Types of initialized signs in Peruvian Sign Language (LSP): A proposal for classification

The aim of this study is to classify initialized signs in Peruvian Sign Language (LSP). For this purpose, a Peruvian Deaf con-sultant participated in the research, who, based on his grammatical judgment as a LSP native signer, identified, from a set of data, those signs that were created via initialization, which were subsequently analyzed by the author of this study. The results show these signs in LSP can be classified on the basis of three criteria: 1) according to their number of letters, they are grouped into two major classes, those representing one letter and those representing more than one letter; 2) according to their origin, they are grouped into two major classes, those originating from other signs and those that do not, and 3) according to their meaning relations, they are divided into six classes: initialized signs as cases of homonymy, initialized signs as cases of synonymy, initialized signs with meanings of the subdomain > domain type, initialized signs with meanings of the domain > subdomain type, initialized signs with meanings of the subdomain > subdomain type, and initialized signs that are organized in sign families. It is concluded that Spanish has left an important imprint on word-formation in LSP.