9.890, Disc: American Sign Language

[LINGUIST Network]

LINGUIST List:  Vol-9-890. Tue Jun 16 1998. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 9.890, Disc: American Sign Language

Moderators: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar: Texas A&M U. <aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at linguistlist.org>

Review Editor:     Andrew Carnie <carnie at linguistlist.org>

Editors:  	    Brett Churchill <brett at linguistlist.org>
		    Martin Jacobsen <marty at linguistlist.org>
		    Elaine Halleck <elaine at linguistlist.org>
                    Anita Huang <anita at linguistlist.org>
                    Ljuba Veselinova <ljuba at linguistlist.org>
		    Julie Wilson <julie at linguistlist.org>

Software development: John H. Remmers <remmers at emunix.emich.edu>
                      Zhiping Zheng <zzheng at online.emich.edu>

Home Page:  http://linguistlist.org/


Editor for this issue: Martin Jacobsen <marty at linguistlist.org>

=================================Directory=================================

1)
Date:  Thu, 11 Jun 1998 15:17:12 -0400
From:  Peggy Speas <pspeas at linguist.umass.edu>
Subject:  Re: 9.867, Disc: American Sign Language

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Thu, 11 Jun 1998 15:17:12 -0400
From:  Peggy Speas <pspeas at linguist.umass.edu>
Subject:  Re: 9.867, Disc: American Sign Language

The bit of evidence that convinces me that ASL "pointing" is actually
pronouns is that signing children make a pronoun mistake that is
parallel to one that speaking children make: At an early stage,
speaking children often confuse "you" and "me".  When a parent says
"bring the book to me", the child interprets "me" as a lable for that
parent, and when the parent says "Do you want a cookie, the child
interprets "you" as a label for him/herself.  So a child at this stage
will say "you want a cookie" meaning "I want a cookie" and "Me give
cookie" meaning "you give [me] a cookie".  Signing children do exactly
the same thing: They point outward toward the parent when they mean
"me", because they interpret the outward oriented pointy finger as a
sign referring to them.  How could this be deixis?

Peggy Speas
University of Massachusetts, Amherst


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-9-890