Mouth features as non-manual cues for the categorization of lexical and productive signs in French Sign Language (LSF)

In this paper, we present evidence from a case study in LSF, conducted on narratives from 6 adult signers. In this study, picture and video stimuli have been used in order to identify the role of non-manual features such as gaze, facial expressions and mouth features. Hereafter, we discuss the importance of mouth features as markers of the alternation between frozen (Lexical Units, LU) and productive signs (Highly Iconic Structures, HIS). Based on qualitative and quantitative analysis, we propose to consider mouth features, i.e. mouthings on the one hand, and mouth gestures on the other hand, as markers, respectively, of LU versus HIS. As such, we propose to consider mouthings and mouth gestures as fundamental cues for determining the nature, role and interpretation of manual signs, in conjunction with other non-manual features. We propose an ELAN annotation template for mouth features in S ign Languages, together with a discussion on the different mouth features and their respective roles as discourse and syntactic-semantic operators.