Thread by @c_borstell

William Herlofsky on ideophones in Japanese Sign Language. Based on the definition "marked and open class", he argues that JSL initialized signs are ideophones by productively incorporating iconic elements of a base sign with the (iconic) addition of Japanese kana forms. #ill12

There was no time for my question/comment, but I would argue that the described category falls far outside the scope of ideophones. IMO, there are many signs/cxs in #signlanguages that could be argued to be ideophonic, but this is definitely not one. #ILL12

It seems too much importance has been given to the criterion of "open class", interpreted as "productive word formation". I would argue that "sensory depiction" is _less_ informative in intitialized signs than other signs... #ill12

... If the visual representation of written characted (kana) iconicity is interpreted as "sensory depiction", this is a motivation in word formation (e.g. @ryanlepic's work), but fingerspelling is not "iconic" in acquisition (e.g. Padden's doi.org/10.1093/acprof…)
#ILL12

Some suggestion of relevant work for those interested in (potential) ideophones in #signlanguages – a short list:
Dudis (2004) "Body-partitioning and real-space blends" – relevant for depiction on different levels and also incorporating sound symbolism represented in sign
#ILL12

@mesch_joo, Raanes & Ferrara (2015) – "Co-forming real space blends in tactile signed language dialogues" (degruyter.com/view/j/cogl.20…) – relevant for sensory experience wrt to tactile production and perception
#ILL12

Ferrara & @gab_hodge (2018) "Language as Description, Indication, and Depiction" (frontiersin.org/articles/10.33…) – for a recent overview of description/depiction in the visual modality.
#ill12

... and of course the first (afaik) paper that explicitly mentioned ideophones in #signlanguages (specifically Swedish Sign Language):
Bergman & Dahl (1994) "Ideophones in Sign Language? The place of Reduplication in the Tense-Aspect system of Swedish Sign Language"
#ill12