Nouns & Verbs

[Robert Ingram]

Are you absolutely sure about this? Is it possible that verbs such as WISH,
 PLAN, THINK, BELIEVE, and LIVE, can only be verbs in ASL: i.e., they have no
 noun form? Perhaps the "nominalization" of these forms is an influence from
 English and not a
natural characteristic of ASL.

jmacfarl at unm.edu wrote:

> I have some questions for the list regarding Noun/Verb pairs in ASL. (other
 signed language examples are welcome too)
>
> Much attention has been paid to the double/single movement alternation between
 N's and V's in ASL c.f. (Newport & Supalla).
> I have noticed that there are some Noun/Verb pairs that do not reflect this
 alternation, and show no difference in form between the noun and verb. These
 might include pairs such as WISH/WISH, PLAN/PLAN, THINK/THOUGHT,
 BELIEVE/BELIEF, LIVE/LIFE etc.