namely that they be humanly processible in real time (see also Gee and Goodhart 1988). If we follow this line of argumentation it follows quite naturally that signed languages due to their modality-specic production constraints will always be attracted to autosegmental phonology and fusional morphology. Spoken languages being subject to less severe constraints will be free to choose between the available options. We therefore witness a greater amount of variability among them.
27

Klima and Bellugi (1979) suggest that the omission of function words such as complementizers, determiners, auxiliaries, etc. also economizes time. We do not follow them here because there are also spoken languages that have many zero functors, although they are obviously not pressed to economize time by omitting them.

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5.5.3.2 Fewer exchanges in general: Phonological features and words. As can be seen by comparing Table 5.1 and 5.3, not only are stranding errors absent in our DGS corpus, but exchanges of any linguistic entity are extremely rare as compared to the spoken German corpus. The analysis of phonological and word exchanges in spoken language has been of special importance since Garrett (1975; 1980) and others proposed the rst models of language production. Garrett showed that the errors in (10a) and (10b) arise at different processing levels which he identied as the functional (lemma) level and the positional (lexeme) level: (10) a. the list was not in the word the word was not in the list (Stemberger 1985, in Berg 1988:26); b. h eft l emisphere left hemisphere (Fromkin 1973, in Meyer 1992:183).

The reasons to differentiate both types of exchange lie in distinct constraints and vocabulary used to compute both kinds of exchange. The words involved in word exchanges, on the one hand, always obey the word class constraint, i.e. nouns exchange with nouns, and verbs with verbs, but they do not necessarily share the same phrase. The segments involved in phoneme exchanges, on the other hand, do belong to the same phrase and do not obey the word class constraint. However, they obey the syllable position constraint, namely that segments of like syllable positions interact; for example onset with onset, nucleus with nucleus, and coda with coda (Garrett 1975; 1980; Levelt 1992; Meyer 1992; Poulisse 1999). MacNeilage (1998) refers to this constraint in terms of a framecontent metaphor28 at the core of which is the lack of interchangeability of the two major class elements of spoken language phonology, consonants, and vowels.29 Although in the Klima and Bellugi study (1979; see also Newkirk et al. 1980) no word errors are reported, they found nine phonological exchanges. Among these is the following handshape exchange: (11) SICK BORED (Newkirk et al. 1980:171; see also Klima and Bellugi 1979:130)

Here, the handshapes for SICK (G-hand) and BORED (exposed middle nger) are exchanged; the other features (place of articulation, hand orientation, and movement) remain unaffected.
28 29

We are thankful to Peter MacNeilage for pointing out the frame-content metaphor to us in this context. It is well known that in spoken languages phonological slips in normal speakers and phonological paraphasia in aphasic patients concern mostly consonants. The preponderance of handshape errors in sign language production errors as well as in aphasic signing bears directly on the frame-content metaphor and invites speculation on a modality-independent effect in this respect. Consonants in spoken and signed languages may be more vulnerable than vowels due to a neural difference in representation (Corina 1998:321).

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Given the fact that all major phonological features (handshape, place of articulation, hand orientation, and movement) can be affected in simple signing errors where only one element is affected as in anticipations, perseverations, and harmony errors (see Table 5.1), one wonders why they should not also gure in complex signing errors where two elements are affected. Handshape exchanges like the one in (11) should, therefore, be expected. There is no reason to suppose that sign language features cannot be separated from each other. In fact, it was one of the main goals of Newkirk et al. (1980) to demonstrate that there are also sub-lexical phonological features in ASL, and to provide empirical evidence against the unwarranted view that signs are simply indivisible wholes, holistic gestures not worth being seriously studied by phonologists. Note that spoken and signed languages differ in the following way with respect to phonological errors in general and phonological exchanges in particular. Segments of concatenating spoken languages such as English and German are lined up like beads on a string in a strictly serial order as specied in the lexical items word form (lexeme). If two complete segments are exchanged, the syllable position constraint is always obeyed. The same, however, cannot hold true of the phonological features of a sign. They do not behave as segments: they are not realized linearly, but simultaneously. It is a modality specicity, indeed, that the signs phonological features are realized at the same time, although they are all represented on independent autosegmental tiers. Obviously, the frame-content metaphor (MacNeilage 1998) cannot be transferred to signed languages straightforwardly. The frame-content metaphor states that a words skeleton and its segmental content are independently generated (Levelt 1992:10). This is most obvious in segmental exchanges. If we roughly attribute handshape, hand orientation, and place of articulation consonantal status and movement vocalic status, then of the two constraints on phonological errors the segment class constraint and the syllable position constraint sign languages obey only the former (compare Perlmutter 1992). Typically, one handshape is replaced with another handshape or one movement with another movement. The latter constraint, however, cannot hold true of the phonological features of a sign because they are realized simultaneously. Thus, phonological slips in sign languages compare to segmental slips in spoken languages, but there is no equivalence for segmental slips in sign language. We still have to answer the question why exchanges across all entities are so rare in sign language. As Stemberger (1985) pointed out, the true number of exchanges may be veiled by what he calls incompletes, i.e. covered exchanges that are caught and repaired by the monitor after the rst part of the exchange has taken place. (An incomplete is an early corrected exchange.) These errors, then, do not surface as exchanges but as anticipations. As a null hypothesis we assume that the number of exchanges, true anticipations, and incompletes is the same for spoken and signed languages, unless their incidence interacts

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with other processes that change the probability of their occurrence. We will, in fact, argue below that monitoring is such a process. In Section 5.6 we point out that the cut-off points in signed and spoken languages are different. Errors are detected and repaired apparently earlier in sign languages, preferentially in the problem item itself, whereas repairs in spoken languages start later, after the erroneous word or even later. If this holds true, exchanges may be more likely to surface in spoken languages simply because both parts of the error would have already occurred before the monitor was able to detect them. 5.6 The sign language monitor: Repair behavior in DGS

Corrections are natural phenomena in spontaneous language production. Advanced models of language production therefore contain a functional component that supervises its own output, realizes discrepancies to the intended utterance, and, if necessary, induces a repair. This module is the monitor. In Levelts model the monitor (see Figure 5.1) is situated in the conceptualizer, i.e. hierarchically very high, and is fed by two feedback loops, one internal (via internal speech), the other external (via overt speech). The monitor uses the speech comprehension system as its informational route. The fact that the language production system supervises itself and provides repairs is not at all trivial. Repair behavior is a complex adaptive behavior and shows the capacity of the system in an impressive way. To date, monitor behavior in signed languages has not been investigated systematically. In the following discussion we analyze slip repairs from a model-theoretic perspective. According to Hypothesis 2a, we expect comparable monitoring with respect to processing DGS and spoken German. The rate of correction and correction types should be the same. According to Hypothesis 2b, we expect the sign language monitor to be sensitive to the specic representations of signed and spoken languages. Therefore, repair behavior is taken to be an interesting new set of data that can reveal possible modality differences. In the following, we present our quantitative analysis of repairs in DGS. Above all, we concentrate on the locus of repair in spoken languages and DGS because this criterion reveals the most striking difference between DGS and spoken language. 5.6.1 Locus of repair: Signed vs. spoken language

Slip collections do not always contain detailed information about repair behavior. We believe, however, that monitor behavior is revealing with respect to the capacity of the processor, to incremental language production, and to the processors dependency on the linguistic representations it computes (Leuninger et al. 2000a).

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Table 5.4 Locus of repair (percentages) in DGS vs. Dutch

Locus of repair Before word Within word After word Delayed Total slip repairs Ratio repairs/slips Source: Levelt 1983:63 DGS 8 57 37 8 (7.3) (51.8) (33.6) (7.3) Dutch 0 91 193 115

(23) (48) (29)

110 (100.0) 110/203 (54.2)

399 (100)

In this section we address the following questions: To what extent do German signers correct their slips? What are the main cut-off points and do these correspond to those in spoken languages? According to Levelt (1983:56; 1989:476), the speaker adheres to the Main Interruption Rule: namely Stop the ow of speech immediately upon detecting trouble. It is assumed that this rule is obeyed in the same way in both spoken and sign language. However, we see that due to modality differences repairs in sign language appear to occur earlier than those in spoken language. Table 5.4 shows the distribution of repairs at four cut-off points (see Section 5.4): before word,30 within word, after word, and delayed. We compare the DGS data with error repairs of Dutch speakers from Levelt (1983).31 First, we can see that 54.2 percent of all slips in DGS are repaired. This is in the normal range when compared with the percentage of repairs in spoken languages, which exhibit varying correction rates of about 50 percent. Focusing on differences in monitor behavior between DGS and spoken languages, as can be seen from Table 5.4, the most frequent locus of repair for DGS is within word (51.8 percent), followed by after the word (33.6 percent).
30

31

The diagnosis of such early repairs is possible because the handshape is already in place during the transitional movement. This allows a good guess to be made at what sign would have been produced if it had not been caught by the monitor. Maybe these extremely early repairs must be compared to sub-phonological speech errors which consist in altered motor patterns that are imperceptible unless recorded by special electromyographic techniques, as in the study of Mowry and MacKay (1990). Furthermore, these early repairs encourage us to speculate on the time course of activation of the various phonological parameters of a sign. Handshape seems to be activated extremely early and very fast, obviously before the other parameters i.e. hand orientation, place of articulation, and movement are planned. This would mean that sequentiality is, in fact, an issue when signs are accessed in the lexeme lexicon. We compared our DGS repairs with only a subset of Levelts data set, namely with error repairs (E repairs) (Levelt 1983:63). It is well known that in appropriateness repairs (A repairs), the speaker tends to complete the inappropriate word before he or she corrects it because it is not erroneous. In E repairs, however, the speaker corrects his or her faulty utterance as fast as possible, not respecting word boundaries to the same extent.

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Delayed repairs where some material intervenes between the error and the repair are rare (7.3 percent) as are early repairs before word onset (7.3 percent). The cut-off points in spoken language (here, Dutch) are different.32 The typical locus of repair in spoken language is after the word. Corrections within the word are rarer, and delayed repairs are more frequent. For DGS, however, repairs peak on very fast repairs within the word, followed by increasingly slower repairs. However, we do not invoke modality as an explanation for this apparent difference because it is only a supercial, albeit interesting, explanation. From the discussion in Section 5.5 of the different production times for spoken vs. signed languages (the ratio of which is 2:1), we can easily predict that the longer duration of a sign word will inuence the locus of repair, provided that the overall capacity of the spoken and the sign language monitor is the same. The following prediction seems to hold: because a signed word takes twice as long as a spoken word, errors will be more likely to be caught within the word in sign language, but after the word in spoken language. Note that this difference becomes even more obvious when we characterize the locus of repair in terms of syllables. In DGS, the error is caught within a single syllable, whereas for spoken Dutch, the syllable counting begins only after the trouble word (not counting any syllables within the error). Again, the reason is that words in signed language (monomorphemic as well as polymorphemic) tend to be monosyllabic (see Section 5.5). This one syllable, however, has a long production time and allows for a repair at some point during its production.33 Thus, the comparison of signed and spoken language repairs reveals once more the different temporal expansion of identical linguistic elements, i.e. words and syllables. This is a modality effect, but not a linguistic one. This effect is related to the articulatory interface. Note that in Chomskys minimalist program (1995) PF, which is related to articulation and perception, is one of the interfaces with which the language module interacts. Obviously, spoken and signed languages are subject to very different anatomical and physiological constraints with regard to their articulators. Our data reveal exactly this difference. Would it be more appropriate to characterize the locus of repair not in terms of linguistic entities but in terms of physical time? If we did this we would nd that in both language types repairs would, on average, be provided equally fast. With this result any apparent modality effect vanishes. We would not know, however, what differences in the temporal resolution of linguistic entities exist in both languages, and that these differences result in a very different
32 33

Levelt distinguishes word-internal corrections (without further specifying where in the word), corrections after the word, and delayed corrections that are measured in syllables after the error. It is even possible that both the erroneous word and the repair share a single syllable. In these cases, the repair is achieved by a handshape change during the path movement. This is in accord with phonological syllable constraints (Perlmutter 1992) which allow for handshape changes on the nucleus of a sign.

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monitor behavior. Stopping after the problem word has been completed or while producing the problem word itself makes a difference for both the producer and the interlocutor. 5.7 Summary and conclusions

We have investigated slips of the hand and repair behavior in DGS and compared them to slips of the tongue and repair behavior in spoken languages. Our aim was to determine whether there are true modality differences between them. Our major nding is that signed and spoken language production is, in principle, the same. This comes as no surprise as both are natural languages and are therefore subject to the same constraints on representation and processing. Due to modality differences, the satisfaction of these constraints may, however, be different in each language. In this respect, our language production data reveal exactly the phonological, morphological, and syntactic design of DGS and spoken German. Language production data therefore provide external evidence for the structures and representations of DGS in particular, and of sign languages in general, which have been analyzed by sign language researchers so far. As for the slip behavior, stranding errors are absent in DGS and exchange errors are, in general, very rare. Fusions are more prominent. We explain this discrepancy partly by appealing to typological differences and more specically with respect to the autosegmental character of the phonology and morphology of signed languages. The possibility of simultaneous encoding of linguistic information enhances the information density of signs. They may be composed of many morphemes which are realized at the same time. As this is characteristic of sign languages in general and not just of a particular typological class (as the Semitic languages in spoken languages) we acknowledge that this discrepancy is rooted in a true modality difference. Thus, the simultaneous encoding of morphological information is at rst sight a typological difference, but one which is layered upon a true modality effect. The repair behavior in DGS reveals again the different interface conditions (articulatory, physical, and timing conditions) of spoken and signed languages. The longer production time of signs enables the monitor to catch and repair errors before the end of the sign. The low incidence of exchanges receives an explanation along these lines: they are rarer in sign language because the monitor has enough time to catch them after the rst erroneous word (the anticipation) due to the longer production time of signed vs. spoken words. The physical, neurophysiological, and motor constraints on the primary articulators (hands vs. vocal tract) and receptors (visual vs. auditory) in signed vs. spoken languages are vastly different (see Brentari, this volume). These are indisputable modality differences. They are, however, situated at the linguistic interfaces, here at the articulatoryperceptual interface (Chomsky 1995).

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Our approach to modality effects is a highly restrictive one. We only accept the different degree of linguistic information being processed simultaneously and the different interface conditions as true modality differences. All other differences turn out to be typological differences or crosslinguistic differences that have always been known to exist between natural languages. From the perspective of UG, the question of modality is always a secondary one, the primary one being the question of the nature of language itself. Acknowledgments Our research project is based on a grant given to Helen Leuninger by the German Research Council (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG), grant number LE 596/6-1 and LE 596/6-2. 5.8 References

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