eSIGN%20

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eSIGN HPSG-assisted Sign Language Composition

• Thomas Hanke, Hortensia Popescu, Constanze
  Schmaling
• University of Hamburg, Inst. Of German Sign
  Language
• www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de

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Sign Language the European Deaf Community

• Sign language is the closest-to-native language
  for the Deaf community
• 0.1 of the European population
• No written form of sign language
• Written language competence of many Deaf people
  poor
• Bilingual education spreading slowly

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Project Idea Virtual Signing into eGovernment
initiatives

• Virtual Signing reduces bandwidth problems with
  digital video
• Relatively easycheap and flexible production
  process
• Ensures Deaf peoples integration into a key
  component of tomorrows Information Society (cf.
  anti-discrimination acts)
• Multilingual focus British Sign Language,
  Deutsche Gebärdensprache, Nederlandse Gebarentaal

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Virtual Signing on World Wide Web
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Builds on ViSiCAST animation and language
technology

• Motion capture
• Results in highest-quality animation
• Compresses far better than video
• Requires expensive equipment
• Synthetic animation
• More robotic, yet still easy to understand
• Even lower data rates
• More versatile

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SiGML XML application

• lt?xml version"1.0" encoding"UTF-8"?gt
• lt!DOCTYPE sigml SYSTEM "http//www.visicast.org/si
  gml/SiGML_h4_10.dtd"gt
• ltsigmlgt
• lthamgestural_sign gloss"HAMBURG1B"gt
• ltsign_manualgt
• lthandconfig handshape"ceeall"
  mainbend"bent" ceeopening"slack"/gt
• lthandconfig extfidir"ul"/gt
• lthandconfig palmor"d"/gt
• ltlocation_bodyarm location"forehead"
  side"right_beside" contact"close"/gt
• ltpar_motiongt
• ltdirectedmotion direction"r"/gt
• lttgt_motiongt
• ltchangeposture/gt
• lthandconfig handshape"pinchall"
  mainbend"bent"/gt
• lt/tgt_motiongt
• lt/par_motiongt
• lt/sign_manualgt
• lt/hamgestural_signgt
• lt/sigmlgt

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eSIGN Translation into Sign Language

• Have a signed sentence in mind
• Pick signs one-by-one from lexicon
• Current lexicon size 6500 entries
• Modify parameters if defaults dont apply
• Immediately view the sentence signed by the avatar

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eSign Editor Demo
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HPSG Lexicon Different kinds of entries

• Invariable HamNoSys fully specified

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Lexicon

• Variable HamNoSys only partially specified to
  be inferred

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Outlook

• HPSG grammar to be used to suggest most likely
  unifications