ABSTRACT
Presentation 10
SignWriting Symposium 2014

“Ordering Signs in Dictionaries”

by
Charles Butler Neto
B.A. Latin American Studies,
University of Michigan, 1975
SignNet Project of the Catholic
University of Pelotas, BRAZIL, 2001
(when initial work was begun)
ASL Article Writer for the ASL Wikipedia
chazzer3332000@yahoo.com

Initial work on this project started
as a part of the SignNet Project at the
Catholic University of Pelotas, Brazil
in collaboration with the Center for
Sutton Movement Writing, California, USA. 

Starting with a study with the SignNet Project of the University of Pelotas and its publication in the SignWriter Journal in 2001, I have pursued publishing a dictionary starting with the signed language not the spoken language gloss.

From some experiments with two sign languages (LIBRAS and ASL) I fleshed out my work into a self-published volume and presented it at the ReaTech Conference in April, 2013 to various publishers.

This presentation is showing how to follow an ordered system of signs (by handshapes, by group, by rotation, by orientation; location; movement; speed, and facial expressions) to consistently order by minimal pairs a useful comparative dictionary.

The dictionary includes examples from several regions of Brazil (Porto Alegre, Pelotas, Sao Paulo, Santa Catarina, Belo Horizonte) and relies upon previously published corpus (such as the DEIT-LIBRAS corpus) and personal gathering of data for this 500+ sign dictionary effort.