Syllables and morphemes across modalities.

Panel a illustrates the pattern of meaningful elements (morphemes) and meaningless elements (syllables) in an English word. Panels b-c illustrate the manipulation of syllable and morpheme structure in English words (b) and ASL signs (c). Note that one-syllable signs have a single movement, whereas two-syllable signs have two movements (marked by arrows). Morphemes, by contrast, are defined by the number of handshapes. For example, the monomorphemic monosyllabic sign MARRY has a single group of active fingers (the open hand with the thumb extended) whereas in the monosyllabic bimorphemic sign MIND-FREEZE there are two groups of active fingers, the “one” (an extended index finger) handshape changes to an open hand with the thumb extended.