Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar

During the past fifty years sign languages have been recognised as gen-uine languages with their own syntax and distinctive phonology. In the case of sign languages, phonetic description characterises the manual and non-manual aspects of signing. The latter relate to facial expression and upper torso position. In the case of manual components these characterise hand shape, orientation and position, and hand/arm movement in three dimen-sional space around the signer’s body. These phonetic charcaterisations can be notated as HamNoSys descriptions of signs which has an executable in-terpretation to drive an avatar. The HPSG sign language generation component of a text to sign language system prototype is described. The assimilation of SL morphological fea-tures to generate signs which respect positional agreement in signing space are emphasised.