Lexical Signing

In American Sign Language and related signed languages, the production of meaning by syntactically combining individual lexical signs drawn from the language's vocabulary — analogous to combining words into sentences in a spoken or written language. Lexical signing is contrasted with classifier predicates, in which the signer's hands instead "draw" a topologically accurate 3D scene using handshapes that stand for semantic categories of objects. A fluent ASL performance typically interleaves both: lexical signing carries most of the propositional content, while classifier predicates are used when spatial layout, motion paths, or surface contours are important to the meaning. ASL-generation and machine-translation systems must model both modes, since many English sentences that low-literacy deaf readers most need translated map naturally to classifier predicate performances rather than to lexical signing alone.