event-types, and emic signals in sign phonology

This needs cleaning up, but I figured I should post this in draft form, so I don't lose it.

How do signs pick out place?

Dominant-Hand emic signal

• shape
• orientation

Nondominant-Hand Shape emic signal

• shape
• orientation

Configuration

• Start Config
• Motion

1. path
2. manner
3. repeat

• End Config

Non-Manual emic signal

• Face
• Eyes
• Eyebrows
• Lips
• Shoulders

Compare with speech utterances:
Syllables

• Initial
• Rime

1. nucleus
2. coda

Tone (only in tonal languages like Chinese or Thai)
Prosody


Humanly relevant scene

• a token situation accessible to physical perception

Event-type

• a way of classifying scenes and other locations as located in Place and Time

Simple event-type

• one participant + speaker

1. recognize object (e.g. Proper Name, or deictic Mama)
1. identity condition, a later ocurrent percept is the same object
2. discrete memory (as opposed to procedural memory)
3. tracked or inferred continuant
2. recognize happening (precursor to Action)
1. precondition situation
2. result situation
3. situation properties (e.g. manner)

Referential event-type

1. Refer to an object of a type
1. speaker and hearer share schema for that type in their schemes of individuation
2. types are made explicit in the scene, such as via an utterance (noun phrase)
3. conditions of success -- may fail to refer successfully
4. may be performed with eye gaze, head glance, deictic pointing (e.g. hand), or uttering a common noun, or a pronoun
5. anaphoric resolution; successive references may refer to the same index in discourse
6. modifiers of a head noun help resolve which of several possible objects are the target of referring

Speech Act event-type (clause, headed by a predicate that is usually a verb, or else a complement to a copula)

1. Request Action
1. Conditions of Satisfaction: hearer acts so that mentioned action results obtain in the world
2. Assert Action
1. Conditions of Satisfaction: the world matches the mentioned action result
3. Assert State
1. Conditions of Satisfaction:: the world or world objects have properties that match the mentioned state
4. Promise Action
1. Conditions of Satisfaction:: the speaker takes action so that the mentioned action results obtain in the world

Typical Humanly-Relevant Scene

Agent1

• locomote
• move body-part
• manipulate object.graspable
• perceive
• display
• eye gaze
• body movement
• facial expression
• smile, frown
• gesture
• vocal
• laughter, crying
• cry out for attention
• utterance
• speech
• sign language utterance
• cause
• experience

Agent2

• receive
• affected
• beneficiary

Thing1

• move
• path
• start
• end
• have-state

Thing2

• instrument
• channel-of-motion

Place1

• Place2 (part of Place1)

Time.Duration1

• Time.Duration2
• Time.Point1

Action-relation

• Precondition situation
• Result situation
• Constraint
• information-bearing
• causal constraint