Description of Lexical Semantic Relations in Ethiopian Sign Language: Implications for Sign language Dictionary Making
| dc.contributor.advisor | Moges Yigezu(PhD) | |
| dc.contributor.author | Woinshet Girma | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2024-10-03T08:57:11Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2024-10-03T08:57:11Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024-04 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Lexical semantic relations are the dominant part of semantic relations in exploring the meanings of words or signs and relevant for dictionary-making. Lexical relations are significant to analyzing the meanings of words or signs in terms of their relation to each other within or without contexts. The analysis of lexical-semantic relations is also important to treat semantic differentiation of words or signs entry in dictionary-making. This study was designed to investigate the lexical-semantic relations of signs in Ethiopian Sign Language (hereafter, EthSL) through the application of linguistic knowledge. Besides the study analyzes the details in which these relations are tackled in the EthSL dictionary and way forward implications for dictionary-making. It was set to identify the semantically related signs and to describe them systematically and the way these relations are tackled in the EthSL dictionary. To achieve the objective of the study, a qualitative descriptive method was employed in the analysis and discussion of the findings. The data were collected through video recording, interview elicitation, observation, and EthSL dictionary analysis. Twelve deaf informants (6 from Addis Ababa and 6 from Hossana) were selected for the study to collect the applicable data. The data were identified, analyzed, and described in line with theories and definitional concepts on lexical relations. The findings of the study indicated the notions of lexical relations in EthSL and the way they are tackled in the EthSL dictionary. The relations included in this study are polysemy, synonymy, antonym, homonymy, and metonymy. Signs in EthSL with multiple meanings and sameness in form (polysemy) are related and associated with certain semantic patterns like the semantic patterns that emerged relating to the case of action vs activity, Noun vs Verb dichotomy, or the relation between function vs object (grammatical), the pattern of signs denoting animals and the meat of those animals, pattern relates to the name of a language, the speakers (the people) -as a polysemous sign is used to refer to the language, the people and the ethnic name and like. The study examined different motivational/ extensional processes to form polysemous signs in EthSL such as metonymically motivated EthSL polysemous signs, for example, the sign for 'car' vs the sign for ‘to drive’, metaphorically motivated EthSL polysemous signs, for example, EthSL sign for 'fish', 'fish food', polysemous EthSL signs that arise from the influence of ASL and the Amharic language; For example, polysemous signs that iconically motivated, as in the sign for ‘pot’, ‘kettle’, ‘jog’. Synonyms in EthSL are described and classified as total, dialectical, ideographic, contextual, and stylistic synonyms. Both types and classifications of synonyms are applied inclusively to describe EthSL synonymous signs. The antonyms in EthSL are formed by changing the movement parameter of the sign to the opposite direction; for example the sign for 'lend' vs ‘borrow’, through changing the palm orientation of the opposing sign; for example; the sign for ‘good’ vs ‘bad’, through opposite relation lexical sign; for example; the sign for ‘alive’ vs 'death', morphological process of forming antonyms; for example the sign for ‘know’ vs ‘not-know’ and by putting the sign at the opposite location; for example the sign for ‘father’ vs ‘mother’. The antonymy signs in EthSL are categorized as reverse opposition, converse opposition, antipodal opposition, kinship opposition, gradable opposition, non-gradable opposition, and directional opposition. Homonymy signs in EthSL are displayed through iconic similarity between entities, and grammatical derivation during conversation as a result of borrowing and sometimes mixing and mistakenly interchanging signs. For metonymic signs in xiv EthSL, the articulator of the sign, the articulator’s resemblance to the entity and pointing of the referents are some aspects that highlight metonymic signs. The study introduced the further structure of semantic relations into the dictionary. To recommend, that morphologically related forms should be grouped where listing these forms separately obscures the lexical relation between them, combining morphologically related entries; distinguishing between homonymy and polysemy in the way that translations are grouped; cross-referencing synonyms would provide a richer and more transparent understanding of the language to a user of the dictionary. | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://etd.aau.edu.et/handle/123456789/3495 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | |
| dc.publisher | Addis Ababa University | |
| dc.title | Description of Lexical Semantic Relations in Ethiopian Sign Language: Implications for Sign language Dictionary Making | |
| dc.type | Thesis |