Directional Verbs

Fri Mar 27 16:49:46 UTC 2009

Because they're languages.

Susan D. Fischer
Susan.Fischer at rit.edu
drword563 (Skype)
drword354 (iChat/AIM)
+1-714-908-9824 (fax)

Center for Research on Language
UCSD

On Mar 27, 2009, at 5:09 AM, Patricia Raswant wrote:

> 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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>
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