LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.20 (03) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  - 20 July 2008 - Volume 03
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From: Mike Morgan <mwmosaka at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2008.07.19 (01) [E]

Sandy, Jonny, Heather, etc,

Hi from not-too-rainy Mumbai (aka Bombay)!

What Sandy says about BSL being "cinematographic" in its narative --
and also grammatical? -- structure is equally (mutatis mutandi) true
for ASL, JSL (Japanese NOT Javanese!), and ISL (Indian NOT Italian!).

And this of course has consequences for L2. Just today I was observing
one of our teachers teaching Basic English Literacy Class, and the
white board had a picture of the camp we went to a month back, and
there was a pool, and a tree next to it, and a nest in the tree, and
Mountains in the background. And they were all practicing
prepositions.

Of course, sign languages generally do not have much use for
prepositions per se (using depictive / classifier "verbs" instead).
but also WHEN they are used, they have a very DIFFERENT grammar from
English. As the teacher, who had no problem with the grammar herself,
was having a harder time making some of the students understand, I
"stepped in" and said: "well, generally speaking, English grammar is
easy: you just sign the sentence and THEN write it backwards!"

In otherwards, background FIRST, foreground / action later. Noun
first, "pre"position later.

> So while in English we might say:
> "We used to climb the wall behind the garage and steal the apples."
> In BSL it would be more like:
> "Garage with a wall behind it, we'd climb and steal."

ISL: CAR (topic) HOUSE GO-IN (2nd topic) WALL HOUSE+BEHIND (3rd topic
/ pause) WALL CLIMB (pause) APPLE TAKE SECRET GO-OUT

> As you see all the nouns tend to get mentioned first, then comes all the
> verbs.

Yep! Nouns line up to the front of each clause, verbs follow behind.
(ISL is "S-O-V" like most Indian languages, but moreso
"topic-comment".)

Mike || マイク || माईक || Мика || માઈક || მაიქ || ਮਾਈਕ || מייק || மாஇக் || ما
پک
================
Dr Michael W Morgan
Managing Director
Ishara Foundation
Mumbai (Bombay), India
++++++++++++++++
माईकल मोर्गन (पी.एच.डी.)
मेनेजिंग डॉयरेक्टर
ईशारा फॉउंडेशन (मुंबई )
++++++++++++++++
茂流岸マイク(言語学博士)
イシャラ基金の専務理事・事務局長
ムンバイ(ボンベイ)、インド
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