<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Especially for teaching purposes, you compare something new to something you already know. For most linguists, sign languages are new vis-à-vis spoken languages. But when I was teaching linguistics to signers, I started with what they knew (ASL) and showed how spoken languages could be analyzed using the same or similar tools. Here's an example from my own student experience. I was doing well in linguistics but struggling with a course on logic and couldn't "get" what the professor was trying to teach us. A friend told me that what the prof was trying to get us to do was like writing a grammar of another language. I immediately thought to myself "Gee, I can do <i>that</i>," and the problem was easily solved. So my friend took what I knew (linguistics) and helped me use those tools to analyze a problem in logic.<br><div apple-content-edited="true"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div>Susan D. Fischer</div><div><a href="mailto:Susan.Fischer@rit.edu">Susan.Fischer@rit.edu</a></div><div>drword563 (Skype)</div><div>drword354 (iChat/AIM)</div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><div>Center for Research on Language</div><div>UCSD</div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span></div></span> </div><br><div><div>On Mar 27, 2009, at 3:08 PM, Patricia Raswant wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div>OK, Susan, if what you said is true, why don't they compare spoken<br>languages to sign languages rather than vice versa?<br><br>2009/3/27 Fischer Susan <<a href="mailto:susan.fischer@rit.edu">susan.fischer@rit.edu</a>>:<br><blockquote type="cite">Because they're languages.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Susan D. Fischer<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="mailto:Susan.Fischer@rit.edu">Susan.Fischer@rit.edu</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">drword563 (Skype)<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">drword354 (iChat/AIM)<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">+1-714-908-9824 (fax)<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Center for Research on Language<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">UCSD<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">On Mar 27, 2009, at 5:09 AM, Patricia Raswant wrote:<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">I have a question. Why do linguists compare ASL and other signed<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">languages to spoken languages?<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">2009/3/27 Dan I. Slobin <<a href="mailto:slobin@berkeley.edu">slobin@berkeley.edu</a>>:<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">What's clear about this discussion is that this terminology is confusing.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">The underlying problem is that the linguistic distinctions were designed for<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">use with a language of a quite different type, such as English (see Slobin,<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">2005, 2008). In my opinion, the terminology is not appropriate to a signed<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">language such as ASL. Signed verbs of the sort under discussion move from<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">a source to a goal. It is not important to the grammar whether those<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">anchoring points of the motion are animate or inanimate and whether the<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">motion is physical (e.g. throwing, putting, giving, walking to, flying to)<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">or not (e.g. looking at, asking to, scolding, flattering). Whenever the<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">starting and/or stopping point of the motion is a spatial location to which<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">a meaning (reference) has been assigned, one can say that the verb is<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">inflected-that is, it indicates source/goal. Beyond that, the distinctions<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">are simply unnecessary, and therefore confusing.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Sign language linguistics can advance by abandoning borrowed grammatical<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">distinctions from languages like English (but not all spoken languages) and<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">devising appropriate designations for grammatical distinctions that are<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">encoded in the embodied modalities of the language. All of the problematic<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">verbs here are directional (in the everyday understanding of the word). A<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">verb that includes a handshape that indicates a particular type of referent<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">includes a depictive element, but the verb itself is more than depictive,<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">because it also has directional movement. (In fact, both the handshape and<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">the directional movement can be considered depictive.)<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">In a sense, all of the verbs under discussion involve displacement, if one<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">includes metaphorical or symbolic displacement. If an object that is caused<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">to be displaced ends up in a particular location--say, in front of a<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">location that has been established as encoding an entity--it can be either a<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">verb of putting or a verb of giving, depending on the execution of the<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">movement, especially whether it ends in a hold. There is no distinction<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">between "agreement" and "spatial" dislocation here, but rather a<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">morphological means of indicating the role played by the goal of the<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">movement with relation to the referent established at that goal. For<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">example, if the cup goes from me and ends up at a locus established for<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">‘John’, he can be either the recipient (‘give’) or the referent location for<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">the endstate (‘put in front of’). If one wishes to uses the terms<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">"agreement" and "inflection," these terms should apply equally to verbs like<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">'put' and verbs like 'give'. However, there are no "subjects," "objects,"<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">or "indirect objects" in ASL and other sign languages such as those used in<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Europe, China, Japan, and elsewhere.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">And if the referent type of the dislocated object is indicated by a<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">handshape that refers to a property of that object, then one might refer to<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">the verb as "depictive," though it would be more informative to state in<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">what ways the verb is depictive (handshape, internal movement,<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">directionality, obligatory nonmanual components, etc.). It is also<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">misleading to use the borrowed term “classifer” for handshapes that refer to<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">an entity by means of one of its properties (e.g. shape), but that’s an<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">argument for a different discussion. In the Berkeley Transcription System<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">(BTS) (Hoiting & Slobin, 2002) such handshapes are more objectively referred<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">to as “property markers.”<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">References are listed below. They are downloadable at<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="http://ihd.berkeley.edu/Slobin.htm">http://ihd.berkeley.edu/Slobin.htm</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">[click on Slobin-Papers on sign language].<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Dan Slobin<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> Hoiting, N., & Slobin, D. I. (2002). Transcription as a tool for<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">understanding: The Berkeley Transcription System for sign language research<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">(BTS). In G. Morgan & B. Woll (Eds.), Directions in sign language<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">acquisition (pp. 55-75). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> Slobin, D. I. (2005). Issues of linguistic typology in the study of<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">sign language development of deaf children. In B. Schick, M. Marschark, &<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">P. E. Spencer (Eds.), Advances in the sign language development of deaf<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">children (pp. 20-45). Oxford University Press.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"> Slobin, D. I. (2008). Breaking the molds: Signed languages and the<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">nature of human language. Sign Language Studies, 8, 114-130.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">At 03:01 PM 3/26/2009, you wrote:<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Sarah,<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">I believe you're confusing some of the terminology. "Indicating verbs" refer<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">to the class of both "agreeing" and "spatial verbs". "Depicting verbs" are<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">just classifiers. "Directional verbs", I believe, are the same thing as<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">agreeing verbs, but I would avoid that term as it is vague and could be<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">easily misconstrued. The same thing with "inflecting". Technically, both<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">agreeing and spatial verbs undergo some sort of inflection, though people<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">usually mean just agreeing verbs when they use the term inflecting.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">"Agreeing verbs" inflect for subject and/or object.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">So, in your two examples, the lexical sign THROW is a spatial verb, and<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">therefore an indicating verb. I do not think it is "directional" (i.e.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">agreeing). For your cup example I'm not sure how the sentence is intended to<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">be signed. If your using a classifier in a C handshape to show the<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">displacement of the cup, then that would be a depicting verb. If, however,<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">the sentence were "CUP, aMOVEb" then MOVE again is a spatial verb.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Is that clear?<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Jonathan Udoff<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative Disorders<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">6495 Alvarado Road, Suite 200<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">San Diego, CA 92120<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="http://emmoreylab.sdsu.edu">http://emmoreylab.sdsu.edu</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Voice/VP: (619) 594-8067<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">2009/3/26 Sarah Hafer <<a href="mailto:charityh@comcast.net">charityh@comcast.net</a>><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">I got a question about terminology used for directional verbs, indicating<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">verbs, inflecting verbs, spatial verbs, and depicting verbs.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">To me, it appears that inflecting verbs and indicating verbs are used to<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">specifically denote that these are not classifier predicates, which would<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">fall under the spatial/depicting verb category. If that is so about<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">indicating and inflecting verbs, i suppose directional verbs could apply to<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">any type of verbs as long as they are directional. Say, if i signed a cup is<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">being moved from point A to point B, that is both a directional verb and a<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">depicting/spatial verb. Yet, if i signed that person A is throwing something<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">(not using a classifier here but the THROW sign in ASL for general) to<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">person B, that is considered an indicating verb and also a directional verb.<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Am i getting the terminology use right here?<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">--<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Sarah<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">_______________________________________________<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">SLLING-L mailing list<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="mailto:SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu">SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l">http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">_______________________________________________<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">SLLING-L mailing list<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="mailto:SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu">SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l">http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Department of Psychology email: <a href="mailto:slobin@berkeley.edu">slobin@berkeley.edu</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">USA <a href="http://ihd.berkeley.edu/Slobin.htm">http://ihd.berkeley.edu/Slobin.htm</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">_______________________________________________<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">SLLING-L mailing list<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="mailto:SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu">SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l">http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">_______________________________________________<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">SLLING-L mailing list<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="mailto:SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu">SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l">http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">_______________________________________________<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite">SLLING-L mailing list<br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="mailto:SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu">SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l">http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l</a><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><br></blockquote><br>_______________________________________________<br>SLLING-L mailing list<br><a href="mailto:SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu">SLLING-L@majordomo.valenciacc.edu</a><br>http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l<br><br></div></blockquote></div><br></body></html>