Juxtaposition as a form feature; syntax captured and explained rather than assumed and modelled

International audienceIn this article, we report on a study conducted to further the design a formal grammar model (AZee), confronting it to the traditional notion of syntax along the way. The model was initiated to work as an unambiguous linguistic input for signing avatars, accounting for all simultaneous articulators while doing away with the generally assumed and separate levels of lexicon, syntax, etc. Specifically, the work presented here focused on juxtaposition in signed streams (a fundamental feature of syntax), which we propose to consider as a mere form feature, and use it as the starting point of data-driven searches for grammatical rules. The result is a tremendous progress in coverage of LSF grammar, and fairly strong evidence that our initial goal is attainable. We give concrete examples of rules, and a clear illustration of the recursive mechanics of the grammar producing LSF forms, and conclude with theoretical remarks on the AZee paradigm in terms of syntax, word/sign order and the like

What constraints for representing multilinearity in Sign language?

International audienceIn this paper, we present our current investigations on one of the main challenges in Sign Language modelling: multilinearity. We explain the way in which we extract grammatical rules from Sign Language corpus, and how we represent them with constraints. Two kinds are needed: time synchronisation and geometric constraints

Elicitation protocol and material for a corpus of long prepared monologues in Sign Language

International audienceIn this paper, we address collection of prepared Sign Language discourse, as opposed to spontaneous signing. Specifically, we aim at collecting long discourse, which creates problems explained in the paper. Being oral and visual languages, they cannot easily be produced while reading notes without distorting the data, and eliciting long discourse without influencing the production order is not trivial. For the moment, corpora contain either short productions, data distortion or disfluencies. We propose a protocol and two tasks with their elicitation material to allow cleaner long-discourse data, and evaluate the result of a recent test with LSF informants

A rule triggering system for automatic text-to-sign translation

International audienceThe topic of this paper is machine translation (MT) from French text to French Sign Language (LSF). After arguing in favour of a rule-based method, it presents the architecture of an original MT system, built on two distinct efforts: formalising LSF production rules and triggering them with text processing. The former is made without any concern for text or translation and involves corpus analysis to link LSF form features to linguistic functions. It produces a set of production rules which may constitute a full LSF production grammar. The latter is an information extraction task from text, broken down in as many subtasks as there are rules in the grammar. After discussing this architecture, comparing it to the traditional methods and presenting the methodology for each task, the paper present the set of production rules found to govern event precedence and duration in LSF, and gives a progress report on the implementation of the rule triggering system. With this proposal, it is also hoped to show how MT can benefit today from Sign Language processing

Non-manual features: the right to indifference

International audienceThis paper discusses the way Sign Language can be described with a global account of the visual channel, not separating manual articulators in any way. In a first section section it shows that non-manuals are often either ignored in favour of manual focus, or included but given roles that are mostly different from the mainly hand-assigned lexical role. A second section describes the AZee model as a tool to describe Sign Language productions without assuming any separation, neither between articulators nor between grammatical roles. We conclude by giving a full AZee description for one of the several examples populating the paper

Modeling French Sign Language: a proposal for a semantically compositional system

International audienceThe recognition of French Sign Language (LSF) as a natural language in 2005 created an important need for the development of tools to make information accessible to the deaf public. With this prospect, the goal of this article is to propose a linguistic approach aimed at modeling the French sign language. We first present the models proposed in computer science to formalize the sign language (SL). We also show the difficulty of applying the grammars originally designed for spoken languages to model SL. In a second step, we propose an approach allowing to take into account the linguistic properties of the SL while respecting the constraints of a modelisation process. By studying the links between semantic functions and their observed forms in Corpus, we have identified several production rules that govern the functioning of the LSF. We finally present the rule functioning as a system capable of modeling an entire utterance in French sign language

Combining two synchronisation methods in a linguistic model to describe Sign Language

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Modèle descriptif des signes pour un traitement automatique des langues des signes

Formal approaches to representing the signs of Sign Languages are traditionally parametric and this work shows that they are inappropriate for use in computer science. The main reasons are: the parameters used are neither all necessary nor do they form a sufficient set; parameters take on fixed values whereas signs are dynamic in nature and values change through time; parametric descriptions do not account for the signs' adaptability to context, hence are not reusable, which brings them to disregard the power in concision of sign languages. We propose a model called Zebedee, which describes signs in a sequence of timing units, each of which specifies a set of necessary and sufficient constraints to apply to a skeleton. The signing space is regarded as a Euclidean geometric space where any auxiliary geometric object may be built. Dependencies between elements of the descriptions or indeed on context are not only possible but also made relevant, and are based on articulatory, semantic and cognitive issues. We then give two complementary processes for evaluation: in computer science with the implementation of Zebedee in a signing avatar animation platform and an information display system for train stations, and in linguistics with a data base and new possibilities of queries that linguists may want to test. As prospects, we discuss different computational fields in which Zebedee should be useful, and several present linguistic problems for which it holds pieces of solutions.Les approches formelles de représentation des signes des langues des signes sont majoritairement paramétriques et nous montrons en quoi celles-ci ne sont pas suffisantes dans l'optique d'une utilisation informatique. Les plus fortes raisons sont le caractère ni nécessaire ni suffisant de l'ensemble de paramètres traditionnellement utilisé, leur nature fixe alors qu'un signe est dynamique et évolue au cours du temps, et le fait que les descriptions ne rendent pas compte de l'adaptabilité des signes décrits à différents contextes, pourtant à l'origine de leur réutilisabilité et de la force de concision des langues des signes. Nous proposons Zebedee, un modèle de description en séquence d'unités temporelles décrivant chacune un ensemble de contraintes nécessaires et suffisantes, appliquées à un squelette. L'espace de signation est vu comme un espace euclidien dans lequel toute construction géométrique annexe est possible. Les dépendances entre éléments des descriptions ou sur des valeurs contextuelles sont non seulement possibles mais pertinentes, et reposent sur des considérations à la fois articulatoires, cognitives et sémantiques. Nous donnons ensuite deux processus complémentaires d'évaluation : en informatique où nous discutons l'implantation de Zebedee dans une plateforme d'animation de signeur virtuel et son utilisation pour la diffusion d'informations en gare, et en linguistique où nous décrivons l'avantage d'une base de données et les nouvelles possibilités de requêtes offertes au linguiste. En perspectives, nous citons plusieurs domaines informatiques où Zebedee sera utile et plusieurs questionnements linguistiques actuels auxquels il offre des pistes de réponse