Relationship certainly lexical and you can phonological qualities
Next we examined relationships among the lexical and phonological properties of the signs in ASL-LEX to gain insight into how phonological, lexical, and semantic factors interact in the ASL lexicon. s = –0.14, p < 0.001. Although it is possible that this inverse correlation is driven by the relatively higher frequency of closed-class words which may be lower in iconicity than other signs, the negative correlation remains when closed-class words (i.e., words with a “minor” Lexical Class) are excluded (r s = –0.17, p < 0.001). This result is compatible with the early proposal that with frequent use, signs may move away from their iconic origins, perhaps due to linguistic pressures to become more integrated into the phonological system (Frishberg, 1975). Interestingly, the direction of this relationship was the opposite of that found for British Sign Language; that is, Vinson et al. (2008) reported a weak positive correlation between frequency and iconicity: r = .146, p < .05. Alternatively, the different correlations might be due differences in stimuli selection. Vinson et al. (2008) intentionally selected stimuli that had a range of iconicity values which resulted in a bimodal iconicity distribution while we did not select signs for inclusion in ASL-LEX based on their iconicity.
Volume and you will iconicity z-ratings 
(SignFrequency(Z) and you can Iconicity(Z)) was basically rather adversely synchronised with each other (pick Dining table 1), with increased repeated signs ranked since shorter renowned; not, that it matchmaking is weak, r
Lots of phonological features is very correlated plus in of numerous times simply because how they is defined (discover Dining table step 1). Such as, for every single biggest location comes with no less than one lesser metropolitan areas-high frequency lesser metropolises often hence nearly usually be found inside higher volume significant towns, and handshape regularity are also linked to chosen thumb and bending frequency. As well, all of the around three measures away from Community Density try very coordinated having you to definitely some other partially as they are likewise defined and partially just like the people natives you to definitely express five of your five sandwich-lexical functions (Maximal Area Thickness) tend to always plus express certainly one of five sandwich-lexical attributes (Limited Society Occurrence). Finally, the around three Area Thickness measures is actually coordinated with each of the sub-lexical volume tips. This is going to make sense just like the of the meaning, popular sub-lexical functions are available in of a lot cues.
Interestingly, the basic sub-lexical frequencies are completely uncorrelated with each other, with the exception of selected fingers and minor location which are significantly but weakly correlated (r = .10, p < .01). This finding suggests that the space of possible ASL signs is rather large as each sub-lexical property can (to a first degree of approximation) vary independently of the others. This property contrasts with spoken languages where phoneme frequency is correlated across different syllable positions. For example, using position-specific uniphone frequencies from Vitevitch and Luce (2004) we estimate that in English monosyllabic words, vowel frequency is negatively correlated with the frequency of the preceding consonant (r = –.07, p < .001) and positively correlated with the following consonant (r = .17, p < .001), and that onset consonants have highly correlated frequencies (r = –.51, p < .001). We speculate that the relative independence of ASL sub-lexical features is related to both the motoric independence of the manual articulators (e.g., finger flexion is unaffected by the location of the hand in signing space) as well as the relative simultaneity of manual articulation (as opposed to serial oral articulation). We note that these non-significant correlations are for sub-lexical frequency only; specific sub-lexical properties have been argued to co-vary systematically (e.g., signs produced in locations far from the face may be more likely to be symmetrical, two-handed, and have larger, horizontal, and vertical motions; Siple, 1978).
