Articulatory postures and forward models in American Sign Language: Linguistic and neuroscience evidence

Abstract

This paper proposes a forward model of sign language processing in which abstract holistic postural forms guide the production and recognition of signed language. Internal linguistic evidence based on an ASL corpus and morphological compounds is offered to support the utility of this construct. External evidence from child language acquisition, psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic studies are provided to highlight the importance of postural forms in the production and recognition of American Sign Language. I argue that abstract articulatory postural forms play a role in forward modeling accounts of sign language production and recognition.