Πτυχές της προσωδιακής δομής της Ελληνικής Νοηματικής Γλώσσας

The aim of the present study is to provide an analysis of the prosodic structure of Greek Sign Language (GSL), a language that is used by Greek Deaf and hard of hearing people. Sign languages rely on the gestural-visual model, which is an entirely different linguistic transmission system from that of spoken languages. Previous research on sign language prosody has established that sign language utterances can be structured into prosodic constituents according to Prosodic Hierarchy (Hayes 1984/1989; Selkirk 1986; Nespor and Vogel 1986). More specifically, several sign language researchers claim that specific types of manual markers such as holds, pauses and repetition of the signs and non-manual markers such as eye activities, eye bow movements, head and body movements may be equivalent to prosodic features, and that the boundaries of phonological and intonational phrases are systematically marked by a number of prosodic manual and non-manual markers (Nespor and Sandler 1999; Sandler and Lillo-Martin 2006). Furthermore, particular types of non-manual markers may function as intonational tones associated with a specific pragmatic meaning (Sandler and Lillo-Martin 2006; Dachkovsky and Sandler 2009). Based on the prosodic approach to manual and non-manual markers, the present study examines (a) the way in which specific manual and non-manual markers mark the edges of phonological and intonational phrases in GSL and, (b) the intonational non-manual markers associated with particular types of sentences, such as topic expressions, interrogative clauses, conditional clauses and relative clauses. In order to investigate the issues raised above, a GSL corpus was carefully collected and annotated. The GSL corpus that was used in the present study includes GSL grammatical sentences that have been collected by 5 GSL signers as well as data drawn from other resources, such as Polytropon Parallel Corpus that was created by the Institute for Language and Speech Processing (ILSP) (Efthimiou et al. 2018) and a DVD containing spontaneous monologues in GSL. Similarly to other sign languages, our study showed that prosodic manual markers, such as sign-lengthening (i.e. holds or repetitions of the sign) and pauses as well as prosodic non-manual markers such as eye blinks, head nods, head and body movements consistently cue the edges of phonological and intonational phrases. Furthermore, our data revealed that specific types of clauses such as topic constructions, conditional clauses, relative clauses and interrogative clauses are associated with specific intonational non-manual markers such as eye brow movements, eye activities, head and body movements. These intonational non-manual markers were further analyzed in the present thesis. Given that GSL is a language that is understudied in terms of prosody, a detailed description of its prosodic and intonation structure will improve our understanding of GSL grammar.Η παρούσα διδακτορική διατριβή μελετά ορισμένες πτυχές της προσωδιακής δομής της Ελληνικής Νοηματικής Γλώσσας (ΕΝΓ), που χρησιμοποιείται από έλληνες Κωφούς και βαρήκοους νοηματιστές. Σε αντίθεση με τις ομιλούμενες γλώσσες, οι νοηματικές γλώσσες βασίζονται σε οπτικό-κινησιακή μορφή, δηλαδή στις κινήσεις χεριών και στην οπτική αντίληψη για την επίτευξη της επικοινωνίας. Τα τελευταία χρόνια πολλοί ερευνητές, βασιζόμενοι στη θεωρία της Προσωδιακής Ιεραρχίας (Prosodic Hierarchy, Hayes 1984/1989; Selkirk 1986; Nespor and Vogel 1986), υποστηρίζουν ότι η ροή νοηματισμού οργανώνεται σε μικρότερα προσωδιακά συστατικά, όπως η συλλαβή, η προσωδιακή λέξη, η φωνολογική φράση κι η επιτονική φράση (Nespor and Sandler 1999; Sandler and Lillo-Martin 2006). Η προσωδία στις νοηματικές γλώσσες εκφράζεται με χεριμικούς δείκτες όπως παύσεις, κράτημα νοήματος και επαναλήψεις νοήματος αλλά και με μη-χεριμικούς δείκτες όπως κινήσεις ματιών, φρυδιών, κεφαλιού και σώματος. Ορισμένοι από αυτούς τους χεριμικούς και μη-χεριμικούς δείκτες παίζουν σημαντικό ρόλο στην οριοθέτηση προσωδιακών κατηγοριών όπως η φωνολογική και επιτονική φράση. Επιπλέον, πολλοί ερευνητές προτείνουν ότι ορισμένες κατηγορίες μη-χεριμικών δεικτών παρουσιάζουν σημαντικές ομοιότητες με τους μελωδικούς τόνους των ομιλούμενων γλωσσών (Sandler and Lillo-Martin 2006; Dachkovsky and Sandler 2009). Με βάση την προσωδιακή προσέγγιση των χεριμικών και μη-χεριμικών στοιχείων, που αναφέρθηκε παραπάνω, στη παρούσα διατριβή περιγράφουμε και να αναλύουμε (α) τους μηχανισμούς της προσωδιακής φρασιοποίησης της φωνολογικής φράσης και επιτονικής φράσης στην ΕΝΓ με βάση τους προσωδιακούς δείκτες που μαρκάρουν τα άκρα αυτών των δυο προσωδιακών κατηγοριών και, (β), τον επιτονισμό διαφορετικών ειδών προτάσεων της ΕΝΓ όπως υποθετικές προτάσεις, αναφορικές προτάσεις και διάφορα είδη ερωτηματικών προτάσεων καθώς και την προσωδιακή πραγμάτωση του θέματος. Τα παραπάνω ζητήματα εξετάστηκαν με βάση ένα σώμα βιντεοσκοπημένων δεδομένων από πέντε Κωφούς νοηματιστές της ΕΝΓ το οποίο εμπλουτίστηκε περαιτέρω με προτάσεις που αντλήθηκαν από τη βάση δεδομένων ΕΝΓ «ΠΟΛΥΤΡΟΠΟΝ» που δημιουργήθηκε από το Ινστιτούτο Επεξεργασίας Λόγου (ΙΕΛ) (Efthimiou et al. 2018) καθώς και από ένα DVD το οποίο περιέχει μονολόγους στην ΕΝΓ. Η ανάλυση των δεδομένων της ΕΝΓ έδειξε ότι η φωνολογική και επιτονική φράση μαρκάρεται με συγκεκριμένα χεριμικά στοιχεία όπως παύσεις νοημάτων, επαναλήψεις νοημάτων και κράτημα του νοήματος καθώς και με μη-χεριμικά στοιχεία όπως κινήσεις κεφαλιού και συγκεκριμένες δραστηριότητες των ματιών. Τέλος, για την ΕΝΓ υπάρχουν συγκεκριμένα προσωδιακά μη-χεριμικά στοιχεία που σχετίζονται με τον επιτονισμό συγκεκριμένων προτάσεων όπως ερωτηματικές, υποθετικές, αναφορικές, καθώς και με τη θεματοποίηση. Αυτά τα προσωδιακά μη-χεριμικά στοιχεία, τα οποία αναλύονται διεξοδικά στην παρούσα μελέτη, περιλαμβάνουν συγκεκριμένες εκφράσεις προσώπου και κινήσεις κεφαλιού και σώματος. Λαμβάνοντας υπόψη την περιορισμένη γλωσσολογική έρευνα της ΕΝΓ, η παρούσα διατριβή αποτελεί μια πρώτη προσέγγιση να περιγραφεί η προσωδία της ΕΝΓ ώστε να μπορέσουμε να κατανοήσουμε καλύτερα τη γραμματική δομή της συγκεκριμένης γλώσσας

What about synthetic signing? A methodology for signer involvement in the development of avatar technology with generative capacity

<p>Although signing avatar technology seems to be the only option currently available to serve sign language (SL) display in the context of applications which demand generative capacity from the part of the technology like in machine translation to SL, signing avatars have not yet been accepted by signers' communities. One major factor for this rejection is the feeling that technology is developed without the involvement of its actual users. Aiming to invite the signers' community into the process of signing avatar development, we have designed the shell methodological framework for signer-informed technology which is implemented as on-line surveys addressed to signer communities of different SLs. The surveys are communicated via focused on-line questionnaires with content of signing avatar performance that allows rating of various aspects of the produced SL synthetic signing by human signers. Here we report on the first survey application with content from the Greek Sign Language (GSL). The analysis of the obtained results is 2-fold: it highlights the significance of signer involvement and the provided feedback in the technological development of synthetic signing; in parallel it reveals those aspects of the survey setup that need fine-tuning before its next distribution cycles. The implementation of the first on-line survey can be found in: https://sign.ilsp.gr/slt-survey/.</p&gt

Initial Interlingual Index for DGS and GSL

The purpose of the interlingual index is to link the lexical resources of all sign languages of the project. D6.3 is the first version of this index, covering DGS and GSL

EASIER Multilingual Sign Language Wordnet

A wordnet for a number of sign languages target in the EASIER project

Interlingual index for the EASIER project's core Sign Languages

<p>The purpose of the inter-lingual index is to link the lexical resources from the different languages<br>of the project and make them machine-readable. The earlier deliverable D6.3 was the first<br>version of this index. It included German Sign Language (DGS) and Greek Sign Language<br>(GSL). This deliverable is the second version of the index. It covers further core sign languages<br>of the project: British Sign Language (BSL), Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT), French<br>Sign Language (LSF) and Swiss-German Sign Language (DSGS). The next version will be<br>deliverable 6.5 and will include languages beyond the project's core languages.<br> </p><p>The deliverable is the index itself. This report provides background information on wordnet<br>research, explains our method and choices, and presents the resulting dataset.<br> </p><p>Our interlingual index uses the wordnet concept of synonym sets (synsets), which define con-<br>cepts by gathering signs and words that can represent the same meaning. This approach is<br>more resistant to translation mistakes stemming from translation pairs being only valid for cer-<br>tain word/sign meanings. It also provides a new way to define sign types that does not rely on<br>approximate translations to a single spoken language word, the way glosses do. As a basis for<br>our index, we build on the synset inventory of Open Multilingual Wordnet (OMW).<br> </p><p>We use a three-step method: The first step is automatically matching candidate synsets to signs<br>using the keywords and glosses associated with the sign. The second step is automatically<br>validating links that are most likely to be correct. The final step is manual validation of the<br>remaining links, prioritising the most useful signs.<br> </p><p>This work has resulted in a dataset of 7929 signs in 6 sign languages linked to 11806 synsets.<br>Additionally, a web interface has been launched to make the index accessible for the general<br>public.</p&gt

Interlingual Index for the EASIER Project's Core Sign Languages

The purpose of the inter-lingual index is to link the lexical resources from the different languages of the project and make them machine-readable. The earlier deliverable D6.3 was the first version of this index. It included German Sign Language (DGS) and Greek Sign Language (GSL). This deliverable is the second version of the index. It covers further core sign languages of the project: British Sign Language (BSL), Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT), French Sign Language (LSF) and Swiss-German Sign Language (DSGS). The next version will be deliverable 6.5 and will include languages beyond the project’s core languages. The deliverable is the index itself. This report provides background information on wordnet research, explains our method and choices, and presents the resulting dataset. Our interlingual index uses the wordnet concept of synonym sets (synsets), which define con- cepts by gathering signs and words that can represent the same meaning. This approach is more resistant to translation mistakes stemming from translation pairs being only valid for cer- tain word/sign meanings. It also provides a new way to define sign types that does not rely on approximate translations to a single spoken language word, the way glosses do. As a basis for our index, we build on the synset inventory of Open Multilingual Wordnet (OMW). We use a three-step method: The first step is automatically matching candidate synsets to signs using the keywords and glosses associated with the sign. The second step is automatically validating links that are most likely to be correct. The final step is manual validation of the remaining links, prioritising the most useful signs. This work has resulted in a dataset of 7929 signs in 6 sign languages linked to 11806 synsets. Additionally, a web interface has been launched to make the index accessible for the general public