A Grammar of Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT)

As discussed above, some of the phonological effects of compounding are metathesis (PHONOLOGY 3.1.7) and syllable reduction (PHONOLOGY 3.2.2). These are processes that affect the sublexical units within a compound. Other effects that can be observed are related to the transitional movement between the two signs of a compound or between a lexical sign and a clitic. This transitional movement can become more fluid, or can even be reanalyzed as the only movement of the sign, when the movements of the individual signs are lost. This process is thus affecting the individual movement components and the prosodic word as a whole. An example is found in the compound father^mother ‘parents’, of which the individual signs are shown Figure 2.70:

Figure 2.70. The signs father (a) and mother (b), as signed in isolation

(2.70a Crasborn et al. 2020, symbols added).

In the compound father^mother, shown in Figure 2.71, only the first location of the sign father remains. The path movement and final location are lost, and the movement towards the sign mother melts together with the movement of mother: 

Figure 2.71. The compound father^mother ‘parents’ (Schermer & Koolhof 2009: 328)

(© Van Dale & Dutch Sign Centre; reprinted with permission).

Another phonological characteristic of some compounds is spreading of the non-dominant hand (‘weak hand spread’). This may occur when the first component of a compound is a two-handed sign, and the second is a one-handed sign. After the articulation of the first component, the non-dominant hand may still be present while the second component is signed. See MORPHOLOGY 1.4.1 for a concrete example (Figure 3.16).

As for cliticization, it was found that movement reduction takes place when the host and clitic together form one continuous movement. This process applies to both progressive and regressive cliticization. Additionally, in the data, it often co-occurred with handshape assimilation, in which case the handshape of the clitic usually assimilates to the handshape of the host sign (PHONOLOGY 3.1.1) – but this is again a sublexical process.