14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-14) San Francisco, CA, USA August 1-7, 1999

Rules of Organizing Motor Commands for Concatenation: Taking Example of Signing Gestures

Yumiko Fukuda (1), Shizuo Hiki (2), Kazuya Imaizumi (2)

(1) Research Institute, National Rehabilitation Center for the Disabled, Tokorozawa, Japan
(2) Graduate School of Human Sciences, Waseda University, Tokorozawa, Japan

Rules of organizing motor commands for concatenation is investigated taking example of signing gestures. In order to control the hand shapes and arm movements in sign gestures, timing and duration of the action of the elements involved in the symbols of their descriptive system are specified for a series of words in phrases, clauses or sentences. They are accompanied with a note concerning whether they are mandatory or obligatory. Those data are stored temporally in the form of matrix of word vs. symbol. Next, concatenation rules are applied to provide distinction between the priority symbols, reduction of the adjacent symbols, or diffusion of the symbols if the elements are not occupied by other symbols. By combining the specification of the elements and the concatenation rules, control commands for each of the elements are currently being computer programmed, and the sign gestures synthesized on a graphic display.

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Bibliographic reference.  Fukuda, Yumiko / Hiki, Shizuo / Imaizumi, Kazuya (1999): "Rules of organizing motor commands for concatenation: taking example of signing gestures", In ICPhS-14, 403-404.