123 Smiljana KomarThe Challenges, Methods and Results of T eaching GB Pronunciation to Slovene EFL Students t HE So UNd S o F ENGLISH
The Signs of Silence – An Overview of Systems 
of Sign Languages and Co‑ Speech Gestures 
AbStr Act
The paper presents an o verview of sign languages and co-speech gestures as two means of 
communication realised through the visuo-spatial modality. We look at previous research 
to examine the correlation between spoken and sign language phonology, but also provide 
an insight into the basic features of co-speech gestures. by analysing these features, w e are 
able to see how these means of communication utilise phases of production (in the case of 
gestures) or parts of individual signs (in the case of sign languages) to convey or complement 
the meaning. r ecent insights into sign languages as bona fide linguistic systems and co-speech 
gestures as a system which has no linguistic features but accompanies spoken language have 
shown that communication does not take place within just a single modality but is rather 
multimodal. by comparing gestures and sign languages to spoken languages, w e are able to 
trace the transition from systems of communication involving simple form-meaning pairings 
to fully fledged morphological and syntactic complexities in spoken and sign languages, 
which gives us a new outlook on the emergence of linguistic phenomena.
Keywords: visuo-spatial modality; co-speech gestures; sign languages; spoken languages 
Zvoki tišine – pregled sistemov znakovnih jezikov 
in obgovornih kretenj
Pov ZEt EK
Prispevek predstavi pregled znakovnih jezikov in obgovornih kretenj kot sredstev 
komuniciranja, ki se udejanijo v vizualno-prostorski modalnosti. S pregledom nekaterih 
dosedanjih raziskav proučuje korelacijo med fonologijo govorjenih in znakovnih jezikov in 
ponudi vpogled v osnovne značilnosti obgovornih kretenj. Z analizo slednjih ugotavljamo, 
kako ta sredstva komunikacije uporabljajo faze produkcije (v primeru kretenj) ali dele 
posameznih znakov (v primeru znakovnih jezikov) pri izražanju ali dopolnjevanju pomena. 
Novejše raziskave znakovnih jezikov kot bona fide jezikovnih sistemov in obgovornih 
kretenj kot sistemov brez značilnosti jezika, ki govorjeni jezik le spremljajo, so pokazale, 
da komunikacija ne poteka le znotraj posamezne modalnosti, pač pa je multimodalna. S 
primerjavo kretenj, znakovnih jezikov in govorjenih jezikov lahko opazujemo prehod med 
sistemi komunikacije, ki vključujejo preproste pare oblika-pomen, in sistemi s polno razvitimi 
morfološkimi in skladenjskimi spleti tako v govorjenih kot v znakovnih jezikih, kar nam 
razkrije nov pogled na vznik jezikovnih pojavov.
Ključne besede: vizualno-prostorska modalnost; obgovorne kretnje; znakovni jeziki; 
govorjeni jeziki
Emilija Mustapić, 
Frane Malenica
University of Zadar, c roatia
2019, vol. 16 (1), 123–144(164) 
revije.ff.uni-lj.si/elope
doi: 10.4312/elope.16.1.123–144 
Udc: 81'221.24

124 Emilija Mustapić, Frane Malenica   The Signs of Silence – An Overview of Systems of Sign Languages ... 
1 Introduction
The role of language in society is one of the fundamental questions discussed by 
numerous linguists. In his Course in General Linguistics, one of the groundbreaking 
linguistic works of the 20th century, Ferdinand de Saussure describes language (langue) 
as a tool which enables humans to understand one another and speech (parole) as the 
individual use of language in communication. He further defines language as a system 
of signs acquired within the confines of society, on a par with the alphabet, b raille 
alphabet, military insignia, symbolic rituals, etc. A linguistic sign is a psychological 
entity embodied by the concept (the meaning of the element) and the vocal image (the 
psychological imprint of the sound, not the material sound itself ). For a long time, one 
of the defining traits of language was the pairing of vocal images with mental concepts. 
However, William dwight Whitney, one of de Saussure’s predecessors, claimed that 
language is a social institution and that the choice of the vocal apparatus is a pure 
coincidence imposed by nature as mankind could have just as well chosen movement 
and visual imagery instead of vocal forms (d e Saussure 1916 [2000]). 
The existence and usage of sign language in everyday communication seems to 
confirm Whitney’s viewpoint. Sign language primarily uses body movements as a 
linguistic means, unlike spoken language which generally transfers its message via 
the speech apparatus. Hearing is often emphasised as one of the most important 
senses, and if it becomes damaged other problems may arise and other forms of 
communication (such as manual communication) will obtain the primary role. 
However, just like hearing is not based solely on the acoustic sign, neither does sign 
language rely only on body movement, but also on the fact that people understand the 
content which is not spoken, i.e. realised by language ( jelaska 2004). The difference 
between spoken and sign languages thus might seem trivial when taking into 
consideration their common trait – transmitting a message and realising the chain of 
communication from its source to its goal. Perhaps even more importantly, spoken 
and sign languages seem to share quite few structural features – their utterances can 
be segmented into smaller individual signs (i.e. lexemes in spoken languages), which 
themselves can be further segmented into discrete units that bear no meaning on 
their own (i.e. phonemes in spoken languages). However, it should not be assumed 
that the distinction between spoken and sign languages represents a dichotomy with 
no middle ground in between. co-speech gestures, which are the second main focus 
of our paper, can be viewed as an intermediary step between these two modes of 
communication – they share the same means of articulation with the sign languages 
but they co-occur with speech itself. As the discussion in the upcoming sections 
will show, both sign and spoken languages use gestures when conveying a message.
1
 
1
 For more about use of gestures in sign languages, see Liddell and Metzger (1998), Liddell (2003), 
Goldin-Meadow and b rentari (2017).
The Signs of Silence – An Overview of Systems of Sign Languages ... 

125 tHE SoUNdS oF ENGLISH Emilija Mustapić, Frane Malenica   The Signs of Silence – An Overview of Systems of Sign Languages ... 
In this paper, we are going to limit our description of gestures to spoken language 
only and focus primarily on co-speech gestures, which are accompanied by spoken 
utterances but do not constitute a coherent linguistic system. Still, it has been shown 
that some forms of manual communication developed within small communities can 
sometimes develop particular language-like properties. We believe these incremental 
developments of linguistic modules, which we describe in more detail in the following 
sections, might tell us something more about the nature of language itself.
Given that the traditional phonological approaches aim to describe the sounds of a 
particular language, the analysis of the two modes of communication presented in 
this paper stands in stark contrast with this tradition. b y looking at the individual 
segments of these systems of communication and the meaning they convey, linguistic 
research dealing with sign languages and gestures reveals new evidence about the 
emergence of complexity in human systems of communication. o ur goal in this 
paper is to provide a brief review of these lines of research focused on the two systems 
of signs (in the Saussurean sense) that involve no production of speech at all.
2
 This 
goal is achieved through the following steps – in section 2, we provide an outline of 
sign languages and co-speech gestures as two modes of manual communication, their 
mutual differences and similarities. In section 3, we give an overview of attempts at 
developing a formal linguistic analysis of sign languages and provide an example of 
such an analysis in the form of b rentari’s (1998; 2002) prosodic model. In section 4, 
we introduce the basic features of gestures and their interaction with spoken languages. 
In section 5, we take a more general look at sign languages and co-speech gestures 
and their correlation with spoken languages from the perspective of development of 
linguistic modules, and finally, we provide our concluding remarks in section 6.
2 Forms of Manual Communication
both co-speech gestures and sign languages represent forms of manual communication, 
which is why the two are often conflated as a single, visual modality. Özyürek and 
Woll (in press) provide a detailed description of the visual modality by comparing 
sign languages and co-speech gestures in spoken languages. They claim that despite 
the close relationship that has been proven between gestures and language, gestural 
studies have been excluded from the majority of grammatical theories and descriptions 
since most of these theories take spoken and/or written language elements (such as 
words, phrases, or sentences) as their focal point. While there exist numerous aspects 
that distinguish them from spoken languages, gestures and sign languages are also 
mutually quite different and, in fact, represent the two end-points of Kendon’s 
2
 This claim and the title of the paper might seem a bit misleading to the reader as we state in §1 that 
gestures are obligatorily accompanied by speech. However, the main point here is that gestures (like sign 
languages) are not realised through speech.

126 Emilija Mustapić, Frane Malenica   The Signs of Silence – An Overview of Systems of Sign Languages ... 
continuum, shown in (1) (McNeill 1992, 37).
3
 before proceeding to the analysis of 
dimensions of Kendon’s continuum, it is crucial that we define what is implied by 
each of these forms of manual communication, as the term gesture is sometimes used 
rather broadly for any kind of bodily movement to convey a message. Gestures or 
gesticulation refer to “motion that embodies a meaning relatable to the accompanying 
speech” (McNeill 2005, 5). Thus, the term ‘gestures’ in our paper denotes those cases 
of non-verbal communication which co-occur with speech and do not constitute a 
codified system of signs. Emblems are manual signs whose meaning is established by 
mutual agreement between members of a particular culture, such as the ‘thumbs-up’ 
sign, while pantomimes are sequences of gestures that express a particular story with 
no speech involved. While not completely codified as linguistic systems, emblems 
and pantomime are conventionalised to a certain extent as all participants in the 
conversational act need to be aware what each symbol means, and they tend to 
differ from culture to culture (Kita 2009; Özyürek 2012). Sign languages, according 
to McNeil (2005, 5) are systems “with their own linguistic structures, including 
grammatical patterns, stores of words, morphological patterns”. Thus, they are fully 
codified systems with a coherent set of basic units and rules for combining those units. 
(1) Gestures à Pantomimes à Emblems à Sign Languages
McNeill (2005) states that gestures and sign languages are located on the opposing 
ends of this continuum, given in (1), according to several criteria which we explain 
below: i) relationship to speech, ii) relationship to linguistic properties, iii) relationship 
to conventions, and iv) character of semiosis.
4
 o n this continuum, pantomimes and 
emblems occupy the middle ground and their relative location towards the either end 
of the spectrum, i.e. their characterisation as more gesture-like or more sign language-
like, is somewhat variable along these dimensions (McNeill 1992; 2005).
5
 
In terms of i), gestures represent one extreme of the spectrum as they are always 
necessarily accompanied by speech, while sign languages obligatorily involve no 
speech at all, which constitutes the other extreme (McNeill 1992). b etween the 
two extremes lie emblems, such as the oK sign made by creating a circle with a 
thumb and the index finger, which can (but do not have to) be accompanied by 
speech, and pantomime, which obligatorily involves no speech at all. With respect 
to this dimension, emblems seem to be more gesture-like, while pantomimes are 
closer to sign languages. The second and third relevant dimensions along which 
3
 Kendon’s continuum was named after Adam Kendon, who presented one of the first contemporary classifications of 
gestures (McNeill 1992).
4
 taking into consideration the number of dimensions, McNeill (2005, 6) believes this is better described as a set 
of several continua, rather than a single continuum. This distinction is of somewhat secondary importance for the 
discussion presented in this section.
5
 A similar discussion on the differences between gestures and sign languages can also be found in Özyürek (2012).

127 tHE SoUNdS oF ENGLISH Emilija Mustapić, Frane Malenica   The Signs of Silence – An Overview of Systems of Sign Languages ... 
gestures and sign languages differ is their relationship to linguistic properties and 
their conventionalisation. Gestures have no conventionalised standards of form, they 
cannot be analysed and segmented into constituents, and cannot be combined into 
higher order structures to create more complex gestures. contrary to gestures, sign 
languages are conventionalised systems with standards of well-formedness (cf. Section 
3); they can be segmented into individual constituents (cf. Section 3), they have lists 
of basic units, equivalent to the lexicon in the traditional dictionary-and-grammar 
terminology, and these basic units can be combined into larger structures, i.e. syntax 
in traditional dictionary-and-grammar terminology. Emblems and pantomimes are 
again located between these two extremes but with inverse relative positions. Emblems 
have rules of well-formedness, which means certain rules for their creation have to be 
obeyed (e.g. a pointed middle finger conveys a specific message that a pointed index 
or ring finger do not), which makes them more akin to sign languages. However, 
they cannot be further embedded into larger hierarchical structures (McNeill 1992, 
37–39). Pantomimes are in this respect also more gesture-like as there seem to be no 
conventionalised rules for them (McNeill 2005, 10).
d imension iv) involves two dichotomies – global vs. segmented and synthetic vs. 
analytic. The term ‘global’ implies that the meaning of a particular gesture is not 
determined from individual movements, but from the gesture as a whole, while the 
term ‘segmented’ means that the meaning of the whole utterance is mapped out 
from the meaning of individual constituents (this issue is discussed in more detail in 
Section 4).
6
 This is related to the second dichotomy, which represents another parallel 
with the spoken languages. Languages are divided into more synthetic or more 
analytic, depending on how much information they are able to ‘pack’ into words – 
morphologically more complex languages (like c roatian or turkish) are closer to the 
synthetic end of the spectrum, and morphologically simpler languages (like English 
and chinese) are analytic. Similarly, a sign (i.e. a bodily movement) is synthetic if it 
simultaneously expresses several meanings, while it is analytic if different meanings 
are represented by individual signs. Given this 2x2 array, each of the four types of 
manual communication represents a different combination of features – gestures are 
global and synthetic, pantomimes are global and analytic, emblems are segmented 
and synthetic and sign languages are segmented and analytic (McNeill 2005, 10–11). 
However, these categories of manual communication are motivated by more than 
just linguistic description. In fact, McNeill (1992) claims that damage to the cerebral 
area has a different effect on each of these categories – sign languages are affected 
similarly to spoken languages, and the condition can be considered equivalent to 
aphasia. Emblems and pantomimes are not affected differently by different kinds of 
6
 This dichotomy is equivalent to the holistic vs. atomistic approaches in grammars of spoken languages. While McNeill 
(2005) takes the traditional standpoint that syntax of spoken languages is inherently atomistic, some approaches to 
grammar claim otherwise (cf. Goldberg 2006; Perek 2015).

128 Emilija Mustapić, Frane Malenica   The Signs of Silence – An Overview of Systems of Sign Languages ... 
aphasia, but their severity is correlated with the overall communicative impediment. 
co-speech gestures, having a closer relationship with speech, are affected by these 
impediments in a similar way to the speech they accompany. 
Although the positioning of gestures and sign languages on the opposing poles of 
Kendon’s continuum might indicate the two are completely dissimilar, this is certainly 
not the case. Kendon (2004, 284) states that use of gestures in particular circumstances 
(e.g. without being accompanied by speech) may result in a somewhat conventionalised 
kinesic code, and further elaboration of this code may lead to the creation of sign 
languages. Among these, it is important to distinguish primary sign languages, which 
are developed within the community of deaf people, and alternate sign languages, 
which may be found in speaker-hearer communities. The different origins of kinesic 
codes have significant implications for their further development. Kendon cites the 
examples of research by Goldin Meadow and her colleagues (Feldman, Goldin-
Meadow, and Gleitman 1979; Goldin-Meadow 1979, 1982, 1993; Goldin-Meadow 
and Mylander 1990) which show how deaf children who grew up with hearing 
parents and no training in sign language spontaneously develop a particular kinesic 
code with a coherent set of rules. A similar situation can be noted in the case of the 
Nicaraguan Sign Language which arose through interaction of the so-called ‘home 
sign’ systems. The home sign systems were kinesic codes that several communities of 
deaf people developed on their own but separately from one another. As they began to 
interact using their own systems, a new code emerged which would ultimately grow 
into a fully-fledged sign language – Idioma de Señas de Nicaragua (ISN) (Kendon 
2004, 291). Liddell and Metzger (1998) provide evidence of another connection 
between gestures and sign languages. They argue that deictic gestures can be used 
in conjunction with ASL (American Sign Language) signs for indicating context-
dependent referents, much like the gestures in the spoken languages. Their research 
was confirmed by a subsequent study of ASL, Australian Sign Language, taiwan Sign 
Language and nonsigners’ gestures (Schembri, j ones, and b urnham 2005), which 
showed that classifier constructions with verbs represent a blend of gestures and signs. 
codes similar to the home sign systems with varying degrees of complexity can also 
arise in speaking communities under special circumstances. According to McNeill 
(1992, 39), it is customary for Warlpiri women to relinquish speech altogether for 
a particular period of time when going into mourning and during other special 
occasions. d uring those periods, they use a system of signs McNeill calls the Warlpiri 
Sign Language (WLS). This code can also be used to accompany speech when 
speech is culturally permitted, or as an alternative means of communication. Kendon 
(2004) also mentions examples of codes that arise among the hearing in specialised 
professional circumstances – crane driver gestures, sawmill systems and monastic sign 
languages. The first represents a limited code with a restricted set of signs related to the 

129 tHE SoUNdS oF ENGLISH Emilija Mustapić, Frane Malenica   The Signs of Silence – An Overview of Systems of Sign Languages ... 
job in question, i.e. a limited system of form and meaning pairings which could hardly 
be called a proper linguistic system. The latter two, however, include more complex 
linguistic features – compound signs created through concatenation of simpler signs, 
e.g. a combination of God+UP+dAY signs for ‘Easter’ in the case of the monastic 
signs. However, their usage is still limited to specific domains, which means they are 
too narrow to be regarded as fully fledged languages (Kendon 2004, 291–98).
The common denominator in all of these examples is that there seems to be the 
incremental development of unsegmented and unconventionalised movements 
towards more coherent, segmentable and conventionalised codes and ultimately 
languages. This gradual development of linguistic features tells a more interesting 
story from a wider perspective – how linguistic features and complexities arise, to 
which we return in Section 5.
3 Sign Language Systems
Hearing impairments can be caused by various factors such as long-term exposure 
to noise with intensity over 85 db, hereditary diseases, prenatal, perinatal, and 
postnatal diseases. complete or partial deafness primarily inhibits communication 
with the hearing environment, which underlines the need for non-auditory channels 
of communications ( juriša 2012). Thus, three basic types of manual communication 
can be distinguished (b radarić-j ončić 2000; juriša 2012):
1) Manual alphabet – the three times slower manual form can be used to write about 
60 words per minute (in comparison to vocal speech, with the rate of 180 words per 
minute). distinction is made between a one-handed alphabet, or dactylology, and a 
two-handed alphabet, or chirology.
2) Simultaneous sign-oral communication (or manually coded vocal languages) – 
simultaneous usage of oral and sign communication in which syntactic structures 
of the spoken language follow lexical units of the sign languages. This is a visualised 
spoken national language accompanied by signs borrowed from the source sign 
language and the signs from the manual alphabet. These are exemplified by the 
Signed English Language, Signed c roatian Language, Signed Exact Italian, etc. This 
communication system is no longer regarded as appropriate for use as the primary 
communication system acquired by a deaf child, primarily due to exposure of the 
child to a mixture of two simultaneously transmitted incomplete language systems.
3) Original sign language – this is defined as a “[…] a standalone language system 
[…] with its own rules of grammar, different from those in the hearing community.” 
(bradarić-j ončić 2000, 125). The examples of this are the American Sign Language 
(ASL), british Sign Language (bSL), Italian Sign Language (ISL), etc.

130 Emilija Mustapić, Frane Malenica   The Signs of Silence – An Overview of Systems of Sign Languages ... 
Up until the second half of the 20th century, the pervasive opinion was that sign 
language is holistic, that its complexity is based on speech conventions and that it has 
more resemblances to everyday gestures than to spoken languages. This perception 
was common not only among laymen but also among some of the renowned 
linguists of the period, like Leonard b loomfield and Edward Sapir. However, the 
author of the first dictionary of sign language William Stokoe defines the notion of 
‘gesture’ as a communicative movement and does not equate it to the sign as was 
the case with earlier approaches (Meier 2002; Sandler 2014; Fenlon, cormier, and 
b rentari 2015). Subsequent research has shown that sign language has a phonological 
system very much like spoken language, while gestures represent a form of manual 
communication and not a linguistic system, and consequently, have no phonological 
module (McNeill 2005; 2006).
Stokoe’s linguistic analysis from 1960 marked the beginning of gradual yet substantial 
changes in the way linguists perceived sign languages. Stokoe claimed that the signs 
of the ASL consist of a finite list of units with no meaning on their own, as is the case 
in the phonological domain of the spoken languages. Furthermore, sign languages 
also consist of two structural levels – the level of meaning and the level without 
meaning, and it is this duality that represents one of the fundamental features of 
the human language (Hockett 1960; Martinet 1960; Sandler 2014), and the second 
point of conjunction between spoken and sign languages. Stokoe’s discovery also 
showed that comparing natural languages in two different physical modalities makes 
the theoretical questions about the universality and inherent features of linguistic 
structures more intriguing and interesting for further research (Meier 2002).
The discovery that both speech and sign take part in the realisation of language is 
a confirmation of previous ideas on the existence of multimodal linguistic means 
which changed the general understanding of what sign language really is. The 
analysis of different types of sign languages, such as American Sign Language or 
british Sign Language in countries in which English is the official language in use, 
is independent of the analysis of the English language in speech and writing.
7
 This 
is because the process of learning the sign language necessarily involves acquisition 
of a communication system whose principles do not rely on the standard structure 
of grammar and vocabulary of the English language. This was one of the primary 
reasons why sign languages were not within the scope of too many linguistic analyses, 
as these were primarily focused on written and spoken varieties. However, there are 
artificial sign systems mentioned above, such as the Signing Exact English in the 
USA, or the Paget Gorman Sign System in the UK, which are closely related in terms 
of their grammar and vocabulary to the spoken English language (e.g. there are signs 
7
 American Sign Language and b ritish Sign Language are two unrelated sign languages, while the spoken varieties have 
vastly more overlapping features.

131 tHE SoUNdS oF ENGLISH Emilija Mustapić, Frane Malenica   The Signs of Silence – An Overview of Systems of Sign Languages ... 
which represent affixes, they have the same order of sentential constituents, etc.). 
o ther artificial sign systems, such as c ued Speech, are based on the phonology of 
the English language and contain signs which enable the deaf persons to recognise 
which phoneme was articulated in cases of insufficient visual cues. These systems 
were designed primarily for educational purposes so that the speaking-impaired 
children, who may or may not have hearing impairments, would be encouraged to 
communicate (crystal 1995). 
3.1 types of Linguistic Modalities
Numerous empirical studies on the acquisition of the ASL and other sign languages 
had been conducted by the end of the 20th century, which ultimately led to the 
conclusion that the human language competence is plastic and that there exist at 
least two linguistic modalities or transmission channels through which language can 
be produced and perceived – the vocal-auditory modality in the spoken language, 
and the visual-gestural modality in the sign language (Meier 2002). Sign language 
differs from spoken language as it emerges in the visual-gestural modality, i.e. its 
phonological organisation is determined by the type of articulators used (Fenlon, 
cormier, and brentari 2015). According to Sandler (2012), the visually perceptible 
and moving parts of the body, such as hands, facial expressions, head and the upper 
body, represent the articulators of the sign language. Words are created, delimited 
and compared with one another through the use of these articulators. Sign language 
is formed through hand and body movements and facial expressions. contrary to 
the belief that sign languages are the same as spoken languages, apart from being 
different in terms of the content of their features (Perlmutter 1992), b rentari (2002) 
believes that the type of modality used in communication affects the structure of 
the phonological system, as the auditory system has an advantage in horizontal 
processing, while the visual system has an advantage in vertical processing (it processes 
paradigmatic information at a faster rate and with more accuracy).
8
 This is how the 
differences in frequency of occurrence of particular phenomena and differences in 
phonological features of sign and spoken languages arise. 
3.2 Phonological System of Sign Languages
considering how the acquisition and processing of the phonological features of a 
language are typically attributed to spoken languages and require mastering of their 
unique structure for producing and hearing distinctive phonological and prosodic 
features and ignoring non-distinctive features, the acquisition of differential and 
8
 Horizontal processing refers to our ability to process temporally defined input into temporally defined events (e.g. 
sequencing of objects in a particular period of time, syntagmatic processing). v ertical processing refers to our ability 
to process different types of input displayed simultaneously, such as pattern recognition and paradigmatic processing 
(cf. brentari 2002).

132 Emilija Mustapić, Frane Malenica   The Signs of Silence – An Overview of Systems of Sign Languages ... 
culturally determined intonations ( jelaska 2004, 11), the claim that sign languages 
have phonological systems was groundbreaking. The study of sign language 
phonology started in the 1960s, parallel to the first studies of sign languages in 
general (Fenlon, cormier, and b rentari 2015). Sandler believes that the emergence 
of sign language phonology is in line with the principles of b levins’s (2004) theory 
based on the study and analysis of the phonological history of spoken languages, 
which claims that most of the synchronic phonological features of any language stem 
from the interaction of physical, cognitive and social elements of history and are not 
in and of themselves intrinsic. This supports the view that sign language phonology 
was created incrementally, developing fundamental phonological features through 
transfer and usage in everyday communication. 
Stokoe made a huge step forward in understanding sign languages by producing 
the first dictionary of ASL. The explanations for key terms in ASL phonology have 
facilitated understanding and comparison of the phonological systems of spoken and 
sign languages. In (2), we have provided a part of his glossary with some of the basic yet 
crucial terms for understanding his view on sign languages (Stokoe jr. 2005). Stokoe 
describes the minimal pairs which differ in terms of hand configuration (handshape), 
location (place of articulation) and type of movement, which was one of the first 
pieces of evidence for the existence of phonological system in ASL (Sandler 2012; 
2014). In (3), we compare some of Stokoe’s main terms in sign language with their 
equivalents in spoken languages. However, as Liddell (2003, 7) points out, Stokoe’s 
terminology was not accepted by the wider linguistic community, which opted for 
the traditional linguistic terminology.
(2) 
ASPEct – the structural distribution of activities of sign language (analogous to the 
segment) onto constituents for position, configuration and movement (analogous to 
vowels and consonants in the spoken language);
ALLocHEr – cheremes with identical realisation in language;
ASPEctUcAL cHErEME – tab, dez or sig (see below);
cHErEME – a distinctive unit which corresponds to the phoneme in the spoken 
language, signs are formed by combining cheremes;
cHEroL oGY – the structure and analysis of units in sign language;
dEZ – a configuration of hand(s) which makes a meaningful movement in a particular 
position;
SIG – a component of movement or aspect of activity of sign language; a specific 
movement of hand configuration (dez) in a particular position;
t Ab – the place where the movement occurs (place of articulation), which designates 

133 tHE SoUNdS oF ENGLISH Emilija Mustapić, Frane Malenica   The Signs of Silence – An Overview of Systems of Sign Languages ... 
the aspect of the sign language activity; the place in which a configuration (dez) makes 
the movement (sig);
SIGN – the smallest unit of sign language which has a lexical meaning (analogous 
to word); one of the two types of morphemes used to construct an expression in sign 
language (the other is finger spelling).
(3)
SIGN LANGUAGE SPOKEN LANGUAGE
cherology phonology
chereme (later parameter) phoneme
allocher allophone
sign word
3.3 Prosodic Model of Phonology of Sign Languages
In the post-1960 research, phonologists described the models of phonological systems 
of different sign languages, thereby confirming that units with no meaning really 
behave systematically and are best understood not in terms of phonemes (cheremes 
in Stokoe’s terminology), but in terms of features which are assumed not to be innate 
(Sandler 2014). Unlike spoken languages, which stem from older languages or have 
centuries of history behind them, sign languages can emerge anew as a means of 
communication in a newly founded group of deaf persons (Sandler 2014). Sandler 
believes that the emergence of such sign languages provides the ability to study the 
emergence of phonology and other linguistic levels in real time.
9
 Apart from this, 
the emergence of other novel approaches in the phonological theory by the end 
of the 20th century, such as autosegmental phonology (Goldsmith 1976), feature 
geometry (clements 1985; Mccarthy 1988; clements and Hume 1995), and 
prosodic phonology (Nespor and v ogel 1986; Itô 1986) allowed for a more detailed 
comparison of the phonology of spoken and sign languages. 
Several phonological models for the description of parameters of sign languages have 
been proposed, and the prosodic model of sign language phonology is regarded as 
one of the most influential (b rentari 1998).
10
 The aim of this model is to integrate the 
9
 Sandler (2014) spent ten years researching the Al-Sayyid b edouin Sign Language (AbSL). She sees it 
as an extremely functional language with no prejudice against it as it is used by both deaf and hearing 
persons. Apart from the interesting sociolinguistic image of the Al-Sayyid tribe in south Israel, Sandler 
describes the emergence of the phonological system and, based on the evidence presented in her paper, 
claims that AbSL still does not have a fully developed phonological system.
10
 before the emergence of the prosodic model of sign language phonology, the predominant models 
were the hold-movement model (Liddell j ohnson 1989 in Fenlon, cormier, and b rentari 2015) and 
the hand-tier model (Sandler 1989 in Fenlon, cormier, and b rentari 2015).

134 Emilija Mustapić, Frane Malenica   The Signs of Silence – An Overview of Systems of Sign Languages ... 
systematicity of the paradigmatic and syntagmatic structures of the sign into a single 
model. The prosodic model distinguishes two types of features of the sign – inherent 
and prosodic. Inherent features are articulated simultaneously during the creation 
of a sign, while prosodic features are articulated consecutively (b rentari 1998; Šarac 
Kuhn, Alibašić ciciliani, and Wilbur 2006). These features are determined once per 
lexeme (sign) and remain unchanged throughout the production of the sign. They 
have a more complex hierarchical structure, they occur simultaneously (b rentari 
1998), they are susceptible to a smaller number of constraints, and they do not create 
time segments (b rentari 2002). In terms of articulation, inherent features include 
handshape (a primarily active articulator), place of articulation, and hand orientation 
(passive articulators). b rentari (1998; 2002) draws parallels between the articulators of 
sign and spoken languages, and claims that the vocal mechanism in speech has primary 
active articulators (tongue, lips and larynx) and passive articulators (teeth, palate, and 
the pharyngeal area). Lips and glottis can act as active or passive articulators, while 
others are constant – the tongue is always active and the palate is always passive in 
speech production. However, this is not the case in sign language, as every part of the 
body involved in the production of the sign can be active or passive. As an example, 
brentari (2002) mentions the hand which is an active articulator in the lexeme 
tHINK but a passive articulator in the lexeme toUcH. In fact, as Sandler (2012) 
points out, the dual use of dominant and nondominant hand in articulation does not 
have a direct counterpart in the spoken language, which further demonstrates the 
specific role of articulators in the phonological structure of the sign language.
Hands as manual articulators are primarily active and generally regarded as the most 
frequent ones. Sometimes the sign uses the nonmanual articulators, such as head, 
face and/or body. The manual articulators branch out into dominant (H1) and 
nondominant (H2) hands. A one-handed sign only has the H1 features, which includes 
contrastive units, such as specific fingers that are moved, number of fingers moved 
and the form of the finger (straight, bent, curved). Fenlon, cormier, and b rentari 
(2015) cite an example from b ritish Sign Language (bSL) in which the signs GAY and 
UNSUrE differ only in the number of selected fingers – GAY is signed with extended 
thumb and other fingers closed, while UNSUrE is signed by having all five fingers 
extended. A two-handed sign will have both H1and H2 features (Fenlon, cormier, 
and brentari 2015). In terms of handshape, three groups of two-handed signs can be 
observed: i) same handshape and movement for both hands; ii) same handshape, only 
the dominant hand is moved; and iii) different handshapes, only the dominant hand 
is moved (battison 1974; Šarac Kuhn, Alibašić ciciliani, and Wilbur 2006).
The place of articulation in which inherent and prosodic features are realised is divided 
into three planes – horizontal (y-plane), which refers to upward and downward 
movement of the body; vertical or frontal (x-plane), which refers to forward and 

135 tHE SoUNdS oF ENGLISH Emilija Mustapić, Frane Malenica   The Signs of Silence – An Overview of Systems of Sign Languages ... 
backward movement of the body; and midsagittal (z-plane), which refers to leftward 
or rightward movement (b rentari 1998; Šarac Kuhn, Alibašić ciciliani, and Wilbur 
2006). The signs in the vertical plane are also specified for four main regions – head, 
arm, body and hand, and further specified for contrastive features (Fenlon, cormier, 
and brentari 2015), which we do not mention here for the sake of brevity. 
o rientation in the Prosodic model represents the connection between the hand 
and the place of articulation and includes two types – orientation of the hand and 
orientation of the fingertips. both types have six possible directions – up, down, 
left, right, front, and back (Šarac Kuhn, Alibašić ciciliani, and Wilbur 2006). As an 
example of the relationship between orientation and place of articulation, Fenlon, 
cormier, and b rentari (2015) mention the signs MUM and dANGEr, which differ 
in terms of hand orientation (the fingers are oriented towards the place of articulation 
for the former, and away for the latter). 
Prosodic features (PF) are the features of signs which are realised sequentially via 
dynamic features of the movement (b rentari 1998), in contrast to inherent features, 
which are realised simultaneously. Prosodic features are made up of types of movement 
(brentari 1998; 2002), which include four main categories – straight, arc, circle and 
trilled, which is specified for every sign. The other PF values that the signs in sign 
language are marked for are path, setting orientation and apertures (Fenlon, cormier, 
and brentari 2015), but we do not discuss them here in full detail for the sake of brevity. 
A combination of inherent and prosodic features determines some limitations of 
the sounds. There are two universal complementary conditions which define the 
complexity of the sign – the symmetry condition and the dominance condition as its 
corollary (Kyle and Woll 1985; v alli and Lucas 2000; Pribanić and Milković 2012). 
The first condition states that if both hands are active, they need to have the same 
location and the same type of movement, while the latter condition determines that 
if two hands have a different handshape, one has to be active and the other passive. 
While not obvious at first glance, there are several aspects that the phonological 
systems of spoken and sign languages share. The main parallel lies in the structure 
that signalises paradigmatic contrast – in sign languages, that function is performed 
by the inherent features of handshape and place of articulation, while this is done 
by consonants in the spoken languages. A similar parallel can be drawn between 
movements (prosodic feature) in sign language and vowels in spoken language, both 
of which represent media for carrying signal over distance (b rentari 2002).
11
 The 
inherent branch of the structure contains a bigger lexical contrast than prosodic 
11
 brentari (2002) also lists calculation of complexity and role of the root node as a point of conjunction 
between syntax and phonology.

136 Emilija Mustapić, Frane Malenica   The Signs of Silence – An Overview of Systems of Sign Languages ... 
features, much like consonants have a higher potential of lexical contrast than vowels 
in spoken languages. The movement (prosodic feature) represents a medium for signal, 
much like vowels function as the medium for the spoken language. The movement 
(prosodic feature) functions as the basis of the syllable in sign language. However, 
the main difference between these two phonologies is that consonants and vowels are 
realised simultaneously in sign language and sequentially in spoken language. 
4 Gestures
When observing gestures from a scientific perspective, they are defined as body 
movements (mainly arm and hand movements, but also movements of some other 
body parts, to a lesser extent) which appear in communication and form part of 
the utterance. This definition excludes all non-verbal movements whose function is 
practical and non-communicational, such as fixing your hair, playing with jewellery, 
etc. (Gullberg 2009; cooperrider and Goldin-Meadow 2017). Numerous scientists 
are of the opinion that gestures and language form a single, integrated system. This 
synchronised integration of the visuo-spatial modality depicted through gestures and 
the verbal modality in the form of spoken languages facilitates not only language 
production, but also enables better comprehension of the articulated message 
(McNeill 1992, 2005; Holler and b eattie 2003; Habets et al. 2010; Kelly, Özyürek, 
and Kelly 2010), which, consequently, makes language acquisition less problematic 
(cooperrider and Goldin-Meadow 2017). Throughout history there have been many 
classifications of gestures which approached them from different standpoints (starting 
from Ancient r oman rhetorical studies to the more contemporary and scientifically-
oriented studies from the 20th century onwards). The most cited is McNeill and 
Levy’s classification (1982) which divides gestures into four categories or dimensions: 
a) Iconic – gestures that depict concrete objects and actions; b) Metaphoric – gestures 
which depict abstract concepts; c) Deictic – pointing gestures; and d) Beats – hand 
movements which accompany speech rhythm. o ne type of gestures rarely occurs 
as an isolated kinesic pattern, but more frequently in combination with other types 
(McNeill 1992, 2005). 
4.1 Production of Gestures 
The gesture movement hierarchy was first initiated by Kendon and modified by 
McNeill in the form of a diagram presented in Figure 1 (McNeill 1992). Arm use and 
body posture refer to the various patterns of arm usage and body position adopted 
by the speaker. Head movement usually starts from the centre of the gesture space. 
Gesture-Unit or G-Unit represents the period of time which starts when the limb 
begins to move and finishes when the limb gets to the resting position. According 
to Kendon, gesture production consists of three phrases of gesticulation or G-Phrases 
(1980, 212–15): 

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1)  Preparation – the arm starts moving upwards from the resting place to a position in 
which the stroke phase of the gesture is about to start;
2)  Stroke – upper arm goes inwards and outwards two times in order to move the hand 
into the centre of the gesture space; and
3)  r etraction or recovery phase – the arm moves downwards to its resting position.
The stroke represents a basic part of gesture production, while the preparatory 
and recovery phases have proven to be optional. Hold (pre-stroke or post-stroke) 
represents any short-term pause in movement; pre-stroke hold usually occurs when 
the stroke is postponed, while the post-stroke hold appears at the end of the stroke, 
prior to retraction (McNeill, Levy, and Pedelty 1990, 209–11; McNeill 1992, 82–83, 
2005: 29–36).
Figure 1. Gesture levels based on Kendon’s kinesic hierarchy (McNeill, Levy, and Pedelty 
1990, 209).
Sign languages also have a sequence of three elements (Hold – Movement – Hold) 
when making a sign, and they are phonetically realised
12
 (Kita, van Gijn, van der 
Hulst 1998). considering the production of gestures and sing languages, it can be 
concluded that the structure of movement (the onset of movement, stroke and the 
hold phase) is a common feature of both gestures and signs.
4.2 Gestures versus Linguistic Systems
Gestures and languages can both express a particular meaning, but how they convey it 
reflects a fundamental difference between them. When expressed in form of a language, 
the meaning of a single action or an event is divided into segments, i.e. hierarchically 
organised strings of words. A hierarchy based on segmentation and linearisation, a 
generally assumed common property of all linguistic systems (but see Section 5 for 
a discussion on this issue), stems from the premise that all languages (spoken or sign) 
12
 See Section 2 for more details on the phonological structure of signs in sign languages.

138 Emilija Mustapić, Frane Malenica   The Signs of Silence – An Overview of Systems of Sign Languages ... 
are one-dimensional, i.e. they change in accordance with a single dimension of time, 
echoing the relationship between language units; phonemes, morphemes, words, 
phrases, sentences, and discourse. This restriction along with the multidimensionality 
of meanings is what forces languages to split the meaning into segments and combine 
them along a single timeline. Unlike the spoken and sign languages, gestures do not 
undergo segmentation and linearisation because they are multidimensional and can 
present complex meanings as wholes, which is what supports another important 
property of gestures – their non-combinatoric nature, the inability to form a more 
complex gesture out of two or more simpler gestures. As opposed to the sentences in 
which smaller units can form larger ones, gestural symbols are already complex enough 
and express a complete meaning with no need to combine with other gestures. Still, 
they tend to convey the meaning from different perspectives, with each perspective 
of meaning being complete and expressed on its own. The final dissimilarity between 
gestures and language systems worth mentioning is the duality of patterning. Words 
of language systems are usually organised in two potential patterns of contrast at once; 
phonological and semantic contrast. Phonological contrast implies that words differ 
from one another in terms of sounds (e.g. “dog” in contrast to “doll” or “dig”), whereas 
the semantic contrast indicates a distinction in meaning (e.g. “dog” in contrast to “cow” 
or “monkey”). Gestures do not have the duality of patterning; their kinesic form is not 
independent as the sounds are, and is dictated by the meaning of the gesture (McNeill 
1992). The ability to express the meaning and, consequently, define its form is what 
makes the use of gestures more advantageous and ‘less demanding’ when compared to 
linguistic systems which have the separate structure of the form and meaning. 
despite all the differences, gestures and languages belong to the same system 
when considering a number of similarities which connect them: a) speech is 
always accompanied by gestures (co-speech gestures); b) semantic and pragmatic 
co-expressiveness marks the symbiosis of speech and gestures; c) they appear in 
synchrony; d) they develop together in early ages; and e) the neurological damage in 
aphasic patients affects both speech and gestures (McNeill 1992). Kita (2009) also 
claims that gestures and language are so correlated that no culture has been found 
that does not have co-speech gestures. McNeill’s observations also speak in favour 
of the idea that gestures and speech form an “unbreakable bond” (2005, 24–29): a) 
speech-gesture synchrony is not interrupted by delayed auditory feedback
13
 (dAF 
cannot break speech-gesture synchrony); b) gestures lessen stuttering (gesture stroke 
phase weakens the onset of stuttering); c) congenitally blind people gesture (i.e. 
lack of vision does not prevent the blind from gesturing); d) information exchange 
13
 d elayed auditory feedback (dAF) includes hearing your own speech played back over the earphones 
after a short delay. This has a negative effect on speech fluency which tends to be interrupted and slowed 
down (McNeill 2005, 25).

139 tHE SoUNdS oF ENGLISH Emilija Mustapić, Frane Malenica   The Signs of Silence – An Overview of Systems of Sign Languages ... 
(information transferred in a form of a gesture may be recalled in a form of speech 
and vice versa); and e) gesture and speech fluency is parallel, not reciprocal (i.e. 
when the speech fluency decreases so does the gesture fluency). As stated earlier in 
the paper, Liddell and Metzger (1998) and Liddell (2003) also provide evidence of 
gestures being used in conjunction with sign languages.
5 Sign Language and Gestures in a Wider Setting – 
Interaction with Other Linguistic Modules
The discussion presented in this paper shows some of the main features of co-speech 
gestures and sign languages. As can be seen from Section 3, the status of phonology 
of sign language as the study of its minimal units is beyond dispute. The presence 
of other linguistic aspects in sign language, such as syntax and morphology, is also 
rather uncontroversial (inter alia, Neidle 2000; v alli and Lucas 2000; brentari 2012; 
Meir 2012; Steinbach 2012; Zwisterlood 2012; Mathur and rathmann 2012; 
cormier 2012; Neidle and Nash 2012; Quer 2012; tang and Lau 2012). For instance, 
reduplication and conversion, two very well-established and in some languages very 
productive word-formation patterns, are well established in sign language as well ( v alli 
and Lucas 2001; Goldin-Meadow and b rentari 2017; tkachman and Meir 2018). Like 
spoken language, some varieties of sign language, such as American Sign Language and 
Italian Sign Language, also exhibit the possibility of embedding relative clauses into 
more complex syntactic structures (Goldin-Meadow and b rentari 2017, 5). 
d espite these formal similarities, it is worth noting that sign and spoken language differ 
in certain aspects, besides the modality through which they are realised. According 
to Goldin-Meadow and b rentari (2017, 7), ASL is able to express polymorphic 
words, i.e. words containing more than one stem and/or affix, using a monosyllabic 
sign. In spoken languages like English, Hmong and Hopi, all three other possible 
combinations of syllable-morpheme correspondence (monosyllabic monomorphemic 
words, polysyllabic monomorphemic words, polysyllabic polymorphemic words) 
are attested, except for this, which makes this feature of ASL rather unique. Another 
morphological peculiarity of sign language is related to another frequently covered 
concept in spoken language – verb agreement. Like spoken language, sign language 
utilises particular units that mark the features of verb arguments in a particular setting. 
According to Goldin-Meadow and b rentari (2017), when the sign for ASK (bent 
index finger) is moved from the signer towards the interlocutor, it means I ask you; 
when the sign is moved from the interlocutor towards the signer, it means You ask 
me. However, this phenomenon differs from agreement in spoken language in several 
respects. The number of possible combinations of agreement features (e.g. number 
and person) is finite in spoken language – you can only get as many combinations as 
allowed by the grammar of a language in question. The number of possible locations 

140 Emilija Mustapić, Frane Malenica   The Signs of Silence – An Overview of Systems of Sign Languages ... 
towards which the verb is directed (i.e. predicate arguments) in sign language is not 
finite. A different sign can be directed at any participant in the discourse. The form 
of the sign used also varies from referent to referent, which means that a different 
sign will be used for a tall person and a short person. This variability and lack of 
discreteness make this property of sign language very different from the categorical 
grammatical notions that agreement in spoken language entails (Goldin-Meadow and 
brentari 2017). It also makes this aspect of sign language more akin to gestures than 
to grammar in spoken language.
An interesting view on the relevance of specific types of sign languages is provided 
by jackendoff and Wittenberg in their paper on linear grammars ( jackendoff and 
Wittenberg 2016). Their hypothesis is that complex spoken languages have emerged 
gradually, through the evolution of linguistic systems which did not have the level of 
grammatical complexity of modern languages. These simple grammars, which they 
call linear grammars, involve simple pairings of form (sounds or signs) and meaning 
(concepts), and have very little morphology and syntax. For instance, j ackendoff 
(2009) argues that NN compounds in English might be regarded as vestiges of the 
what bickerton (1990) calls a ‘protolanguage’ – a previous step in the evolution 
of language which involved simple form-meaning pairings that depended largely 
on pragmatics and had little or no morphological or syntactic complexities. o n 
a similar note, j ackendoff and Wittenberg (2016) claim that some sign languages 
might be regarded as linear grammars. Home signs, the sign languages invented by 
deaf children with no exposure to actual signed languages, have the basic form-to-
meaning mappings and involve very little morphology ( jackendoff and Wittenberg 
2016).The village sign languages, like the AbSL (Sandler 2014) have similar pairings 
of signs and concepts, but seem to lack syntactic structure. The word order is typically 
agent first, action second, but the utterances involving two animate arguments of the 
verb are potentially ambiguous. Meir (2018) regards this lack of syntactic embedding 
in AbSL and ISL (Israeli Sign Language) as a strong argument against recursion as a 
crucial property of the language faculty (Hauser, chomsky, and Fitch Hauser 2002). 
Speakers of AbSL use paratactic structures, i.e. sequences of two or more concatenated 
sentences with no formal embedding, to convey the same meaning as the syntactic 
structures in spoken language which include overt complementisers (such as that-
clauses in English) (Meir 2018). The study on compounding in ISL and AbSL by 
tkachman and Meir (2018) speaks in favour of this view that linguistic structure is 
an emergent phenomenon, and that it develops at different rates in different domains 
and languages.
14
 cases like this suggest that segmentability may not be an inherent 
feature of sign languages as such, but a by-product of their development.
14
 Similar claims can be found in research on grammaticalization (b ybee 2006; traugott 2008).

141 tHE SoUNdS oF ENGLISH Emilija Mustapić, Frane Malenica   The Signs of Silence – An Overview of Systems of Sign Languages ... 
6 Conclusion
t aking into consideration everything stated in the sections above, we believe adding co-
speech gestures as the third point in the relationship between spoken and sign languages 
gives us a new outlook on the nature of complexity in systems of communication. 
While some phenomena in spoken language have their counterparts in sign language, 
some features of sign languages seem to be closely related to co-speech gestures 
(McNeill 2005; 2006). Gestures seem to have a complementary relationship with 
spoken languages, they are even used by blind persons who have no benefit whatsoever 
from the visuo-spatial modality (cf. Section 4), they seem to be affected by the same 
neural disfunctionalities, and yet there are systems of manual communication which 
have language-like features (cf. Section 2 and Kendon 2004). Furthermore, there are 
sign languages like ASL with a morphological and syntactic complexity similar to that 
of spoken languages, and there are spoken languages like riau Indonesian with little to 
no morphological and syntactic complexity ( jackendoff and Wittenberg 2016). cases 
such as these tell us that the differences between sign languages and gestures and sign 
languages and spoken languages are far from categorical.
Ultimately, this brings us back to the notion of linear grammars invoked by 
jackendoff and Wittenberg (2016) and even further back to the Saussurean notion of 
the linguistic sign. While the Saussurean concept of language as a system of signs may 
not be complex enough to explain the phonological, morphological and syntactic 
intricacies of modern-day spoken languages, evidence provided by co-speech gestures 
and sign languages are a good indication that the form-meaning pairing may be the 
fundamental motivation behind human communication systems, regardless of the 
modality in which they take place.
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