Order Constraints in American Sign Language: The Effects of Structure on Judgments of Meaningfulness and on Immediate Recall of Anomalous Sign Sequences

Abstract

Forty anomalous sign sequences were ranked as to their meaningfulness by three judges working independently, and the same forty sequences were presented to seventeen deaf subjects via videotape in a task measuring immediate recall. Half of the sequences preserved the structure of original model ASL sequences and half of the sequences were the result of a random reordering of the original sign sequence. Twenty of the sentences were five signs long and twenty were six signs long. Random resequencing of the signs affected judgments of meaningfulness in both five- and six-sign sequences, and resequencing of the six-sign sequences affected both meaningfulness and immediate recall. It was concluded that order constraints are present in American Sign Language and that the sequence of signs may affect both semantic features and psychological processing of signed messages.