Syllables and morphemes across modalities.

<p>Panel <i>a</i> illustrates the pattern of meaningful elements (morphemes) and meaningless elements (syllables) in an English word. Panels <i>b-c</i> illustrate the manipulation of syllable and morpheme structure in English words (<i>b</i>) and ASL signs (<i>c</i>). Note that one-syllable signs have a single movement, whereas two-syllable signs have two movements (marked by arrows). Morphemes, by contrast, are defined by the number of handshapes. For example, the monomorphemic monosyllabic sign MARRY has a single group of active fingers (the open hand with the thumb extended) whereas in the monosyllabic bimorphemic sign MIND-FREEZE there are two groups of active fingers, the “one” (an extended index finger) handshape changes to an open hand with the thumb extended.