5.

OO  +  small  classifier   A  small  Coffee.  

6. Neutral  +  small  classifier   A  regular/small  Coffee.  
7. Neutral  +  medium  classifier   A  regular  Coffee.  
8. Neutral  +  large  classifier   A  regular/large  Coffee.  
9. CHA  +  large  classifier   A  large  Coffee.  

Table  3:  Animations  combining  nonmanual  signals  with  affect  and  manual  classifiers  

The  purpose  of  utterances  1  –  4  is  to  examine  the  effectiveness  of  the  new  

representation.  These  alternatively  display  syntactic  and  morphological  nonmanual  signals  

in  combination  with  facial  expressions  depicting  affect.    The  objective  of  utterances  5  –  9  is  

to  consider  the  necessity  of  nonmanual  signals.  They  include  manual  classifiers  either  

combined  with,  or  without  reinforcing  morphological  nonmanual  signals.  

While  the  first  four  utterances  obey  the  language  rules  of  properly  formed  ASL  

sentences,  the  last  five  alternatively  obey  and  disobey  those  principles  by  including  or  

excluding  the  nonmanual  signal.  Since  field  tests  have  indicated  that  improperly  formed  

utterances  are  off-­‐putting  to  informants,  the  utterances  were  presented  in  the  order  

displayed  in  Table  3  to  avoid  undue  stress  on  participants  caused  from  dealing  with  

potentially  incorrect  language.    

Computer  animations  of  a  signing  avatar  portrayed  all  nine  utterances.    Creating  the  

animations  used  a  combination  of  a  commercial  animation  package  and  custom  software  

that  implemented  the  new  representation.  Deaf  researchers  iteratively  reviewed  and  

critiqued  the  test  animations  as  they  were  made,  providing  further  refinement.  When  they  

had  received  approval,  the  animations  were  formatted  to  fit  within  our  playback  software  

and  combined  into  the  test  material.  

Twenty  participants,  all  of  whom  were  attending  the  2009  DeafNation  Expo  trade  

show  in  Palatine,  Illinois  volunteered  to  participate  in  this  study.    The  participants  

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