Linguistics of American Sign Language
- Linguistics – the scientific study of language
- Syntax – word order, sentence structure
- in English (usually): SVO
- in ASL: SVO, SOV, OSV, OVS, VOS, and VSO
- System of Communication – Morse code, smoke signals; whales, bees, birds
- Language Properties
- Arbitrary – not having any obvious basis or connection
- APPLE, GOOD
- Iconic – a word/sign symbolizes that concept; derived from the sound or image itself
- MONKEY, FISH, GIVE, LOVE
- Changes over time
- historical sign of WILL to modern sign of WILL
- historical sign of HELP to modern sign of HELP
- Introduces new ideas
- Can be manipulated
- Rule-governed
- Shared community
- Arbitrary – not having any obvious basis or connection
- Phonology – the study of the smallest units of words
- spoken language
- voice
- mouth
- placement of tongue
- signed language
- spoken language
- Phonology of American Sign Language – the five parameters
- Handshapes
- A-Z
- Numbers
- Classifiers – see classifiers
- Palm orientations
- Locations (starting point of movement)
- Movements
- Non-manual signals (NMS)
- Facial expressions (eyebrows)
- Mouth morphemes
- Body languages
- Handshapes
- William Stokoe
- English professor at Gallaudet College (now Gallaudet University)
- first to recognize American Sign Language as a natural language
- wrote and published the Dictionary of American Sign Language in 1965
- Stokoe System
- precursor to the Five Parameters of American Sign Language
- handshape, location, and movement
- used in Dictionary of British Sign Language
- Robbin Battison
- linguistic researcher
- added two more parameters: palm orientation and non-manual signals
- Symmetry Condition
- part of Battison’s research
- two-handed signs, where both hands are in motion, must have same handshape
- examples given: MAYBE, CAN
- Dominance Condition
- part of Battison’s research
- two-handed signs where only one hand is in motion
- example given: COLLEGE
- have different handshapes – non-dominant (passive) hand does not move
- example given: JUMP
- Seven Basic Handshapes
- part of Battison’s research
- related to the dominance condition (rule)
- B, A, S, C, O/0, 1, and 5 are the basic shapes of the non-moving non-dominant (passive) hand
- Phonemes
- the smallest unit of sound or sign
- have no meaning by themsleves BUT when used as part of a sign/word, they do affect the maning of the sign/word
- are used as “building blocks” of a word (English) or sign (ASL)
- Levels of the Linguistic System
- Linguistic
- Pragmatics
- Semantics
- Syntax
- Morphology
- Phonology
- Morphology
- Syntax
- Semantics
- Pragmatics
- Linguistic
- Morphology
- studies of the rules for forming admissible words
- REMEMBER – ASL has VERY rich morphological aspects, therefore, there are MANY morphological words
- Morpheme
- the smallest meaningful unit of a sound/sign
- can be “free” or “bound”
- Free Morpheme
- can stand alone
- can have other “bound” morphemes added to it in order to change the meaning
- Bound Morpheme
- in English – prefix, suffix, infix
- cannot stand alone and is added to a “free” morpheme to change the meaning
- English: -s, -ed, -ing, etc.
- ASL: -REPEATEDLY, -CONTINUALLY
- Inflectional Morpheme
- the morpheme which is added does not change the grammatical function of the word
- a noun remains a noun, a verb remains a verb
- English: chair becomes chairs
- ASL: LOOK becomes LOOK-REPEATEDLY
- Derivational Morpheme
- the mopheme added actually changes the KIND/TYPE of word it is
- a verb might become a noun or vice-versa
- ASL: PAINT becomes PAINTER when added a PERSON/AGENT marker
- an adjective becomes an adverb
- English: beautiful becomes beautifully
- meaning is changed
- English: happy becomes unhappy
- ASL: LIKE becomes DON’T-LIKE when signed with added negative head-shake
- Noun-Verb Pairs
- an aspect of morphology (see Derivational Morpheme)
- the movement is changed therefore NOUN = multiple small motion and VERB = single large motion
- except: FOOD-EAT, DRINK-DRINK
- Compounds
- an aspect of morphology (see Derivational Morpheme)
- English: greenhouse (not a green house per se, a transparent plastic or glass enclosure in which plants are grown that need protection from the cold weather)
- ASL: BOY+SAME is brother, not BOY SAME as in The boy is same.
- Lexicalized Fingerspelling
- an aspect of morphology
- fingerspelling being borrowed from English that look like a sign
- used to be called fingerspelled loan signs
- Loan Signs
- signs that are borrowed from other countries
- Eight Possible Changes for Lexicalized Fingerspelling
- letters deleted
- change in location
- change in handshape
- change in movement
- change in palm orientation
- movement reduplicated
- add second hand
- non-manual signals being included
- Numerial Incoporation
- an aspect of morphology
- numbers can be incoporated into signs to change meaning
- number of pronouns, height, period of time, dollar amound, sports score
- Classifiers
- An aspect of morphology
- affixed word/sign that is used to indicate certain semantic/grammtical categories
- Eight Types of Classifiers Used in American Sign Language (remember acroymn: P. Dibbles)
- Plural Classifiers
- Descriptive Classifiers including SASSers
- Sizes and ...
- … Shapes Specifiers
- Instrumental Classifiers including
- Tools
- Body
- Body Parts
- Locative
- Elemental
- Semantic
- Predicate
- one of the two main constituents of a sentence
- a sentence will have the “subject” and the “predicate”
- the predicate contains the verb and its components (adverb, object, etc)
- Classifier Predicates
- an aspect of morphology
- the classifer is used to add the “action” or verb-action of the statement
- CAR (CL:3-hand) DRIVE-BY
- these have two aspects – handshape and movement roots
- Subject-Object Agreement
- an aspect of morphology
- the subject of the sentence must agree with the object
- ASL: directional verbs
- TELL-HER versus TELL-ME
- I-HELP-YOU versus YOU-HELP-ME versus HE-HELP-HER
- Locative Verbs
- an aspect of morphology
- these signs that are signed at a particular location on the body in order to add meaning
- #FOOD across the forehead = “Can’t stop thinking about food because I am hungry!”
- #HURT on arm = “My arm hurts” or can be indicate the specific location where it hurts
- Time in ASL
- an aspect of morphology
- movement is added to indicate meaning
- examples given: EVERY-NIGHT, EVERY-TUESDAY
- not part of Temporal aspect
- Transitive Verbs
- verbs that require a direct object to be named in the statement
- English: word “get” or “love” – using these verbs requires an object or the statement will not “sound” right
- Examples given:
- English: She gets. I write.
- ASL: FATHER LOVE. YOU GIVE.
- Intranstive Verbs
- verbs that do not require an object to express the meaning
- the action is complete by itself
- Examples given:
- English: He jumps
- ASL: SISTER EAT.
- Syntax of American Sign Language
- syntax – sentence structures​
- topicalization, topic-comment or time-topic-comment
- WH-Q
- Y/N-Q
- Negation
- Command
- Conditional
- Rhetorical Question (RH-Q)
- Major Lexical Categories
- Nouns – person, place, thing, idea (usually the “subject” of the sentence)
- Predicates – the actionand its objects of the sentence
- Adjectives – words that describe nouns
- Adverbs – words that describe verbs or objects
- Minor Lexical Categories
- Determiners – “a” or “the”
- Auxiliary verbs
- English: “to be” verbs: is, are, was, were
- ASL: modals: CAN, MUST, SHOULD
- Prepositions – show the position of subject and/or object
- ASL: FROM, WITH and usage of classifiers instead of prepositional words
- Conjuctions – words used to join two parts of a sentence
- English: and, but, however, etc
- ASL: HIT, FOR-FOR, WHY, WRONG, etc
- Pronouns – words used in place of nouns
- Semantics – the branch of linguistics that sutides the maning of words, their historical and psychological development, their connotations, and their relation to one another.
- Referential Meaning
- an aspect of semantics
- the word refers to something
- Social Meaning
- an aspect of semantics
- words/signs are used that have meaning to the social group
- Affective Meaning
- an aspect of semantics
- words/signs can be used to add or change meaning
- register levels
- see register
- using “explainted” versus “boasted” have different affective meaning
- Denotation
- an aspect of semantics
- the referential meaning of the sign/word – CAT/”cat” means the cat
- obvious meaning of the word
- Connotation
- an aspect of semantics
- words can have “social” or “affective” meaning
- Six Types of Relationships Between Lexical Items
- an aspect of semantics – think “relationship”
- Hyponymy – words are related because they are all types of something
- red, blue, green = they are all colors
- Part/Whole – words are related because they are all part of a whole thing
- hand, arm, leg = they are parts of a body
- Synonymy – words are related because they are different ways to say the same thing
- soda, pop, coke = caffientated carbonated beverages
- Conversenes – words are conversely related
- brother-sister, mother-father
- Antonymy – words have an opposite relationship
- large-small, up-down, light-dark, black-white
- Metaphor – the relationship between words can have different meaning
- sheet of paper, sheet of rain, sheet of ice, sheet for the bed
- bed of flowers, bed of rocks, bed for sleeping
- Pragmatics – study of how language is USED in specific situations to accomplish goals
- these rules are usually subtle and they are learned through incidental learning experiences
- Adjective Placement
- an aspect of pragmatics
- these are rules as to how adjectives are placed that cannot be altered
- King Burger versus Burger King
- stop-and-go traffic versus go-and-stop traffic
- part of incidental learning experiences
- Turn-taking
- an aspect of pragmatics
- the subtle rules for social interaction
- ASL has specific rules and they are subtle so those who are not native language users tend to misundersand them and also break the rules
- Variation in Language Use
- an aspect of pragmatics
- variations can be social, ethnic, gender, or age related
- words/signs are different based on lcoation and historical varations as well
- Register
- an aspect of pragmatics
- language is used differently in different situations
- also the type of language use will also accomplish different goals
- Register Levels
- frozen – language that never changes (wedding vows, Miranda warning)
- formal – Standard English (speeches, school lessons)
- consultative – less formal standard English (news casting, employee to employer)
- casual – language between friends (loose sentence structure, vernacular speech)
- intimate – language between lovers or other close family and friends (pet names, inside jokes)
- Bilingualism/Language Contact
- an aspect of pragmatics
- Code-switching
- Foreign talk – heavy accent and improper grammar
- Interference
- Pidgins, Creoles, Mixed Systems
- All can be a result of two languages coming into contact with each other
- Pragmatics – Art
- Way in which we use language to express ourselves – artistically.
- English: music, poetry, books, recited verse
- ASL: storytelling, handshape stories (A-Z, numbers, classifiers), percussion signing, drama, Deaf humor, poetry
