Patricia-
Susan Fischer has provided the appropriate response to your
comparison of directional verbs in ASL and English: "This might be
valid if you are comparing signed languages to English, but there are
lots of spoken languages whose grammars bear striking resemblances to
things that we find in signed languages..." (posting 3/28/09). What
is required, of course, is to learn about languages that don't work
like English (or French or Japanese or Chinese...). There's a lot of
wonderful diversity out there among the thousands of spoken languages.
Let me give a single example of a spoken language that works like ASL
rather than English. The language is Iroqouian and the structure is
typical of hundreds of native languages spoken in the Western
Hemisphere. These languages, like ASL, pack a lot of information
into the verb: who did what to whom, who moved in what direction, and
so forth. For example, in English we say "I went to the store,"
using the elements you mentioned in your message. This is how it's
done in Iroquoian: you would first say a noun that means 'store',
just as you'd establish a location and label it with a sign in
ASL. Then you would provide a verb which means something like 'I
went in a direction'. That's a full sentence. Because a spoken
language lacks transparent means of tracing out a path, it has to be
inferred from the grammatical morphemes and contextual information
that the direction was toward the store. The verb also has some
other elements (factual, completed in the past); some such elements
can be simultaneously conveyed by nonmanual, morphemes in ASL. The
verb is yahwa'kaet' . To break it up into morphemes:
yah- TRANSLOCATIVE -wa' FACTUAL
-k- FIRST.PERSON.SINGULAR.AGENT
-ae- GO -t- DIRECTIONAL.APPLICATIVE -' PERFECTIVE.
If we compare languages like this (technically, "head-marking"
languages) with ASL and other sign languages, we can learn about the
nature of such languages in general--such as what constitutes a
grammatical utterance, what sorts of information are required and
what sorts are optional, what sorts of concepts can be grammaticized,
and so on. ASL then falls into the typological group of head-marking
languages, along with both signed and spoken languages, using
comparable linguistic criteria. In the process, we also learn about
influences of the modality of communication on linguistic
structures. Some things can be done with movement in space that
can't be easily done with speech, and vice versa.
-Dan Slobin
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Re: [SLLING-L] Directional Verbs / signed vs. spoken languages
From: "Patricia Raswant" <patricia.raswant at gallaudet.edu>
To: "A list for linguists...snip... l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu>
At 06:59 AM 3/28/2009, you wrote:
>[...]
>Now, considering the directional verb in ASL, depending on how it is
>expressed, it can be SVO or a combination of a action verb and a
>preposition phrase. It has an inflection when a continuing verb is
>being used. And I can argue that this is a unique structure and can't
>be compared to a spoken language. We should accept it for what it is.
>
>[...]
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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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