Verbs in American Sign Language

Fischer, Susan D.; Gough, Bonnie

doi:10.1353/sls.1978.0014

Cited by 152 publications

(74 citation statements)

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“…Previous researchers (Fischer 1978, Gee & Goodhart 1988 have pointed out that the grammatical structure of American Sign Language exhibits striking similarities to that of young creole languages. According to Gee and Goodhart 'the amount of overlap between Bickerton's list and ASL grammar is impressive ' (1988:56).…”

Section: Similarities Between Sign Languages and Young Creole Languagesmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Researchers also noticed early on that sign languages share many properties with young creole languages (Fischer 1978, Meier 1984); yet they differ markedly from young creoles in one crucial respect, the same one that ties sign languages together as a group: their complex simultaneous morphology. What has gone largely unnoticed so far is that sign languages are not confined to simultaneous morphological structures.…”

Section: The Paradox Of Sign Language Morphologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They differ from young creole languages in that these conditions present themselves anew before each generation of deaf children. In this sense, sign languages are re-creolized with each and every generation of signers (Fischer 1978, Newport 1981). 8…”

Section: Similarities Between Sign Languages and Young Creole Languagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…25 Agreement verbs (those that agree with S and O) denote 'transfer' (in the sense of Gruber 1976 and Jackendoff 1990), whether concrete (SEND) or abstract (HELP). Spatial verbs 22 Work on agreement and verb classes in various sign languages includes: ASL (Fischer & Gough 1978, Meier 1982, Padden 1983, Shepard-Kegl 1985, Brentari 1988, Lillo-Martin 1991, Janis 1992, Bahan 1996, Taub 2001, British SL (Deuchar 1984, Kyle & Woll 1985, Israeli SL (Meir 1998b), Italian SL (Pizzuto et al 1990), Taiwan SL (Smith 1990), Japanese SL (Fischer 1996), SL of the Netherlands (Bos 1993(Bos , 1994, Danish SL (Engberg-Pedersen 1993), and Australian SL (Auslan; Johnston 1991). Though the analyses suggested in some of these works may differ from the analysis suggested here, the descriptions of verb agreement and verb classes nevertheless adhere to the general characteristics described below.…”

Section: Properties Of Sign-language Verb Agreementmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Paradox of Sign Language Morphology

Aronoff¹,

Meir²,

Sandler³

2005

lan

251

156

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Sign languages have two strikingly different kinds of morphological structure: sequential and simultaneous. The simultaneous morphology of two unrelated sign languages, American and Israeli Sign Language, is very similar and is largely inflectional, while what little sequential morphology we have found differs significantly and is derivational. We show that at least two pervasive types of inflectional morphology, verb agreement and classifier constructions, are iconically grounded in spatiotemporal cognition, while the sequential patterns can be traced to normal historical development. We attribute the paucity of sequential morphology in sign languages to their youth. This research both brings sign languages much closer to spoken languages in their morphological structure and shows how the medium of communication contributes to the structure of languages.* Si l'on pouvait inventer une langue dont les dictions eussent leur signification naturelle, de sorte que tous les hommes entendissent la pensée des autres à la seule prononciation sans en avoir appris la signification, comme ils entendent que l'on se rejoueit lorsque l'on rit, et que l'on est triste quand on pleure, cette langue serait la meilleure de toutes les possibles; car elle ferait la mesme impression sur tous les auditeurs, que feraient les pensées de l'esprit si elles se pouvaient immédiatement communiquer entre les hommes comme entre les Anges. (Mersenne, Harmonie universelle, 1636) [If one could invent a language whose expressions had their natural signification, so that all men could understand the thought of others by pronunciation alone without having learned its signification, as they understand that one is happy when one laughs, and that one is sad when one cries, this language would be the best of all possible: for it would make the same impression on all hearers as would the thoughts of the spirit if they could be communicated immediately between men as between the angels.] [our translation] If humans could communicate by telepathy, there would be no need for a phonological component, at least for the purposes of communication; and the same extends to the use of language generally. (Noam Chomsky, The minimalist program, 1995:221)

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Section: Similarities Between Sign Languages and Young Creole Languagesmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: The Paradox Of Sign Language Morphologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Similarities Between Sign Languages and Young Creole Languagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Properties Of Sign-language Verb Agreementmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The Paradox of Sign Language Morphology

Aronoff¹,

Meir²,

Sandler³

2005

lan

251

156

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“…The semantic modifications entailed by these grammatical categories include pronominal reference, indication of the number of arguments of the verb (one, two, many), distributed action to the arguments of the verb (e.g., "to each," "to certain ones"), and the temporal recurrence of events (e.g., "for a long time," "regularly," "incessantly") (see Bellugi, 1980, Fischer & Gough, 1978, Klima & Bellugi, 1979, and Supalla & Newport, 1978, for a more complete description of these and other morphological processes in ASL). Importantly, these modifications of signs are transmitted by superimposed changes in the movement of signs.…”

Section: Perception Of Movement In American Signmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perception of movement in American Sign Language: Effects of linguistic structure and linguistic experience

Poizner

1983

Perception & Psychophysics

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In order to reveal the psychological representation of movement from American Sign Language (ASL), deaf native signers and hearing subjects unfamiliar with sign were asked to make triadic comparisons of movements that had been isolated from lexical and from grammatically inflected signs, An analysis of the similarity judgments revealed a small Ilet of physically specifiable dimensions that accounted for most of the variance. The dimensions underlying the perception of lexical movement were in general different from tholle underlying inflectional movement, for both groups of subjects. Most strikingly, deaf and hearing subjects significantly differed in their patterns of dimensional salience for movements, both at the lexical and at the inflectional levels. Linguistically relevant dimensions were of increased salience to native signers. The difference in perception of linguistic movement by native signers and by naive observers demonstrates that modification of natural perceptual categories after language acquisition is not bound to a particular transmission modality, but rather can be a more general consequence of acquiring a formal linguistic system. American Sign Language (ASL) is the visualgestural language used by deaf communities in the United States. Since the language has developed completely outside the auditory modality, its study can provide clues both to the nature of language and to those psychological processes upon which the comprehension and production of language rest. The present article is concerned with how deaf signers and hearing subjects unfamiliar with sign perceive movements of the hands and arms that function in very specific ways in the linguistic system of ASL. By comparing perception of linguistic movement in subjects who do and who do not know the language, we can begin to uncover the ways in which linguistic categorizations are based on the perceptual constraints of the observer, and the ways in which such categorizations are more arbitrarily determined. In this way we can begin to address the correspondence between language analyzed both as a formal system

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Sign Languages

Sandler¹,

Lillo‐Martin²

2017

The Handbook of Linguistics

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Verbs in American Sign Language

Cited by 152 publications

References 1 publication

The Paradox of Sign Language Morphology

The Paradox of Sign Language Morphology

Perception of movement in American Sign Language: Effects of linguistic structure and linguistic experience

Sign Languages

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