Dating among lexical and you will phonological properties
Next we examined relationships among the lexical and phonological properties of the signs in ASL-LEX to gain insight into how phonological, lexical, and semantic factors interact in the ASL lexicon. s = –0.14, p < 0.001. Although it is possible that this inverse correlation is driven by the relatively higher frequency of closed-class words which may be lower in iconicity than other signs, the negative correlation remains when closed-class words (i.e., words with a “minor” Lexical Class) are excluded (r s = –0.17, p < 0.001). This result is compatible with the early proposal that with frequent use, signs may move away from their iconic origins, perhaps due to linguistic pressures to become more integrated into the phonological system (Frishberg, 1975). Interestingly, the direction of this relationship was the opposite of that found for British Sign Language; that is, Vinson et al. (2008) reported a weak positive correlation between frequency and iconicity: r = .146, p < .05. Alternatively, the different correlations might be due differences in stimuli selection. Vinson et al. (2008) intentionally selected stimuli that had a range of iconicity values which resulted in a bimodal iconicity distribution while we did not select signs for inclusion in ASL-LEX based on their iconicity.
Regularity and iconicity z-scores (SignFrequency(Z) and you may Iconicity(Z)) have been notably adversely synchronised collectively (look for Table 1), with more frequent cues ranked given that quicker iconic; not, which matchmaking are weakened, roentgen
Many phonological qualities is actually highly correlated plus of a lot cases this is due to the way they try outlined (pick Desk step 1). Such as for instance, for each and every big location contains no less than one lesser metropolises-high frequency lesser places usually thus nearly invariably be found within the higher volume biggest places, and you may handshape frequency is actually similarly linked to selected thumb and you may bending volume. Concurrently, all the about three actions away from Area Occurrence try extremely synchronised having you to definitely other partially because they are similarly outlined and you will partly because people neighbors that show five of 
one’s five sub-lexical attributes (Maximum Area Density) often necessarily in addition to show certainly one of five sub-lexical functions (Restricted Neighborhood Density). Finally, most of the about three Area Density actions is coordinated with each of your own sub-lexical regularity measures. This makes feel given that by the meaning, common sub-lexical properties can be found in of many signs.
Interestingly, the basic sub-lexical frequencies are completely uncorrelated with each other, with the exception of selected fingers and minor location which are significantly but weakly correlated (r = .10, p < .01). This finding suggests that the space of possible ASL signs is rather large as each sub-lexical property can (to a first degree of approximation) vary independently of the others. This property contrasts with spoken languages where phoneme frequency is correlated across different syllable positions. For example, using position-specific uniphone frequencies from Vitevitch and Luce (2004) we estimate that in English monosyllabic words, vowel frequency is negatively correlated with the frequency of the preceding consonant (r = –.07, p < .001) and positively correlated with the following consonant (r = .17, p < .001), and that onset consonants have highly correlated frequencies (r = –.51, p < .001). We speculate that the relative independence of ASL sub-lexical features is related to both the motoric independence of the manual articulators (e.g., finger flexion is unaffected by the location of the hand in signing space) as well as the relative simultaneity of manual articulation (as opposed to serial oral articulation). We note that these non-significant correlations are for sub-lexical frequency only; specific sub-lexical properties have been argued to co-vary systematically (e.g., signs produced in locations far from the face may be more likely to be symmetrical, two-handed, and have larger, horizontal, and vertical motions; Siple, 1978).