searching for some ASL signs

[Mark Mandel]

Richard Arnold asks:

>>>>>

I am looking for the ASL signs for some of the English glosses:

     [...]
ATOM (-ic)
<<<<<

Don Grushkin answers:

>>>>>
As far as I know, there are NO ASL signs for any of these.  My suggestion:
Fingerspell these terms.  The kids need to know how to spell them and their
<<<<<

I'm pretty sure I have seen a sign for 'atom'. It's been a long time, but I
believe it was:

     nondominant fingerspelling "A", neutral space, thumb-edge uppermost
     dominant fingerspelling "A" circling it

So far it looks a lot like YEAR, but I *think* the circling movement was in an
approximately horizontal plane, distinguishing it from the sagittal (i.e.,
vertical-front-back) plane of the movement of YEAR.

The derivation is apparently the traditional "planetary" model of the atom, with
electrons circling the nucleus, plus initialization, producing Type 2 in
Battison's typology of two-handed signs (non-neutral handshape on passive
nondominant hand; by Symmetry Condition, same as dominant handshape).

   Mark A. Mandel : Senior Linguist and Manager of Acoustic Data
         Mark_Mandel at dragonsys.com : Dragon Systems, Inc.
 320 Nevada St., Newton, MA 02460, USA : http://www.dragonsys.com/
                     (speaking for myself)





Don & Theresa G <DonTheresaGrushkin at EMAIL.MSN.COM> on 11/10/99 12:01:13 AM

Please respond to "For the discussion of linguistics and signed languages."
      <SLLING-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA>

To:   SLLING-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA
cc:    (bcc: Mark Mandel/Dragon Systems USA)
Subject:  Re: searching for some ASL signs




Richard,

As far as I know, there are NO ASL signs for any of these.  My suggestion:
Fingerspell these terms.  The kids need to know how to spell them and their
meanings anyway, and fingerspelling is a good way of exposing them to it.
And, they WILL get it (understand) what you're saying.  See my article
"Lexidactylophobia: The (Irrational) Fear of Fingerspelling" in the December
1998 Issue of the American Annals of the Deaf (v. 143:5), pp. 404-415.  I
discuss this very issue and lay out all the rationale for using
fingerspelling in contexts like this in this article.

--Donald A. Grushkin

----- Original Message -----
From: Richard Arnold <Rna8arnold at AOL.COM>
To: <SLLING-L at ADMIN.HUMBERC.ON.CA>
Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 1999 3:47 PM
Subject: Re: searching for some ASL signs