Metaphor in Sign Languages

Abstract

Metaphor abounds in both sign and spoken languages. However, in sign languages, languages in the visual-manual modality, metaphors work a bit differently than they do in spoken languages. In this paper we explore some of the ways in which metaphors in sign languages differ from metaphors in spoken languages. We address three differences: (a) Some metaphors are very common in spoken languages yet are infelicitous in sign languages; (b) Body-part terms are possible in very specific types of metaphors in sign languages, but are not so restricted in spoken languages; (c) Similes in some sign languages are dispreferred in predicative positions in which metaphors are fine, in contrast to spoken languages where both can appear in these environments. We argue that these differences can be explained by two seemingly unrelated principles: the Double Mapping Constraint (Meir, 2010), which accounts for the interaction between metaphor and iconicity in languages, and Croft’s (2003) constraint regarding the autonomy and dependency of elements in metaphorical constructions. We further argue that the study of metaphor in the signed modality offers novel insights concerning the nature of metaphor in general, and the role of figurative speech in language.

Full text

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH
published: 26 June 2018
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01025
Edited by:
Marianne Gullberg,
Lund University, Sweden
Reviewed by:
Alan Cienki,
VU University Amsterdam,
Netherlands
Gary Lupyan,
University of Wisconsin-Madison,
United States
*Correspondence:
Ariel Cohen
arikc@bgu.ac.il
†Deceased
Specialty section:
This article was submitted to
Language Sciences,
a section of the journal
Frontiers in Psychology
Received: 14 January 2018
Accepted: 31 May 2018
Published: 26 June 2018
Citation:
Meir I and Cohen A (2018) Metaphor
in Sign Languages.
Front. Psychol. 9:1025.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01025
Metaphor in Sign Languages
Irit Meir1,2†and Ariel Cohen3*
1Department of Hebrew Language, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel, 2Department of Communication Sciences and
Disorders, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel, 3Department of Foreign Literatures and Linguistics, Ben-Gurion University of the
Negev, Beersheba, Israel
Metaphor abounds in both sign and spoken languages. However, in sign languages,
languages in the visual-manual modality, metaphors work a bit differently than they do in
spoken languages. In this paper we explore some of the ways in which metaphors in sign
languages differ from metaphors in spoken languages. We address three differences:
(a) Some metaphors are very common in spoken languages yet are infelicitous in sign
languages; (b) Body-part terms are possible in very specific types of metaphors in
sign languages, but are not so restricted in spoken languages; (c) Similes in some
sign languages are dispreferred in predicative positions in which metaphors are fine,
in contrast to spoken languages where both can appear in these environments. We
argue that these differences can be explained by two seemingly unrelated principles: the
Double Mapping Constraint (Meir, 2010), which accounts for the interaction between
metaphor and iconicity in languages, and Croft’s (2003) constraint regarding the
autonomy and dependency of elements in metaphorical constructions. We further argue
that the study of metaphor in the signed modality offers novel insights concerning the
nature of metaphor in general, and the role of figurative speech in language.
Keywords: metaphor, simile, iconicity, inhibition, Double Mapping Constraint, autonomous and dependent
elements
INTRODUCTION
Metaphor, the use of an item from one semantic domain in a different semantic domain in order to
characterize the latter in terms of the former, is pervasive in human language and thought. Though
it is often regarded as a poetic device used in figurative language to create special poetic effects,
works on metaphor in the past several decades have demonstrated that metaphors are used in
everyday use of language, and not only in language but in thought and action as well (Lakoff and
Johnson, 1980). In fact, we cannot avoid using metaphors; all we need is to look and we will catch
metaphors in many everyday utterances (note that look and catch are used metaphorically here).
Since our potential experiences are infinite, yet the lexicon of any language is finite, the use of
metaphor is a powerful way to refer to new situations by using the existing linguistic means that we
have (e.g., surfing the internet, a computer mouse, a spaceship).
Furthermore, metaphor is not restricted to language; it is used in other domains of human
cognition as well, such as mathematics (Nunez, 2008), visual art (Kennedy, 1982, 2008;Forceville,
2008), graphics, and music (Zbikowski, 2008).
Natural languages come in two modalities—spoken and signed. Both types of languages
develop naturally in human communities, shaped by the special characteristics of the human
brain and human capacity for language, by human cognition and by the communicative needs
and constraints of human communities. The languages produced in the two modalities have
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Meir and Cohen Metaphor in Sign Languages
many important properties in common, in their linguistic
structures, processes, constraints and communicative functions
(Sandler and Lillo-Martin, 2006). Since metaphor seems to be
such a basic and pervasive cognitive process, we would expect to
find it in both types of languages.
Yet the two types of languages differ markedly in their physical
characteristics, and these physical characteristics entail some
important linguistic differences between the two modalities. For
example, in sign languages, both the articulations of the hands
and their relation to space are directly perceivable, unlike those of
the vocal tract, whose articulations are perceivable only indirectly,
via the acoustic patterns created by air passing through different
vocal tract configurations. Sign languages also fully exploit the
existence of the two hands – phonologically, lexically, and at
higher levels of structure. These two identical articulators can
behave independently, and have no parallel in speech (see e.g.,
Sandler, 1993, 2006, 2013;Liddell, 2003;Crasborn, 2012).
These modality differences result in structural differences as
well (see e.g., Meier et al., 2002). For example, sign languages
exhibit more simultaneous structure on all linguistic levels
(Sandler and Lillo-Martin, 2006;Vermeerbergen et al., 2007),
while spoken languages show a tendency toward sequential
structures. In addition, iconicity is more pervasive on all
linguistic levels in sign languages than in spoken languages
(Johnston and Schembri, 1999;Aronoff et al., 2005;Meir, 2010;
Lepic et al., 2016).
What about metaphor? Would we expect languages in the
two modalities to behave differently with respect to metaphorical
expressions? Why should we, or why shouldn’t we, expect such
differences? As we pointed out above, metaphors can be found
in visual forms of communication and art. Therefore, we would
expect to find them in visual languages too. However, metaphors
in visual systems may work differently than metaphors in spoken
languages. Kennedy (2008, p. 455) points out that a metaphor
such as a burning passion works well in spoken language, but a
picture of a burning person misses the point entirely. He points
out that additional physical details, that cannot be avoided in a
picture, are often extraneous and distracting. Kennedy further
notices (ibid., p. 458) that in pictures one cannot distinguish
between a metaphor (my daughter is an angel) and a simile (my
daughter is like an angel)1.
Sign languages are both visual systems and linguistic systems.
We might expect metaphor to work in a similar way in languages
in general, building on the properties shared by all human
languages. Yet if modality does play a role in shaping metaphors,
as suggested above, then metaphors may work differently in the
two types of languages.
Research on metaphors in sign languages reveals that
metaphor is abundant in these languages. The seminal work of
Wilcox (2000) and Taub (2001) on metaphor in sign languages
showed that metaphorical mapping plays a central role in
creating signs, especially signs for abstract concepts. Moreover,
they show that the types of mappings found in ASL are those
1Forceville (1996, 2005) draws a distinction between pictorials metaphors and
what he calls ‘similes,’ but by this he just means cases where the source and target
domains are visually presented separately.
mentioned by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) as forming the basis
for conceptual metaphors in spoken languages, such as: GOOD
IS U P,THE FUTURE IS AHEAD,INTIMACY IS PROXIMITY,
CO MM UN IC ATION IS SENDING,UN DE RS TANDING IS GR ASPING,
and many more. More recently, Roush (2016) examined eleven
sub-mappings of location event-structure metaphors, which are
claimed to be universal in spoken languages, and found that all of
them are exhibited in signs from the ASL lexicon. These studies
provide strong support for prevalence of conceptual metaphor in
human language, regardless of modality.
Important insights can be obtained from the study of
metaphorical gestures (e.g., Cienki and Müller, 2008), although
gestures, unlike signs, usually co-occur with speech. While
McNeill (1992) distinguishes between iconic and metaphorical
gestures, Cienki and Müller (2008) argue that metaphorical
gestures are in fact iconic. The iconic nature of gestures is
particularly important, as it “affords different potentials than
aural/oral expression does” (Müller and Cienki, 2009, p. 322).
Wilcox (2000) and Taub (2001) focus on the interaction of
metaphor and iconicity in the structure of signs. They show
how the different phonological components of a sign – its hand
configuration, location and movement – can represent iconically
some of the meaning components of that sign, and then can
be metaphorically mapped to an abstract concept in a different
semantic domain. For example, the sign EAT in Israeli Sign
Language (ISL) has the form of a handshape, moving in a
repeated movement toward the signer’s mouth. The form of
the sign iconically represents holding a small object (by the
handshape), and putting it into the agent’s mouth (Figure 1).
When the hand performs the same movement toward the temple,
the sign means LEARN, represented iconically as the action of
putting something inside one’s head (Figure 2). In this sign, the
iconic representation is mapped onto the abstract domain of
mental activities, which is characterized by putting objects (ideas,
information, pieces of knowledge) into a container (the head).
Taub (2001) elaborated on the relationship between iconicity
and metaphor, and suggested an explicit model capturing the
relationship between the two. Specifically, she suggests that the
creation of an iconic sign is a process of mapping elements of
form to elements of meaning. And the creation of an iconic-
metaphorical sign is shaped by double mapping: an iconic
mapping from form to meaning components, and a metaphorical
mapping from the meaning components (the source domain of
the metaphor) to the target domain of the metaphor.
As we demonstrate in this paper, our own work on
metaphors in sign languages, based on Taub’s model, shows
that indeed metaphors in sign languages work a bit differently
from spoken languages. First, some metaphors that are very
common in spoken languages cannot receive a metaphorical
interpretation in the signed modality (Meir, 2010). Second, while
in spoken languages a word or an expression that are interpreted
metaphorically have the same form as their non-metaphorical
counterpart, in sign languages often metaphorical use of sign
also involves slight changes in the form of the sign (Cohen and
Meir, 2014). Furthermore, in sign languages similes are often
less favored than their metaphorical counterparts, in linguistic
environments in which both are acceptable in spoken languages.
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FIGURE 1 | An iconic sign: EAT (ISL).
In the current paper we explore some of the ways in
which metaphors in sign languages differ from metaphors in
spoken languages, and suggest explanations to these differences.
We further argue that the study of metaphor in the signed
modality offers novel insights concerning the nature of
metaphor in general, and the role of figurative expressions in
language.
In what follows, we describe and account for three types of
differences between metaphors in sign languages and in spoken
languages. In Section “The Interaction Between Iconicity and
Metaphor,” we focus on the interaction between iconicity and
metaphor, showing that the iconicity of signs constrains the
metaphorical interpretations they can get. We introduce the
Double Mapping Constraint (Meir, 2010), and suggest that it can
explain the differences between languages in the two modalities,
as well as shed light on the predication nature of metaphor.
Body-part terms, a common source for metaphors in spoken
languages, show variable behavior concerning participation in
metaphorical expressions in sign languages. We argue that this
variable behavior can be explained by the interaction between
the DMC and Croft’s (2003) constraint (see section “The Body
in Metaphors”). Croft’s constraint is also used to explain two
additional, seemingly unrelated, differences between sign and
spoken languages, namely that in sign languages similes are often
FIGURE 2 | An iconic sign used metaphorically to represent an abstract
action: LEARN (ISL).
dispreferred while their metaphor counterparts are acceptable,
and the fact that often metaphorical signs have a slightly different
form than their non-metaphorical counterparts (see section
“Similes and Metaphors in ISL”). We conclude by describing two
intriguing difference between the use of metaphors in signed vs.
spoken languages, to which we do not yet have an explanation,
and which we leave for future research (see section “Conclusions
and Future Work”).
A word on methodology is in order here. The data presented in
this paper are based on consultation with three ISL native signer,
and an ASL native signer, as well as some informal discussions
with a few more fluent ISL signers. Though there are differences
and variation among signers regarding specific possible and
impossible metaphors and figurative expressions in ISL, there was
general agreement regarding the data presented here.
THE INTERACTION BETWEEN
ICONICITY AND METAPHOR
The Double-Mapping Constraint
Metaphor involves mapping between source and target domains.
However, not any such mapping is acceptable. For example,
Lakoff (1990) formulates what he calls the Invariance Hypothesis,
according to which metaphorical mappings between source and
target domain are partial, and the portion of the source domain
which is mapped preserves the image schematic structure of the
source domain that is topologically consistent with the structure
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of the target domain. Thus, metaphors only map structure from
the source domain that is compatible with the target domain.
Meir (2010) notes that in sign languages metaphorical
mapping is further constrained, as some expressions that receive
a metaphorical interpretation in spoken languages cannot be so
interpreted in sign languages. For example, (1–3) normally do
not mean that the house/acid/car literally ate all my savings/the
metal/gas, but rather that these substances were consumed by the
event that took place.
(1) The house ate up all my savings.
(2) The acid ate through the metal.
(3) My car eats gas.
However, this metaphorical interpretation of the verb to eat is
unavailable when these sentences are translated to sign languages,
such as American or Israeli Sign Languages. Meir attributes
the unavailability of metaphorical interpretation to the iconicity
of the sign EAT in these languages, whose form represents
putting something into the agent’s mouth (Figure 1 above). She
suggests that the iconicity of this sign clashes with the shifts in
meaning that take place in these metaphorical extensions. This
explanation is based on Taub’s (2001) model that both iconicity
and metaphors are built on mappings of two domains: form
and meaning in iconicity, source domain and target domain in
metaphors. Iconic signs that undergo metaphoric extension are
therefore subject to both mappings.
Yet, this double mapping is not always available. When the two
mappings do not preserve the same structural correspondence,
Meir (2010) argues that the metaphorical extension is blocked.
This line of explanation accounts for the impossibility of using
the ISL sign EAT in the above expressions. The meaning of ‘eat’ is
‘to put (food) in the mouth, chew if necessary, and swallow.’ That
is, the food is consumed as a result of the eating event. But the
consumption of the food is not represented iconically in the form
of the sign. The form of the sign iconically represents holding a
small object (by the handshape), and putting it into the agent’s
mouth (represented by the movement of the hand toward the
signer’s mouth). Each of the formational components of the sign
(its handshape, location and movement) corresponds to a specific
meaning component of the event of eating, as is shown in the left
and middle columns of Table 1.
But the metaphorical use of eat in the above sentence profiles
the consumption: The house ate up my savings means that the
house consumed my savings as the agent consumes the food
in an eating event. The metaphorical mapping between the two
TABLE 1 | Double mapping for EAT and ‘consuming is eating.’
Iconic mapping Metaphorical
mapping
Articulators Source Target
handshape
Mouth
Inward movement
X
Holding an object (food)
Mouth of eater
Putting food into mouth
Consumption of food
X
X
X
Consumption of object
domains is presented by the middle and right columns of Table 1.
The two mappings, the iconic mapping and the metaphoric
mapping, do not match, as can be seen from Table 1 (Meir, 2010,
p. 879).
The meaning component that is active in the metaphorical
mapping, the consumption, is not encoded by the iconic form of
the sign. And the meaning components of the iconic mapping –
the mouth, manipulating an object, putting into mouth – are
bleached in the metaphor. The mismatch in the double mappings
of the verb EAT and its intended metaphorical interpretation
suggests that there is some kind of interaction between the
iconic form of a sign and the kinds of metaphorical extensions
it can undergo. Specifically, the iconic form of a concept and its
metaphorical extension cannot profile different aspects of that
concept. This is captured in the following constraint (Meir, 2010,
p. 879):
The Double-Mapping Constraint (DMC): A metaphorical
mapping of an iconic form should preserve the structural
correspondences of the iconic mapping. Double-mapping should
be structure-preserving.
The DMC can account for other metaphors that are possible
in many spoken languages but not in sign languages, such as
Time flies, He climbed the ladder of success, the project took off. In
each of these expressions, the concept undergoing metaphorical
extension is represented in ISL and ASL by an iconic sign, whose
form highlights aspects of the meaning that should be bleached
in the metaphor. In FLY (Figure 3), the hands represent the
flapping of the wings, a meaning component irrelevant for the
metaphor. The metaphor profiles the speed of motion, which is
not represented by the form of the sign. Similarly, the form of
the ISL sign CLIMB highlights the manner of motion (moving
by grasping the wrings of the ladder in an alternating fashion)
rather than the upward movement intended as the basis for the
metaphoric interpretation; and the form of the ISL sign TAKE-
OFF highlights (by its handshape) the instrument performing
the action (an airplane), which is irrelevant for the metaphor.
FIGURE 3 | The iconic ISL sign FLY, highlighting the manner of motion.
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The Source for the DMC: Inhibition in
Metaphor and Iconicity
The DMC suggests that iconicity interacts with metaphor in an
interesting way: it restricts the possibility of an iconic sign to
be used or interpreted metaphorically, if the property which is
iconically represented in the form of the sign is not the property
which the metaphor is based on. But what is the source for
this restriction? Why does iconicity interfere with metaphorical
extension of a sign? We attribute this interference to another
property of iconic expressions, the fact that iconicity cannot be
inhibited. Yet metaphorical interpretation requires the inhibition
of certain properties of the word. It is the tension between these
two factors that will feature prominently in our explanation of
the DMC. Inhibition, then, is crucial to our suggestion, to which
we turn in this section. We first look at the role of inhibition
in metaphoric interpretation, and then at its interaction with
iconicity.
Metaphor and Inhibition
Intuitively, in order to interpret a metaphoric statement such
as (4), we need to inhibit the literal properties of the sun,
such as being very massive or very hot or 150 million
kilometers from Earth; we keep only the properties that are
relevant to the interpretation of the metaphor. The notion that
metaphor interpretation requires inhibition has received some
experimental confirmation.
Glucksberg et al. (2001) show that properties that are not
relevant to the metaphorical interpretation are negatively primed,
i.e., inhibited. Subjects were asked to judge the acceptability of
target sentences following either metaphors or literal statements.
For example, a sentence like (6) was judged following either the
literal (5a) or the metaphorical (5b).
(4) Juliette is the sun.
(5) (a) The hammerhead is a shark.
(b) My lawyer is a shark.
(6) Geese can swim.
Glucksberg et al. (2001) found that (6) took longer to judge
when preceded by (5b) than when preceded by (5a). Their
explanation is that the word shark normally primes the property
swim, facilitating the interpretation of a sentence containing it.
However, if shark is interpreted metaphorically, this property is
not primed. This is why (6), which contains the word swim, takes
longer to judge when following the metaphorical (5b) than when
following the literal (5a).
Fernandez (2007) extended these findings, by showing that
the irrelevant property is not simply not primed, but actually
inhibited. Using a lexical decision task, Fernandez showed that
words that are related to the literal meaning of the metaphor
actually took longer to judge than words that were not related
at all.
For example, consider (7) and (8): in both of them, a target
word follows a sentence. The target word in (7b), skin, is not
related to any of the words of (7), hence it is not primed. In
contrast, the target word in (8b), animal, is related to the word zoo
appearing in (8a). But note that zoo is used metaphorically in (8a),
and the interesting result is that the judgment of (8b) is actually
slower than the judgment of (7b)! This result demonstrates that
the literal meaning of zoo is actually actively inhibited, not merely
not primed. Interestingly, the effect occurs only after 1500 ms,
which is consistent with the fact that inhibition takes time.
(7) (a) Wisdom teeth are troublemakers.
(b) Skin
(8) (a) State schools are zoos.
(b) Animal
Langdon et al. (2002) provide evidence for the inhibition
hypothesis from a different direction: the behavior of
schizophrenic patients. In particular, they studied both the
ability of these patients to inhibit irrelevant information and
their interpretation of metaphors, and found the following
correlation: “the better the patients were at suppressing
prepotent inappropriate information. . . the more likely they
were to recognize appropriate uses of metaphorical speech.”
Iconicity and Inhibition
Thompson et al. (2010) found that iconic signs are much harder
to inhibit than non-iconic ones, even in tasks that require no
access to meaning. They asked deaf signers of British Sign
Language (BSL) to make a phonological decision: to decide
whether BSL signs, presented in video clips, were produced with
a handshape with straight or curved fingers (see Figure 4). The
signs were both iconic and non-iconic, but importantly, the
iconicity of the signs was irrelevant for the task, as the task did
not involve access to the meaning or meaning components of the
signs. Thompson et al. (2010) found that iconic signs led to slower
reaction times and more errors in the participants’ responses.
They suggest that meaning is activated automatically for highly
iconic signs, because of the closer form-meaning mapping in
these signs2. This automatic activation of meaning interfered
with the task because it provided information that could not be
inhibited yet was irrelevant to the task at hand. It seems, then,
that iconicity cannot be ignored, even when it is irrelevant.
Another possible inhibitory effect of iconicity was found by
Baus et al. (2013). The tasks in this study did involve meaning,
as bilingual (ASL-English) signers were asked to translate signs
(iconic and non-iconic) from ASL to English and from English
to ASL, or to determine whether a given ASL sign and a given
English word match in meaning. The findings show that iconicity
interfered with the performance of fluent ASL-English bilinguals:
their responses to the ASL-into-English translation task and the
matching task were significantly slower for iconic signs than for
non-iconic ones. These results are surprising. In the Thompson
et al.’s (2010) study described above, iconicity seemed to interfere
with the task because it caused automatic access to meaning,
which was irrelevant to the phonological task in that study.
Yet in the translation task, faster access to meaning is expected
to speed translation for iconic signs. The authors suggest that
2A similar explanation in a different theoretical framework is suggested by
Emmorey (2014), who regards iconic representations as structured mapping
between two mental representations. She suggests that structure-mapping
sometimes cannot be avoided, and that iconic mappings are automatically available
to signers.
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FIGURE 4 | Examples of handshapes with (A) straight fingers and (B) with
curved fingers.
maybe the iconicity of the signs “forced” the participants to use
a specific translation strategy that slowed down performance. In
order to translate a word, an association must be formed between
the lexical systems of the source and target languages (word–
word association), or the associations can be formed through
the conceptual systems (conceptually mediated translation). The
authors tentatively suggest that “the imagistic or sensory-motor
properties of the iconic signs induced these signs to be translated
via conceptual mediation, which slowed translation times” (Baus
et al., 2013, p. 269). An explanation along these lines supports the
hypothesis that iconic properties of signs cannot be inhibited.
Putting it Together: The Source for the DMC
It seems, then, that iconicity and metaphorical interpretation
play a constant tug-of-war game. Metaphorical interpretation
requires the inhibition of some aspects of the literal meaning of
the word, in particular, those aspects that are irrelevant for the
metaphorical reading. Iconic aspects of signs, together with the
meaning components they are associated with, on the other hand,
cannot be inhibited. They are too salient in the form of the sign
to ignore. If the metaphorical reading requires the inhibition of
those meaning components that are iconically present in the form
of the sign, the metaphoric interpretation is not available. Hence
the source for the DMC is the competing and opposing forces
that iconicity and metaphor require: inhibition of meanings
vs. the impossibility of inhibition of these meanings. 3We now
turn to a specific type of source domain for metaphor that is
affected by the DMC in an interesting way, namely body-part
terms.
THE BODY IN METAPHORS
The Problem
Words denoting body-parts are a rich source for metaphorical
use in spoken languages, especially for expressing spatial
and containment relations (‘the foot of the hill’), part-
whole relations (‘the mouth of the river’), and more abstract
relations (‘the heart of the problem’). In ISL and other
sign languages, such metaphors are completely absent. They
are also impossible; signers we’ve consulted with affirm
that that they would never use body-part signs in such
contexts. Yet sign languages use body-part signs productively
in compound-like constructions, such as the following ISL
examples: HEAD+STOP ‘to have a blackout’ (Figure 5),
3This conclusion has implications, beyond sign languages, on the general meaning
of metaphor. Specifically, it favors the view that metaphor expresses predication
rather than categorization (Cohen and Meir, 2015).
HEAD+FALL ‘to faint,’ HEAD+COGWHEELS ‘to think deeply,’
‘EYE+SHARP’ ‘to discern visually,’ MOUTH+SMEAR ‘to
mislead (by talking),’ HEAD+EMPTY ‘doesn’t understand
anything.’ These constructions are common in various sign
languages, such as ISL, ASL, British Sign Language (BSL) and
others4. In ISL we found about 70 constructions of this type
(termed sense compounds in Aronoff et al., 2005). They are also
productive; signers use body-part terms with other words to
create novel expressions. The equivalent English constructions
are predicate-argument constructions (e.g., My head is empty,
His eyes are sharp) or predicating-modifier constructions (an
empty-headed person, sharp-eyed).
Why do sign languages allow metaphors involving body-part
signs in these constructions but not in relational constructions,
while spoken languages allow both? What is special about body-
part terms in sign languages that makes them more constrained
in terms of the metaphorical extensions they can undergo?
The answer to this puzzle involves both the DMC, and a
constraint suggested by Croft (2003) regarding the autonomy
and dependency of elements in a metaphorical construction. We
turn now to introduce Croft’s constraint, then return to offer an
explanation of the behavior of body-part signs in metaphors in
sign languages.
Croft’s (2003) Constraint
Croft (2003) addresses the issue of what drives listeners to
interpret a construction metaphorically rather than literally.
For example, in a sentence such as Denmark shot down the
Maastricht treaty (ibid., 162), how does the listener know that
the sentence is about politics rather than about war? Denmark
and the Maastricht treaty are entities in the domain of politics,5
while shoot down is an action that belongs to the domain of
war. Why is shoot down interpreted as a political action rather
than interpreting Denmark and the Maastricht treaty as belonging
to war? And why not interpret the sentence literally? Croft
argues that what drives the metaphorical interpretation is “the
conceptual unity of domain: all of the elements of a syntactic
unit must be interpreted in a single domain.” (ibid., 162). If the
literal interpretation provides different semantic domains, the
sentence is not rejected as semantically incoherent. Rather, the
listener attempts to interpret some of the elements figuratively, as
belonging to the same semantic domain as the other elements in
that sentence (ibid., 195).
Yet which element of the unit will be interpreted
metaphorically? Here Croft draws on Langacker (1987,
1989,1991,2002) distinction between autonomous and
dependent elements. Langacker notices that in most grammatical
combinations, one notion is relatively autonomous, while the
other is relatively dependent in the sense that it presupposes
the autonomous element as part of its internal structure or
interpretation (Langacker, 2002, p. 122). In the phrase a tall
4See Aronoff et al. (2005); Meir and Sandler (2008) for ISL; Brennan (1990); Sutton-
Spence and Woll (1999) for BSL; Carol Padden, p.c. for ASL; Meir et al. (2012) for
ABSL.
5In fact, Denmark is in the domain of geography, and belongs to politics only after
it is interpreted metonymically. Although Croft does discuss metonymy, we will
not deal with it here.
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FIGURE 5 | Compound-like constructions that include body part in ISL: HEAD+STOP ‘to have a blackout.’
man,man is autonomous, since one can conceive of a man
without considering his height; while tall is dependent, since
its meaning is dependent on the conceptualization of an entity
to which a quality of tallness can be attributed (Sullivan, 2009,
p. 3). When considering predicative elements such as verbs,
adjectives, or adverbs vs. nominal arguments, it is usually
the case that the latter are autonomous while the former are
dependent.
Croft suggests that this distinction is relevant for figurative
interpretation of language. In particular, in metaphor,
Croft observes that the dependent element is interpreted
metaphorically, while the autonomous elements are interpreted
non-metaphorically, and signal the target domain. In the
sentence above, Denmark and the Maastricht treaty are
autonomous, while shoot down is dependent, as its meaning
is elaborated by the two nominal phrases. Therefore, the two
nominal phrases are interpreted non-metaphorically, and they
indicate the target domain (politics) onto which the dependent
element should be mapped. The verb, the dependent element,
receives a metaphorical interpretation: its meaning is mapped
from the domain of war (its source, or literal domain) to the
domain of politics (the target domain).
To take another example, in the sentence My heart broke, the
noun heart and the verb broke belong to two semantic domains:
heart belongs to the domain of emotions (by metonymy, the
heart is the location of emotions) while break belongs to the
domain of solid objects. Domain unity requires both elements
to be interpreted as belonging to the same domain. Since break
is dependent while heart is autonomous, it is break that is
interpreted metaphorically. Heart signals the target domain of
emotion, while break, whose source domain is that of solid
objects, is mapped to the domain of emotions, receiving a
metaphorical interpretation.
Evidence for this constraint comes from psychological
experiments. Gentner and France (1988) found that subjects
prefer to generate metaphorical interpretations for verbs rather
than nouns. For example, they prefer an interpretation of (9)
where the lizard basked in the sun, rather than an interpretation
where the person who looks like a lizard worshipped.
(9) The lizard worshipped.
There is also evidence from corpus studies. Huang (1994)
found that in both English and Chinese, metaphorically
interpreted elements are predominantly adjectives and verbs,
not nouns. Sullivan (2007, 2009), in a corpus study of
metaphorical expressions, tested Croft’s constraint. She analyzed
2415 metaphorical constructions of six different types. Her
findings indicate that Croft’s predictions are borne out in each
of these six constructions. Two of these constructions belong to
the constructions relevant for the sign language data, presented
above, to which we turn in the next section.
What is the explanation for Croft’s constraint? Croft does
not propose one, but we believe it follows from the nature of
metaphor. There is a debate concerning what the interpretation
of metaphor involves6. The prevailing views can be roughly
classified into two camps: Class inclusion and Predication.
Consider the following example:
(10) Businesses are dictatorships.
According to class inclusion theories of metaphor, the
interpretation of (10) involves the construction of an ad
hoc superordinate class—dictatorship*. This class plausibly
contains organizations and communities that are managed non-
consensually and punitively by one person. Sentence (10) is then
taken to mean that the class business is a member of this ad-hoc
superordinate class.
According to predication theories of metaphor, the
interpretation of (10) is different. It assumes that there is a
set of relevant properties associated with dictatorships: be
6See Chiappe and Kennedy (2001),Glucksberg (2001, 2008, 2011),Bowdle and
Gentner (2005),Glucksberg and Haught (2006a,b),Jones and Estes (2006), and
Utsumi (2007, 2011),inter alia.
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a form of government, be ruled by one person, be ruled non-
consensually, regulate many aspects of the lives of their members,
employ political propaganda, use terror and violence, etc. One
such property, P, is selected. Sentence (10) then means that
business have property P. For example, in a given context the
selected property may be be ruled by one person. Then (10)
means that businesses are run by a single person. In this paper we
assume the predication theory of metaphor (cf. Cohen and Meir,
2015). One argument for the predication view is that it makes
possible a natural explanation of Croft’s constraint, which would
otherwise be an unmotivated stipulation. The explanation is as
follows. An intuition that goes as far back as Plato and Aristotle
is that a sentence is divided into subject and predicate, where
the subject is typically nominal and the predicate is typically
verbal or adjectival7. It follows that the prototypical predicative
categories are verbs and adjectives, rather than nouns (although
all three have the same logical type: properties of individuals).
We therefore expect verbs and adjectives to be preferred in
metaphorical interpretation, which is precisely what is described
by Croft’s constraint.
Possible and Impossible Body-Part
Metaphorical Extensions in Sign
Languages
We turn now to the participation of body-part terms in
metaphors in sign languages. Let us address first the question
of why body-part terms in sign languages are more constrained
than their spoken language equivalents. Again, the key to that
question is their form. Body-part terms in sign languages usually
take the form of pointing to the relevant body part. The signs for
EYE, NOSE, EAR in ISL involve a pointing handshape ( ) to the
relevant organs. The sign for HEAD is a handshape that touches
the temple; FACE involves a circle movement of the handshape
around the face; HEART is a hand that touches the location of
the heart, and so on. In all these signs, the actual body part serves
as the place of articulation of the sign, and is highlighted by the
movement of the hand toward it.
The salience of the actual body part in the sign is also what
constrains its use in metaphors. The foot of the hill is not really a
foot; it is the lowest part of the body, the one that makes contact
with the ground, which is what it has in common with the feet
of a human body. But it doesn’t have toes, it is not connected
to a leg, and it doesn’t come in pairs. In spoken languages,
the metaphorical use is built on the resemblance of the spatial
relations between the foot and the body it is part of, abstracting
away from the actual form of the human vs. geographical foot.
In sign languages, the actual form of the organ is there as
part of the form of the sign, and is highlighted in the sign. It
cannot be inhibited, and its actual form cannot be ignored. The
metaphorical mapping is therefore incongruent with the iconicity
of the sign, violating the DMC, and is consequently blocked.
Yet body-part terms in sign languages seem to be absent
from one type of construction, and possible in another
7Of course, the subject needs not be a separate phrase or even word, and may be
incorporated into the predicate, as it is in many polysynthetic languages.
type. This differential behavior can be explained by looking
at the relationship between the different components of
each construction in terms of their relative dependency. In
constructions such as the mouth of the river,the foot of the hill
(Sullivan’s ‘prepositional phrase constructions’), there is a part-
whole relationship between the body-part and the noun in the PP,
designating a geographical area. The element denoting the part is
the dependent element, since its conception is dependent on the
conceptualization of the whole that it is part of. It is impossible
to conceive of a mouth without referring to body that it is part
of (in our case, river). The entity is relatively autonomous, as
it is possible to conceive of a river (or of any body) without
referring to specific sub-parts of it (Croft, 2003). According to
Croft’s constraint, the NP denoting the entity, as the autonomous
element, is interpreted literally and signals the target domain
(geographical areas), while the body-part, as the dependent
element, should receive a metaphorical interpretation. However,
in sign languages this is not possible, as pointed out above: the
form of signs denoting body-parts highlights the actual body-
part. The metaphorical mapping is therefore incongruent with
the iconicity of the sign, violating the DMC, and is consequently
blocked.
The metaphorical expressions HEAD+EMPTY,
HEART+BLACK, exhibit a different pattern of autonomous-
dependent relationship between its components. These belong
to what Sullivan (2007, 2009) calls ‘predicating modifier
constructions’ (an empty head), or to ‘predicate-argument
constructions’ (your head is empty). In both cases, the predicating
element is conceptually dependent, since its interpretation needs
to make reference to an entity to which the relevant property
can be attributed. The body-part is autonomous, signaling, by
metonymy, the target domain of the metaphor: mental activities
or emotions (the head is the site for mental activities, the heart
the site of emotions). Since the body-part does not receive
metaphorical interpretation, it is not subject to the DMC, and is
not blocked by it. Therefore, such constructions are possible in
sign languages.
We conclude that body-part signs are indeed excluded from
being used metaphorically in sign languages because of their
form. But they can be part of a metaphorical construction where
they function as the autonomous element, denoting the target
domain. The interaction of the DMC with Croft’s constraint
explains how body-part signs, and iconic signs in general, can
participate in metaphors.
SIMILES AND METAPHORS IN ISL
The Distribution of Similes vs. Metaphors
in ISL
The phenomena described in the previous sections indicate that
metaphorical use is more constrained in sign languages than in
spoken languages, which we attributed to the constraining effect
of iconicity on metaphor. Since iconicity is much more prevalent
in sign languages, this restricting effect is more noticeable in these
languages than in spoken languages.
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We now turn to another phenomenon where ISL exhibits a
more restricted use of figurative language compared to English
and Hebrew: the use of similes. Similes are figures of speech
that involve comparison between two things of different kinds, in
order to characterize one term by the other. In that, they resemble
metaphors. However, in similes, the comparison is made explicit,
by using words such as like,as:My lawyer is like a shark,He works
like a mule. Importantly, in many linguistic structures in spoken
languages, similes and metaphors can be both used, as in (11):
(11) John is (like) a snake.
The relationship between similes and metaphors has been
studied extensively for millennia. Starting with Aristotle, many
scholars (e.g., Bergmann, 1979;Miller, 1993;van Genabith, 2001)
argue that a metaphor is an (elliptical) simile. Yet, others argue
that metaphors and similes differ in kind. How do we decide
this question? We may try to find languages where similes are
allowed but not metaphors, or vice versa. It would seem that if
such a language is attested, this would indicate that metaphors
cannot be reduced to similes. It turns out that the study of sign
languages provides us with such a language, but not with the
expected outcome.
To the best of our knowledge, the use of similes vs. metaphors
has not been studied in sign languages. It might be expected
that since in similes the comparison is explicit, iconicity will not
play such a restrictive role regarding their use. On the other
hand, since in both metaphors and similes, the characteristics
that are profiled by the comparison do not necessarily coincide
with those profiled by the iconic form of a sign, similes may
show very similar behavior and distribution to that of metaphors.
To our surprise, when we started looking at the distribution
of metaphors and similes in ISL, we found out that in some
environments, such as predicative or adverbial positions, similes
are often not possible or dispreferred, where metaphors are
possible or preferred, as exemplified in (12–14):
(12) JOHN (∗LIKE) SNAKE ‘John is (∗like) a snake.’
(13) MARY WORK (?LIKE) MULE ‘Mary works (?like) a
mule.’
(14) KIM STRONG (?LIKE) OX ‘Kim is strong (?as) an ox.’
Note that in the English sentences that correspond to (13)
and (14), not only is the simile form possible, but it is, in fact,
mandatory: the metaphor form, that is, the form without like/as,
is unacceptable.
What is the source of these differences between the two types
of languages? To answer this question, let us again consider
the English sentence (11). In this sentence, under either its
metaphor or simile form, the noun snake receives a figurative
interpretation. But doesn’t this fact violate Croft’s constraint?
Nouns are regarded as relatively autonomous, and should not
receive figurative interpretation according to Croft. However,
Croft (2003) speculates that the noun can be construed as
dependent after all: “While there appears to be no general
principle by means of which we can say that the metaphorically
interpreted noun is. . . dependent. . . it seems to be a not
unreasonable hypothesis. . . and should be investigated further”
(p. 194). But sign languages allow another option, namely a shift
in the lexical category of the noun.
Categorical Reinterpretation of
Figurative Signs
Sign languages in general show more flexibility regarding lexical
categorical distinctions, in that words in many sign languages are
often multicategorial and can be interpreted as nouns, verbs or
adjectives (Meir, 2012 and references therein).
“We also find a substantial amount of systematic ambiguity
or vagueness in many sign languages. For instance, in Indo-
Pakistani Sign Language (IPSL) many signs tend to have rather
general meanings that are narrowed down by the context of
the utterance. . .. and similar problems are encountered in many
other sign languages as well.” (Schwager and Zeshan, 2008,
p. 513).
In ISL, for example, a sign such as LONELY may function
as an adjective in (15) and as a noun in (16), and this is
characteristics of many signs. In many cases, lexical category is
assigned according to the function of a sign in a specific syntactic
environment rather than as a lexical property of that sign.
(15) I LONELY ‘I am lonely.’
(16) LONELY MORE MORE WIDE-SPREAD ‘Loneliness
becomes more and more wide-spread.’
We propose that in the case of nominal metaphor, the noun
is reinterpreted as an adjective or adverb, and then it is more
readily be construed as dependent. For example, in (12’) SNAKE
is interpreted as an adjective:
(12’) HE SNAKE ‘He (is) snaky/snakelike.’
One piece of evidence for categorical reinterpretation of
figurative signs comes from the fact that many metaphorical
signs in ISL and ASL have a slightly different form from their
non-metaphorical counterparts. This has been observed for ASL
by Klima and Bellugi (1979, p. 299) “Figurative extensions of
meaning are preferentially accompanied by minimal changes in
movement.” In ISL, we find that the difference in the quality of
movement (as in the sign CAT, Figure 6A) is often accompanied
by other phonological differences such as the number of hands
(non-figurative CAT is two-handed while figurative CAT is
one-handed) and handshape (as in DONKEY, Figure 6B).
However, the quality of movement is crucial here, since it is
often associated with differentiating parts of speech in sign
languages. For example, nouns and verbs in noun-verb pairs in
many sign languages are distinguished by length and quality of
movement. This observation was first made for ASL by Supalla
and Newport (1978), and then found in other sign languages
(see Schwager and Zeshan, 2008;Tkachman and Sandler, 2013
for an overview). Furthermore, ASL has means for deriving
verbal/adjectival predicates from nouns. Klima and Bellugi (1979,
p. 296) describe a systematic change to the movement of ASL
nouns, forming predicates with the meaning of ‘to act/appear like
X,’ as in ‘to act like a baby’ from BABY, ‘to seem Chinese’ from
CHINESE and ‘pious’ from CHURCH. The derived predicates
have a fast and tense movement with restrained onset. Similarly,
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FIGURE 6 | Differences in form between figurative and non-figurative use of
ISL signs: (A) CAT. (B) DONKEY.
differences in movement encode an extended use of signs as
sentential adverbials, as in ‘suddenly’ or ‘unexpectedly’ from
WRONG, ‘unfortunately’ from TROUBLE.a
A second piece of evidence demonstrating that nominal
metaphors are indeed interpreted as adjectives is the fact that they
can be modified by a degree adverb such as ‘very’ (17a). Such
modification is also possible with regular adjectives (17b), but
impossible when the noun is used literally (17c).
(17) (a) HE CATfigurative VERY. ‘He is very “catty”/sly.’
(b) HE STRONG VERY. ‘He is very strong.’
(c) ∗HE CATliteral VERY. ‘He is very cat.’
Back to Similes vs. Metaphors
The proposal that metaphorically interpreted-nouns are
reinterpreted as adjectives explains why similes are strongly
dispreferred in ISL: syntactically, the preposition LIKE cannot
precede an adjective or an adverb.
(18) JOHN (∗LIKE) SNAKEfigurative
This is to be contrasted with a spoken language like English,
where the figuratively interpreted noun does not change its
category, and can therefore unproblematically combine with a
preposition:
(11’) John is (like) a snake.
Note that this explanation is essentially syntactic, and is not
dependent on any difference in meaning between metaphors and
similes. Even if metaphors are, indeed, elided similes, the scarcity
of similes in sign languages would still be explained in the same
way, on the basis of the categorial flexibility of these languages.
There is an important lesson here. In an attempt to
demonstrate that metaphors and similes differ in their meaning,
we tried to find languages that have metaphors but (almost) no
similes. We have, indeed, found such a language—ISL; and yet, we
found that the facts of this language have nothing to do with any
supposed semantic difference between metaphors and similes.
Hence, if anything, our findings provide support for the view that
metaphors and similes are very close in their meaning.
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
In the preceding sections, we focused on the differences
between manual-visual languages and auditory languages in the
expression and use of metaphor and simile. A key issue here is
the greater ability of sign languages for iconic expressions. While
iconicity provides signs with the ability to represent visual aspects
of concepts in a vivid and straightforward way, it also constrains
those signs from taking additional, metaphorical meanings, if
these are not built on the visual imagery profiled by the sign’s
iconicity. As we pointed out, iconicity cannot be inhibited,
while metaphorical interpretation is built on inhibition. If both
forces play tug-of-war on the same meaning components, the
metaphorical interpretation is blocked. The use of similes is
further constrained by the categorical shift from nouns to
adjectives/adverbs. This shift is made possible by the general
flexibility of sign languages regarding lexical categories. But it also
constrains the use of similes, since a preposition such as LIKE
must be followed by a noun, not an adjective/verb.
We would like to conclude by describing two striking
difference between the use of metaphors in signed vs. spoken
languages, for which we do not yet have an explanation.
The Expression of Metaphor
We have seen in Section “Categorical Reinterpretation of
Figurative Signs” that when a sign is interpreted metaphorically,
its form changes slightly. This constitutes an interesting
difference between languages in the two modalities: in spoken
languages, the main expression of metaphor is through the
use of a word in a different semantic domain with an
accompanying change in meaning, as in wave (an electro-
magnetic wave, waves of immigrants, feminism wave, wave of
excitement); in sign languages, in contrast, the main expression
of metaphor is in creating new signs (Taub, 2001;Roush,
2016). Sign language abound with metaphorical signs, signs
built on both iconic and metaphorical mapping, such as the
sign LEARN (Figure 2). Crucially, it is not the case that the
sign EAT itself is used metaphorically; rather, the form of
the sign is changed in a specific manner—movement toward
the signer’s temple rather the mouth—and a new sign is
formed.
In fact, many (if not most) of the signs denoting abstract
concepts in a given sign language are built on this double
mapping, as illustrated and exemplified in depth by Taub (2001).
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Moreover, this is a very productive way for creating new signs, in
everyday use and in sign language poetry. In spoken languages,
metaphor is often described as a process of making novel use of
existing means: existing lexical items are used to refer to novel
concepts by means of metaphorical extensions. In sign languages,
this description is not accurate: metaphor is usually not making
novel use of existing means, but rather the means for creating
novel forms. At present, it is not clear to us how to account for
this difference, and we leave it as an open question for future
research.
Alternatives to Metaphor
Another difference between languages of the two modalities
pertains to providing alternatives to metaphors. Metaphors and
similes are often used to create a vivid sensory image. But there
are other means for achieving this goal. One alternative way to
create vivid imaginary is through iconic means, which, as we have
seen above, cannot be inhibited.
Since iconicity is much more prevalent in sign languages, we
expect to find many instances of vivid iconic representations of
the desired visual image, instead of metaphors or similes. This
is indeed the case. For example, while the salience of body-
parts can inhibit certain metaphorical uses, as we discussed
in Section “The Body in Metaphors,” it can also be exploited
for specific effects, both in everyday use and in poetic signing.
A widespread use of body parts in visual languages is signaling
the target domain of metaphorical mapping by articulating a
sign close to a specific body part. We saw an example with the
sign LEARN, where the head signals that the action encoded
in the sign is a mental action. Another example is the sign for
BOIL, usually articulated in neutral space. However, when signed
close to the chest, the metaphorical site for emotions, it means
‘inner boiling,’ that is, VERY-ANGRY (Figure 7). Changing the
sign’s location can be also used creatively. One of our consultants
signed the sign DEPLETE on his bicep instead of in neutral space
to convey the meaning of ‘to be exhausted, run out of steam’
(Meir and Sandler, 2008, p. 57). Another consultant created
a new sign by signing the sign SHINE close to the eyes, to
convey the meaning ‘shining eyes.’ The consulted pointed out
that this neologism is more vivid in evoking a mental image
of shining eyes than using a metaphor such as ‘Her eyes were
shining stars.’ The deaf Dutch poet Wim Emerik, in his poem
‘Member of Parliament,’ uses the same technique to convey
the idea that the politician consumes the reported news as an
automatized bodily function. As the poet depicts the politician
eating lunch and reading the newspaper, he changes the location
of the verb EAT from the mouth to the eyes, indicating that the
politician consumes news as he consumes food (Figure 8) (ibid.,
56)8.
8Another creative use of the signer’s body is personification, where the poet uses
his/her body to ‘become’ the entity (person, animal, object) in the poem. This
creates a blend of the characteristics of the poet and characteristics of the focal
entity, highlighting how those entities would view the world not only as humans
but as signing deaf people, who view the world visually and communicate in signs
(Sutton-Space, 2012, p. 1007. See Sutton-Spence and Napoli, 2010 for a thorough
description of this device).
FIGURE 7 | Body parts signal target domain of metaphor: VERY-ANGRY
(boiling signed close to chest, signaling the domain of emotions).
FIGURE 8 | Body parts signal target domain of metaphor in sign language
poetry: the member of parliament consumes food and news, by his mouth
and eyes (Wim Emerik, ‘Member of Parliament’).
All these examples show how the iconicity of body parts in
sign languages can be exploited to create a vivid sensory image,
without resorting to explicit or implicit comparisons as in similes
and metaphors. Spoken languages cannot exploit body-part terms
in the same way, since these terms are not iconic in the spoken
modality. Yet iconicity can be used to create sensory image
even in the spoken modality. Languages that have a wide array
of mimetics, often prefer those to the use of metaphors: “. . .
some types of pain that are mimicked by mimetics in Japanese
are expressed by metaphors in other languages (e.g., gangan
‘one’s head pounding,’ kirikiri ‘one’s stomach splitting,’ sikusiku
‘one’s stomach griping’).” (Akita, 2016, p. 155). And Sharlin
(2009, p. 5) concludes: “Ideophonics, flexible and welcoming to
creativity, seem to take the place of other figurative language
(simile, metaphor) generally absent in Japanese.” It seems, then,
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that creating a vivid sensory image is cherished by language
users in general. But different languages have different means
for achieving this goal. Affordances of the modality may channel
languages to use specific means, e.g., the preference of languages
in the signing modality to use iconic expressions. But as the use
of mimetics show, it is not only about modality. Even within the
same modality, languages may show different preferences. We
leave it for future study to investigate the different factors that
may lead languages to show preference to one figurative means
over another.
A Final Word
In languages in both modalities, metaphor is prevalent, and
many metaphorical mappings are shared by both, providing
strong support for a universalist view of metaphor and
metaphorical mapping in language. But each modality has its
own constraints and affordances, shaping the use of metaphors
in ways particular to the modality. A cross-modal and cross-
linguistic comparison enables us to grasp the central role of
metaphors in human expression on the one hand, and the
different means that languages provide for carrying out this
function.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual
contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.
IM had tragically passed away before the paper was published.
She was a brilliant linguist and a wonderful colleague, and will be
sorely missed by all who knew her.
FUNDING
This work was partly supported by a grant from the Israel Science
Foundation No. 553/04 to IM.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to thank Philip Schlenker and Jeremy Kuhn
for insightful discussions, and Debbie Menashe, Sara Lanesman,
Yifat Ziv Ben-Zeev and Meir Etdegi, for providing the ISL data
on which this study is based, and for helpful discussions of these
data. Wendy Sandler is warmly thanked for excellent suggestions
and invaluable help.
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Conflict of Interest Statement: The authors declare that the research was
conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could
be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
IM has been collaborating on research projects with host editors Wendy Sandler
and Carol Padden over the past two decades.
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