Abstract
In this project we aim to resolve some long-standing issues in sign language research by developing a morphological approach to sub-sign meaning. These issues include the role of iconicity in the lexicon and grammar and the relation between morphology and phonology in signed languages. An inventory of sub-sign form-meaning units and their combinatorial potential is much needed for our understanding of the morphological structure of signs, for the comprehension and production of new sign formations, for improving psycholinguistic studies, and for applied linguistics (language education, and lexicography). Large sets of annotated data (corpora) need to be used to study the occurrence and distribution of meaning units smaller than the sign (lexeme) in context. For this purpose, an infrastructural component will create an annotated sign language corpus of 60 hours of sign language interaction, with an accompanying lexicon. The resources will be unique in the world in combining elicited and fully spontaneous data, and in being accessible to other researchers and (largely) also to the general public. They not only enable the present research project, but will form a trend-setting data collection for sign language researchers in the coming decades.