@inproceedings{morgan-etal-2026-improving,
title = "Improving phonological distance measures for signs: the {C}at{F}orm{C}ompare tool",
author = "Morgan, Hope E. and
Isard, Amy and
Dang, Anh",
editor = "Efthimiou, Eleni and
Fotinea, Stavroula-Evita and
Hanke, Thomas and
Hochgesang, Julie A. and
Mesch, Johanna and
Schulder, Marc",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the {LREC} 2026 12th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Language in Motion",
month = may,
year = "2026",
address = "Palma, Mallorca (Spain)",
publisher = "ELRA Language Resources Association (ELRA)",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2026.signlang-1.36/",
doi = "10.63317/3etemouixntr",
pages = "341--350",
abstract = "This paper describes the CatFormCompare tool, designed to enable the comparison of phonological content between pairs of signs, especially in larger datasets. With this tool and a schema for coding categorical form (the SL CatForm coding schema), a pipeline is created that allows a feedback mechanism for advancing research{---}specifically by directly addressing one of the hard problems in sign language phonology: how to extract true minimal pairs from datasets coded for categorical form? Solving this problem would simultaneously improve phonological distance measurements for sign languages because it would mean that the units for measuring distance are grounded in the linguistic structure of the language and not simply a by-product of the coding system. Here we report on the tool and the first evaluation of its functioning."
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<abstract>This paper describes the CatFormCompare tool, designed to enable the comparison of phonological content between pairs of signs, especially in larger datasets. With this tool and a schema for coding categorical form (the SL CatForm coding schema), a pipeline is created that allows a feedback mechanism for advancing research—specifically by directly addressing one of the hard problems in sign language phonology: how to extract true minimal pairs from datasets coded for categorical form? Solving this problem would simultaneously improve phonological distance measurements for sign languages because it would mean that the units for measuring distance are grounded in the linguistic structure of the language and not simply a by-product of the coding system. Here we report on the tool and the first evaluation of its functioning.</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T Improving phonological distance measures for signs: the CatFormCompare tool
%A Morgan, Hope E.
%A Isard, Amy
%A Dang, Anh
%Y Efthimiou, Eleni
%Y Fotinea, Stavroula-Evita
%Y Hanke, Thomas
%Y Hochgesang, Julie A.
%Y Mesch, Johanna
%Y Schulder, Marc
%S Proceedings of the LREC 2026 12th Workshop on the Representation and Processing of Sign Languages: Language in Motion
%D 2026
%8 May
%I ELRA Language Resources Association (ELRA)
%C Palma, Mallorca (Spain)
%F morgan-etal-2026-improving
%X This paper describes the CatFormCompare tool, designed to enable the comparison of phonological content between pairs of signs, especially in larger datasets. With this tool and a schema for coding categorical form (the SL CatForm coding schema), a pipeline is created that allows a feedback mechanism for advancing research—specifically by directly addressing one of the hard problems in sign language phonology: how to extract true minimal pairs from datasets coded for categorical form? Solving this problem would simultaneously improve phonological distance measurements for sign languages because it would mean that the units for measuring distance are grounded in the linguistic structure of the language and not simply a by-product of the coding system. Here we report on the tool and the first evaluation of its functioning.
%R 10.63317/3etemouixntr
%U https://aclanthology.org/2026.signlang-1.36/
%U https://doi.org/10.63317/3etemouixntr
%P 341-350
Markdown (Informal)
[Improving phonological distance measures for signs: the CatFormCompare tool](https://aclanthology.org/2026.signlang-1.36/) (Morgan et al., SignLang 2026)
ACL