Searching Signed Text in Formal SignWriting

This technical paper explains how signed text can be searched as structured text in Formal SignWriting. It distinguishes query language from grammar and explains exact matching, generalized matching, symbol ranges, coordinate ranges, bounded variance, and matcher logic. The paper shows why search matters for lexicons, corpora, annotation systems, discovery tools, and reproducible technical workflows. Searching Signed Text defines the searchable layer of Formal SignWriting and supports the broader claim that signed-language writing can have durable text operations rather than only visual display. This document DOI record includes the searching technical notes as a companion packet file for the technical paper.