One key criterion when creating a representation of any lexicon within a dictionary or lexical database is that the lemma must be clearly distinguished from idiosyncratic or systematically modified variants. However, few researchers have attempted to outline these principles as they apply to sign languages. As a consequence, the vast majority of sign language dictionaries and lexical databases are mixed collections of phonetic, phonological, morphological, and lexical variants of lexical signs (e.g. Brien 1992) which have not addressed what may be termed as the lemma dilemma. In this paper, lemmatisation practices used in the creation of BSL SignBank, a lexical database and dictionary of British Sign Language based on signs identified within the British Sign Language Corpus (http://www.bslcorpusproject.org), are outlined. The paper concludes that the principles outlined here should be considered in the creation of any sign language lexical database and ultimately any sign language dictionary and reference grammar.
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