Directional Verbs

Fri Mar 27 12:09:51 UTC 2009

I have a question.  Why do linguists compare ASL and other signed
languages to spoken languages?

2009/3/27 Dan I. Slobin <slobin at berkeley.edu>:
> What's clear about this discussion is that this terminology is confusing.
> The underlying problem is that the linguistic distinctions were designed for
> use with a language of a quite different type, such as English (see Slobin,
> 2005, 2008).  In my opinion, the terminology is not appropriate to a signed
> language such as ASL.   Signed verbs of the sort under discussion move from
> a source to a goal.  It is not important to the grammar whether those
> anchoring points of the motion are animate or inanimate and whether the
> motion is physical (e.g. throwing, putting, giving, walking to, flying to)
> or not (e.g. looking at, asking to, scolding, flattering).  Whenever the
> starting and/or stopping point of the motion is a spatial location to which
> a meaning (reference) has been assigned, one can say that the verb is
> inflected-that is, it indicates source/goal.  Beyond that, the distinctions
> are simply unnecessary, and therefore confusing.
>
> Sign language linguistics can advance by abandoning borrowed grammatical
> distinctions from languages like English (but not all spoken languages) and
> devising appropriate designations for grammatical distinctions that are
> encoded in the embodied modalities of the language.  All of the problematic
> verbs here are directional (in the everyday understanding of the word).  A
> verb that includes a handshape that indicates a particular type of referent
> includes a depictive element, but the verb itself is more than depictive,
> because it also has directional movement.  (In fact, both the handshape and
> the directional movement can be considered depictive.)
>
> In a sense, all of the verbs under discussion involve displacement, if one
> includes metaphorical or symbolic displacement.  If an object that is caused
> to be displaced ends up in a particular location--say, in front of a
> location that has been established as encoding an entity--it can be either a
> verb of putting or a verb of giving, depending on the execution of the
> movement, especially whether it ends in a hold.  There is no distinction
> between "agreement" and "spatial" dislocation here, but rather a
> morphological means of indicating the role played by the goal of the
> movement with relation to the referent established at that goal.  For
> example, if the cup goes from me and ends up at a locus established for
> ‘John’, he can be either the recipient (‘give’) or the referent location for
> the endstate (‘put in front of’).  If one wishes to uses the terms
> "agreement" and "inflection," these terms should apply equally to verbs like
> 'put' and verbs like 'give'.  However, there are no "subjects," "objects,"
> or "indirect objects" in ASL and other sign languages such as those used in
> Europe, China, Japan, and elsewhere.
>
> And if the referent type of the dislocated object is indicated by a
> handshape that refers to a property of that object, then one might refer to
> the verb as "depictive," though it would be more informative to state in
> what ways the verb is depictive (handshape, internal movement,
> directionality, obligatory nonmanual components, etc.).  It is also
> misleading to use the borrowed term “classifer” for handshapes that refer to
> an entity by means of one of its properties (e.g. shape), but that’s an
> argument for a different discussion.  In the Berkeley Transcription System
> (BTS) (Hoiting & Slobin, 2002) such handshapes are more objectively referred
> to as “property markers.”
>
> References are listed below.  They are downloadable at
> http://ihd.berkeley.edu/Slobin.htm
> [click on Slobin-Papers on sign language].
>
> Dan Slobin
>
>         Hoiting, N., & Slobin, D. I. (2002). Transcription as a tool for
> understanding: The Berkeley Transcription System for sign language research
> (BTS). In G. Morgan & B. Woll (Eds.), Directions in sign language
> acquisition (pp. 55-75). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
>         Slobin, D. I. (2005).  Issues of linguistic typology in the study of
> sign language development of deaf children.  In B. Schick, M. Marschark, &
> P. E. Spencer (Eds.), Advances in the sign language development of deaf
> children (pp. 20-45). Oxford University Press.
>         Slobin, D. I. (2008).  Breaking the molds: Signed languages and the
> nature of human language.  Sign Language Studies, 8, 114-130.
>
> At 03:01 PM 3/26/2009, you wrote:
>
> Sarah,
>
> I believe you're confusing some of the terminology. "Indicating verbs" refer
> to the class of both "agreeing" and "spatial verbs". "Depicting verbs" are
> just classifiers. "Directional verbs", I believe, are the same thing as
> agreeing verbs, but I would avoid that term as it is vague and could be
> easily misconstrued. The same thing with "inflecting". Technically, both
> agreeing and spatial verbs undergo some sort of inflection, though people
> usually mean just agreeing verbs when they use the term inflecting.
> "Agreeing verbs" inflect for subject and/or object.
>
> So, in your two examples, the lexical sign THROW is a spatial verb, and
> therefore an indicating verb. I do not think it is "directional" (i.e.
> agreeing). For your cup example I'm not sure how the sentence is intended to
> be signed. If your using a classifier in a C handshape to show the
> displacement of the cup, then that would be a depicting verb. If, however,
> the sentence were "CUP, aMOVEb" then MOVE again is a spatial verb.
>
> Is that clear?
>
> Jonathan Udoff
> SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative Disorders
>
> Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience
> 6495 Alvarado Road, Suite 200
> San Diego, CA 92120
> http://emmoreylab.sdsu.edu
> Voice/VP: (619) 594-8067
>
>
> 2009/3/26 Sarah Hafer <charityh at comcast.net>
> I got a question about terminology used for directional verbs, indicating
> verbs, inflecting verbs, spatial verbs, and depicting verbs.
>
> To me, it appears that inflecting verbs and indicating verbs are used to
> specifically denote that these are not classifier predicates, which would
> fall under the spatial/depicting verb category. If that is so about
> indicating and inflecting verbs, i suppose directional verbs could apply to
> any type of verbs as long as they are directional. Say, if i signed a cup is
> being moved from point A to point B, that is both a directional verb and a
> depicting/spatial verb. Yet, if i signed that person A is throwing something
> (not using a classifier here but the THROW sign in ASL for general) to
> person B, that is considered an indicating verb and also a directional verb.
>
> Am i getting the terminology use right here?
>
> --
> Sarah
>
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>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School
> Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics
>
> Department of Psychology        email: slobin at berkeley.edu
> 3210 Tolman #1650                 phone (Dept):  1-510-642-5292
> University of California             phone (home): 1-510-848-1769
> Berkeley, CA 94720-1650         fax: 1-510-642-5293
> USA                                      http://ihd.berkeley.edu/Slobin.htm
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