Publications

Abstract

This article presents data on cardinal numerals in three sign languages from
small-scale communities with hereditary deafness. The unusual features found
in these data considerably extend the known range of typological variety across
sign languages. Some features, such as non-decimal numeral bases, are unattested
in sign languages, but familiar from spoken languages, while others, such as subtractive sub-systems, are rare in sign and speech. We conclude that for a complete typological appraisal of a domain, an approach to cross-modal typology, which includes a typologically diverse range of sign languages in addition to spoken languages, is both instructive and feasible.