ASCII-STOKOE NOTATION: A COMPUTER-WRITEABLE TRANSLITERATION SYSTEM FOR STOKOE NOTATION OF AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE Mark A. Mandel, Ph.D. COPYRIGHT AND PERMISSIONS NOTICE Copyright (C) 1993 Mark A. Mandel. Permission is granted to distribute electronically and to make single hard copies. All copies must contain this notice. To make multiple hard copies, apply for permission to the author: he won't be unreasonable. A version of this article is to appear in _Sign Language Studies_. INTRODUCTION This is a system for transliterating William C. Stokoe's notation for American Sign Language, as presented in his _Dictionary of American Sign Language_ (Stokoe, Casterline, & Croneberg, 1976: hereafter "DASL"), into symbols available on most computers: the 7-bit ASCII character set.[1] It consists of a set of equivalences between Stokoe's symbols and ASCII characters; rules for ordering characters linearly where Stokoe arranges his symbols two- dimensionally; and a few extensions for describing a sign in more detail than DASL does. I originally devised it to facilitate my dissertation research at the University of California at Berkeley in the late seventies. Besides computerized searches of databases, it is also useful for discussing signs in text intended for human consumption where no special fonts are available -- e.g., by electronic mail and in documents and discussions that travel over computer networks -- when the writer does not want to use word or morpheme glosses or extended verbal descriptions. Any transliteration from DASL into ASCII-Stokoe notation can be unambiguously reversed. For the most part, each character represents one symbol, without ambiguity.[2] In some cases DASL uses the same symbol with different meanings in different contexts; for example, a dot can mean "extended thumb", "emphatic movement", or "repeated movement", depending on its location. I have separated such cases into different characters, one for each meaning. But some symbols can appear in different parameters[3] with the same or related meanings: for example, the "O" handshape symbol can be used as a location, an active handshape, or the final handshape of a closing movement. Symbols used in this way are represented by the same character in all contexts. Finally, handshapes deviate from the "one symbol, one character" rule, for reasons explained in the section on handshapes. The basic division of a sign in DASL is into location, active handshape, and movement[4]. In ASCII-Stokoe these parameters are separated with slashes ("/"). Each type of parameter symbol can be accompanied by diacritical marks; DASL puts these above, below, before, or after the basic symbol, but in ASCII-Stokoe they always follow it. I have tried to make my transliterations mnemonic by appearance, abbreviation, or both. But trying to match DASL's sixty-odd symbols, with their meanings, to the 94 printable ASCII characters requires some compromises. In the following table of equivalences, a capital letter preceded by an asterisk means that the ASCII character can be thought of as an abbreviation of the word that the letter appears in. There are also some mnemonic notes on the relationship between the symbol and its equivalent character. LOCATIONS Most locations are represented by lower-case letters. Q the neutral location in front of the body. (DASL uses a slashed zero, but many printers and displays do not clearly differentiate zero and capital O. One style of capital Q is, like a slashed zero, a circle with a diagonal line through it. Can be omitted for human readers; see Order of Writing.) h whole *Head/face u *Upper face, forehead/brow m *Mid-face, eye-nose region l *Lower face, chin c *Cheek/temple/ear, side-face k nec*K (n is needed for a movement) [ torso (do not confuse with "]", opening movement) i nondominant upper arm (symbol vaguely resembles undotted italic "i", stretched out. I have avoided using the ASCII backslash "\", which has special properties in many text- handling programs.) J nondominant lower arm (symbol resembles undotted italic "j"; capitalized to distinguish it from "forearm prominent" diacritic "j". The slash character "/" is reserved as the field separator.) s nondominant inside of *Supine wrist, handshape irrelevant p nondominant back of *Prone hand or wrist, handshape irrelevant HANDSHAPES Since Stokoe's handshape symbols are drawn from the capital letters and the digits, based on the use of ASL's handshapes or similar ones in the ASL manual alphabet, most of these equivalences are straightforward. But ASL has more distinct handshapes than Stokoe recognized in 1965 under his strict criterion of lexical minimal pairs. DASL recognizes two of them as useful in notation while denying them distinctive status, describing 5 and open-8 as allophones[5] of B and Y respectively and alphabetizing them separately just after those letters. It also alphabetizes the independent handshape 3 just after L. In order to capture the distinctions ignored by DASL, ASCII-Stokoe uses digits diacritically, though this can be simplified for human reading; see the discussion under "Extensions", below. Unextended ASCII-Stokoe represents DASL's handshape symbols as follows: A B B5 C E F G H I K L L3 O R V W X Y Y8 Each single letter corresponds to the DASL symbol that is the same letter of the alphabet; B5, L3, and Y8 represent respectively DASL's 5, 3, and "open-8" (broken at the top). Note that the ASCII-Stokoe code Y8 thus does NOT represent the numeric handshape for '8' (unlike B5 and L3); that must be symbolized by adding the "closed" diacritic (see below): Y8# . In precise use, Y8 stands for a handshape with the thumb perpendicular to the plane of the palm, roughly parallel to the bent middle finger. If the thumb is extended from the side of the hand in the same plane as the palm, the "extended-thumb" diacritic is called for: Y8` . MOVEMENTS This is the largest set of symbols, and the ASCII characters representing them are a heterogeneous lot. To avoid confusing ")" and "(" , remember that each one resembles the left-hand half of its DASL equivalent. ^ upward v downward r alternately upward and downward (script "r" moves up and down. "N" is reserved for potential handshape use: see Extensions) > toward the signer's dominant side < toward the signer's nondominant side z alternately from side to side t *Toward the signer (symbol resembles capital "T") f away *From the signer (with a little imagination, symbol resembles the base of a printed "f") = to and fro (symbol resembles a capital "I", but "I" is needed for handshape; if you omit the vertical stroke of "I", leaving only the serifs, you get "=") a supinate the wrist -- actually, the forearm (symbol resembles handwritten "a"). b pronate the wrist (symbol resembles "b" with a short stem) w twist the wrist alternately supine and prone n nod or bend wrist ] open the hand to a more open handshape (do not confuse with "[" for torso location) # close the hand to a more closed handshape e wiggle finger(s) (symbol resembles script "e") @ circular ) approach (do not confuse with "(" meaning interchange) x contact g *Grasp (a printed two-loop "g", turned sideways, resembles the symbol) + cross (symbol is a double-barred cross; "+" is a single-barred cross) o enter : diverge ( interchange (do not confuse with ")" meaning approach) DIACRITICAL MARKS AND ADDITIONAL CHARACTERS Several diacritics can be applied to a single symbol. The notes given here on order of diacritics are also included under Order of Writing, below. HANDSHAPE. These diacritics modify handshapes only: ` thumb extended. (This character is the grave accent, also called backquote [96/x60/o140][6].) " fingers crooked or bent DASL also uses the symbols for opening and closing movement as subscripts to indicate open or closed variants of handshapes. ORIENTATION. DASL uses the directional symbols as subscripts to handshape to indicate the orientation of the hand, though not in a fully consistent way and with some implicit conventions and dependencies (especially with B, where they may refer to either the fingertips or the palm). DASL also uses the "supinate" and "pronate" symbols as subscripts for "palm up" and "palm down".[7] Write orientation diacritics after any handshape diacritics that may be present. FOREARM PROMINENCE. DASL attaches the "forearm" symbol to the left side of a handshape symbol to indicate that the forearm is prominent. I recommend writing the forearm "j" AFTER the handshape character(s) and any handshape and orientation diacritics. SPATIAL RELATION. DASL uses diacritical marks to indicate the initial spatial relation between the dominant hand and the location or the co-active nondominant hand. Write these after any handshape, orientation, and forearm diacritics. In addition to the symbols for the movements "cross", "grasp", and "enter" ("+", "g", "o"), the following diacritics express spatial relation: - above (hyphen) _ below (underscore [95/x5f/o137].) ' side by side. (Apostrophe[8] [39/x27/o47].) q in front of OR in back of (see Extensions) MOVEMENT. DASL stacks one movement symbol above another to indicate that the movements are being performed *simultaneously*. Stacks[9] are written from left to right corresponding to *sequence* of movements. In ASCII-Stokoe, commas separate sequential movements; simultaneous movements are written adjacent with no intervening comma. In transliterating DASL read each stack of simultaneous movements from top to bottom (see description of "!", below). DASL expresses no more than two simultaneous movements in a single stack; sometimes three simultaneous movements are written as a stack of two followed by the third one alone (e.g., the second and third variants of the sign glossed as 'be busy' at the top of p. 92, O'O/ex@ and O'O/ex= ). This limit of two is apparently due to printing restrictions. ASCII-Stokoe imposes no limit on the number of movements that can be written as simultaneous, though three may be the maximum occuring in ASL. These diacritical marks modify movements: . repeated. (Period [46/x2e/o56].) Since a repetition of a movement follows the basic movement, use a comma before this character. DASL also stacks the repetition dot above a directional symbol; transliterate such a stack like any other stack, using a comma to separate it from preceding and following stacks, and reading it from top to bottom. E.g., J/B/x,.t,. 'improve', p.202. ! emphatic. DASL puts a dot above a single movement symbol or a simultaneous stack. In my dissertation database I wrote the exclamation point after the symbol or stack, parallel to its use as punctuation in the Roman alphabet. While this may not have been a wise decision, if I ever manage to recover that database from tape and make it available to researchers, they will find it the "!" in that position. ~ alternating {} final handshape(s) after opening or closing movement are enclosed in braces. (DASL uses square brackets "[]", but ASCII-Stokoe needs those for "torso" and "opening".) "COMPOUNDING". DASL uses a double broken vertical line to link articulations sequentially, something like a hyphen in writing with the Roman alphabet. The ASCII-Stokoe equivalent is the vertical line "|" [124/x7C/o174]. E.g.: l/Ht/x|Ba/Hb/x '(postage) stamp', p. 165. In the Order of Writing table the units separated by this symbol are referred to as "articulations" for want of a better word. ORDER OF WRITING AND CONVENTIONS The order of characters in ASCII-Stokoe basically follows DASL, with modifications to linearize the two-dimensional arrangements and to make it easier to search for patterns programmatically. The basic order is the same, location - handshape - movement. For my dissertation database I used tab characters to keep the elements (including the nondominant active hand) in separate fields, but when writing for human readers, I recommend a slash between the fields: location/handshape(s)/movement. If embedding the sign notation in text, don't put spaces within it, and DO put spaces between the sign and any surrounding punctuation. It may look strange, and it is contrary to American punctuation style, but it is the only way to avoid ambiguity, since almost every punctuation mark in the ASCII character set also has a meaning in ASCII-Stokoe. If the location is neutral space, you can drop the leading zero and space ("Q/"), and the fact that there is only one slash will make the sign's structure clear. DASL puts a space after a nondominant-handshape used as location, and no space when both hands are active. This convention is not expressed explicitly in DASL, and has sometimes caused confusion among dictionary users.[10] Within each field the diacritics should be written after the central character in decreasing order of their direct relevance to it. Handshape diacritics " (quotation mark, "bent fingers") and "`" ("extended thumb") affect the position of the digits in the handshape itself, so they follow the handshape character immediately. Since orientation refers to the hand as a whole, but not the forearm, orientation diacritics follow handshape diacritics but precede the "j" that means "forearm prominent". And spatial relation, which applies between the entire articulator (whether body part, torso, arm, or hand) and the next-named part of the sign, is written last of all. The order of characters in writing a sign in ASCII-Stokoe is summarized below. This table contains all the possible elements of a sign, not all of which are usually present and some of which cannot coexist. For example, most signs do not have the multiple sequential articulation that DASL calls "compounding", and the nondominant hand cannot be both inactive (= "base hand") and active. But a sign can have both a body location and a base hand, a possibility that DASL uses without discussion: hB/G/e! and hB/A/e`! 'photograph' (p. 115), are examples. If the sign is articulated in neutral space, the "Q" for neutral space can be omitted; if there is also no base hand, there is no written location, so omit the first slash as well. ---------------------------------------------------------------- STRUCTURE OF A SIGN IN ASCII-STOKOE NOTATION FIRST ARTICULATION: body: body location spatial-relation diacritics base hand: handshape handshape diacritics orientation diacritics forearm-prominent diacritic spatial-relation diacritics SLASH / active nondominant hand: handshape handshape diacritics orientation diacritics forearm-prominent diacritic spatial-relation diacritics active dominant hand: handshape handshape diacritics orientation diacritics forearm-prominent diacritic SLASH / first movement stack: movement simultaneous movement simultaneous movement emphatic diacritic (EXCLAMATION POINT) COMMA , second movement stack: (same structure as the first) (repeat comma and stack-structure as many times as necessary) VERTICAL BAR | SECOND ARTICULATION OF "COMPOUND" (repeat vertical bar and articulation-structure as many times as necessary) ---------------------------------------------------------------- EXTENSIONS The following sections describe additional characters and conventions that allow ASCII-Stokoe to express more information about a sign than strict DASL notation does. I urge anyone who uses ASCII-Stokoe with these or other extensions to mention them explicitly at the beginning of the data, for the benefit of anyone with whom the data is shared, especially since some of the extensions (such as "d") imply a modification to the meaning of an unextended ASCII-Stokoe character. For that matter, it would be a good idea to list your extensions even at the head of your own private collection of data, lest you come back to it after an interval and forget, or lend it to someone else and forget to tell them. HANDSHAPES: I've used combinations of capital letter plus digit for the 5, 3, and open-8 handshapes for several reasons. First of all, Stokoe associates the handshapes with letters and numbers, and puts these three handshapes into his alphabetical order in the same positions that these digraphs put them in ASCII sort order. Second, I hoped to facilitate automated searching. And since there are too many handshapes to represent with the alphabet alone, some kind of digraph is needed in any case, and this method seemed as good as any, allowing almost indefinite extension within a clearly-defined set. LETTER + DIGIT HANDSHAPE EXTENSIONS: Here are the letter + digit combinations that I have either found helpful for my research or thought might be helpful to other researchers. If there is to be any standard in the use of ASCII-Stokoe, these have at least the advantage that everyone reading this first publication about ASCII-Stokoe knows about them. First of all, the digit 1 after any letter handshape means the handshape of that letter in the ASL manual alphabet. In the following list, the distribution of numerals 6-8 is per DASL. (Note: while 1 can be used to flag initialized signs, and I have listed some other such "flags" [e.g., F9], these digits as presented do not provide a complete and consistent system for such flagging. See "Initialized handshape", below.) A1 letter A, fist with thumb flat alongside. I mention this specially because there is no other way to explicitly distinguish this handshape from the following one. Note that even in unextended ASCII-Stokoe A` unequivocally represents the fist with thumb extended, the "thumbs-up" handshape. A2 letter S, "fist". This is the default allophone of the fist handshape in ASL, but DASL (and hence unextended ASCII- Stokoe) uses the symbol A for it. A3 letter T B4 numeral 4 B5 numeral 5 (same in unextended ASCII-Stokoe) F2 letter F with thumb and index finger crossed (thumb on outside) F9 numeral 9 if you want to distinguish it morphologically G2 letter G (distinguished from G for the extended index finger) G3 letter Q (in initialization; shape identical to letter G) H2" letter N H3 letter U (in initialization; shape identical to letter H) K2 letter P (in initialization; DASL describes shape as identical to letter K, but it may not always be so) L3 numeral 3 (same in unextended ASCII-Stokoe) W2" letter M W6 numeral 6 Y2 "horns", the extended index and pinky fingers Y2` "horns" with extended thumb, a classifier for airplanes and the "ILY" monogram handshape of the "I love you" sign[11] Y7 numeral 7 Y8 the "open-8" handshape (same in unextended ASCII-Stokoe) Y8# numeral 8 (same in unextended ASCII-Stokoe) ALTERNATE SINGLE-CHARACTER HANDSHAPE EXTENSIONS: Then again, if you're not concerned with extensibility and letter-based searching and sorting, you may prefer to use single characters for the handshapes. The following seem the best candidates for such treatment. "D:" introduces the (closest) equivalent DASL notation for the handshape; "A:" introduces the (closest) equivalent in ASCII-Stokoe with no changes to the basic characters. Anyone using these in data to be shared should mention it explicitly. 1 the pointing index-finger handshape. D: G ; A: G . Those who object fervently to DASL's use of the letter G for this handshape may prefer 1. 3 D: 3 ; A: L3 4 D: B ; A: B4 5 D: 5 ; A: B5 6 numeral 6, mostly in numerical signs. D: W ; A: W6 7 numeral 7, mostly in numerical signs. D: Y ; A: Y7 8 numeral 8, mostly in numerical signs. D: "open-8" or "open-8" plus the "closed" diacritic; A: Y8# 8` D: "open-8", A: Y8` (the non-numerical "open-8" plus the "thumb extended" diacritic) 9 numeral 9 if you want to distinguish it morphologically from F. D: F ; A: F9 D letter D, mostly in initialized signs. D: G ; A: G2 M letter M, mostly in initialized signs. D: W ; A: W2 N letter N, mostly in initialized signs. D: H plus the "bent fingers" diacritic; A: H" P letter P, mostly in initialized signs. D: K ; A: K2 S "fist" handshape, same as letter S. D: A ; A: A2 T letter T, mostly in initialized signs. D: A ; A: A3 INITIALIZED HANDSHAPE: The numeral extensions above still don't let you mark unequivocally when a handshape is used with letter or numeral value. I suggest an asterisk before the handshape. ANGLED HANDSHAPE: In Lynn Friedman's ASL research group at Berkeley we used several extensions to (handwritten) DASL notation.[12] One of these was a circumflex "^" above a handshape symbol to indicate an "angled" shape: bent at the metacarpophalangeal joints (at the base of the fingers), but with the fingers themselves held straight (the interphalangeal joints), as in part of the ASL sign for 'box' or 'room', or in the "flat-O" handshape seen in the sign for 'give (general, not as a gift)'. DASL includes this with the "bent fingers" diacritic. (The SignFont notation has one diacritic for "angled" fingers and another for "curved" or "hooked" fingers (bent at all joints, or at the interphalangeals but not the metacarpophalangeals).) To any researcher who wants this distinction I suggest lowercase "y" as a handshape diacritic. (Mnemonic: in print, the left branch and the descender form an angle.) Note that the use of this diacritic would implicitly restrict the "bent" diacritic (") to curved or hooked shapes, and so should be explicitly specified. SPATIAL RELATION "IN FRONT" VS. "IN BACK": DASL combines "active hand ahead of base hand" and "active hand behind base hand" into the single symbol represented as "q". To distinguish these two and complete the parallelism between spatial relation and movement/orientation, I suggest reserving "q" for "active hand behind base hand" (i.e., closer to the body along the front-back axis) and using its physical inverse "d" for "active hand in front of base hand" (farther from the body).[13] TWO-PART ORIENTATIONS: Another Friedman-group extension was the specification of orientation in two parts. Stokoe's orientation for the very common flat handshape (B) seems to be based on which way the palm is facing, though it's not always clear and may involve the fingertips. We found it useful to specify two directions: where the palm is facing, and where the metacarpals are pointing. (The metacarpals are the bones in the palm, one for each finger; this direction is the same way the fingers point if they are all extended and held together, as in the flat (B) hand.) If you combine orientation symbols to indicate intermediate directions (e.g., f< for "forward and toward the nondominant side"), you can separate the two parts of an orientation with a comma or semicolon. DEICTIC DIRECTIONS: I have found it very useful to be able to indicate a direction that depends on deixis, e.g., in writing the root form of a directional verb. In handwritten Stokoe notation I use a small triangle, or capital delta. Though I never needed deictic notation in ASCII-Stokoe, I think a question mark would serve the purpose. By prefixing a question mark to a character used for orientation or movement (e.g., in the form DASL uses as citation form) one could indicate that the phonological form depends on deixis in the situation. We could extend the convention to cover locations, e.g., '3rd pers. sing. (left) gives to 3rd pers. singular (right)' as ? (i.e., supine O-hand starts at left and moves to right), or generically 'give' as ?/Oa/? . A series of locations could be coded numerically as ?1 , ?2 , etc. I haven't tried to work this out in detail, and am suggesting it as a direction for researchers who may find it useful. WHICH FINGER? Many signs that incorporate numerical morphology distinguish different values by using different fingers of the dominant or the base hand. DASL has no way to specify which finger is in use unless it is the thumb, or if the handshape is modified. See, for example, the top entry on p. 248, B5/B/o< , glossed 'intermission, interval', and the third on p. 249, B5/G/x , glossed 'student': the signer marks the specific year of student life, or position of the break (between quarters of a football game) or summer (between academic years), by the finger or inter-finger gap used on the base hand. Use of numbers for fingers is not only confusing when it doesn't coincide with the semantics of the sign (student years go from pinky to thumb), but also ambiguous: I have seen professional articles number the digits differently. When handwriting Stokoe notation I have used subscript i,m,r,p, for the index, middle, ring, and pinky fingers; the gaps between them are also i (between index and thumb), m, r, and p (between pinky and ring). To avoid confusion and facilitate finding such morphology in a database I suggest borrowing labels for the fingers from the ASL numerals in which one fingertip touches the thumbtip -- 6 = pinky, 7 = ring, 8 = middle, 9 = index -- and prefixing a percent sign to distinguish these modifiers from handshape extensions. A gap is indicated if the movement or spatial relation is "entering", o , (or "grasping", g , for the active hand); otherwise the finger is meant. This extension diacritic goes after handshape diacritics and before orientation diacritics. Examples: B5%7/G/x 'freshman'; B5%8/B/o< 'summer between sophomore and junior years'; B5%7a/Gb/>x 'third week of the month' (a form of the first sign on p. 236, though not discussed there). WHERE ELSE ON THE HAND? This use of the percent sign can be generalized to indicate generally which part of the hand is involved in a sign. This has been considered a minor parameter called "Contacting Region" (Klima & Bellugi 1979), "Action Area" (Newkirk 1987), and probably other names as well. I suggest the following symbolizations: %a palm (or palmar side of digit) %b back (or back of digit) %- radial edge (the thumb's edge of the hand) %_ ulnar edge (the pinky's edge of the hand) %f metacarpal end %t wrist end/heel %^ pad of finger- or thumb-tip %v elbow (I have borrowed this organization of contacting regions from Newkirk 1987.) The inventive researcher can certainly come up with more combinations as needed; the usual caution about explicating extensions applies. CHARACTERS NOT USED: The following characters are not used in *unextended* ASCII-Stokoe: capital letters: D M N P S T U Z lowercase letters: d y digits: 1 2 4 6 7 9 other characters: $ % & * ; ? \ Most of these letters and all the digits are used in the extensions mentioned above: all the capital letters except U and Z are in the alternate single-character handshape extensions, d is "in front of", and y is "angled handshape". One of the other characters could be used before a handshape to indicate initialization; I suggest the asterisk. I disrecommend use of the backslash "\" for any purpose, since it has special significance to so very many programs. EXAMPLES [to be supplied] NOTES 1. All page references in this article are to DASL. 2. I will generally use "character" to mean "character of the 7- bit ASCII set" and "symbol" to mean "symbol of Stokoe notation as presented in DASL". 3. Many sign linguists eschew much of Stokoe's terminology, preferring in some cases terms common in the linguistics of spoken languages, and in others new terms that are specific to sign linguistics. "Parameters" are roughly equivalent to Stokoe's "aspects" (with significant theoretical differences that are not necessary to go into here). 4. Stokoe's "tab", "dez", and "sig". 5. Stokoe's "allochers". 6. I will use this format to give the decimal, hexadecimal, and octal representations of a character's ASCII value. 7. In terms of anatomy and body movement (kinesiology), supination and pronation are not equivalent to palm-up and palm-down position or movement. For example, in Bf/f 'your' (p.19) and l/Bv/^x,. 'sweet' (p.149) the hand is anatomically prone and supine, respectively. In fact, supination and pronation are movements of the entire forearm, not the hand. 8. Or acute accent on some keyboards. 9. Or single movement symbols, which can be considered stacks of one movement. 10. For example, on p. 16 of DASL, in the second entry (glossed 'help'), compare the first sign with the third. In ASCII-Stokoe they are: A_Ba/^ and A_/Ba/x,.,. . When hand-writing standard Stokoe notation for a sign with a base hand, I find it useful to put a period between the symbols for the base handshape and the active handshape. 11. In Lynn Friedman's research group we handwrote "horns" with a symbol like a tuning fork, something like this: |_| . The "airplane"/"ILY" handshape was the same symbol plus | the "extended thumb" diacritic. 12. I think that most of these extensions were invented by Lynn, but at this remove in time I can't be sure. 13. If memory serves, Friedman's group turned DASL's symbol for "in front" upside-down for this, capturing the visual parallelism between "forward"/"backward" and "in front"/"in back". REFERENCES Klima, Edward S., & Ursula Bellugi 1979 _The Signs of Language_. Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard University Press. [Newkirk, Don] 1976 _SignFont Handbook_. [Architect: Final Version.] San Diego: The Salk Institute for Biological Studies [and] Emerson & Stern Associates, Inc. Work supported in part by grants from NIH, NIH/NINCDS, and NSF. Stokoe, W., C. Casterline & C. Croneberg 1976 _A Dictionary of American Sign Language on Linguistic Principles_. [Silver Spring, Md.]: Linstok Press.