Antonymy in Ethiopian Sign Language

Abstract:

This is a progress report of a preliminary study that aims to describe antonyms in Ethiopian Sign Language (EthSL). EthSL antonyms were drawn from two types of data. First, data was collected from twelve participants from Addis Ababa and Hosanna. The participants did elicitation tasks, narratives, and consultant observations. Then, two EthSL dictionaries were included as supplementary sources. The overall findings reveal that movement metathesis, location, palm orientation contrasts, and derivational morphology all play a significant role in antonym formation in EthSL. However, handshape is not generally used to mark oppositeness. The antonyms found in this preliminary study can be categorized as gradable antonyms, converse antonyms (also subcategorized as directional, antipodal, and kinship opposition), and reverse antonyms. This study also makes suggestions for the creation of EthSL dictionaries that take into account morphophonological features and semantic relations between signs.