AUSLAN Past/Present tense forms

[Susan Fischer]

I don't know from Auslan, but in  some dialects of ASL, there are a couple of
verbs that have a fused form of FINISH.  One of them is SEE, so what one might
gloss as SAW is SEE (V with palm toward face moves outwards) followed by a
twisting-downward movement that maintains the V handshape.  Also, in
NihonSyuwa  there seems to be a true past tense marker that is is distinct from
the equivalent of FINISH.  However, that past tense marker does seem to be
optional.
Susan

Don & Theresa Grushkin wrote:

> I had the opportunity to observe a visitor to our school from Australia
> demonstrate some signs in Auslan.  I was interested to note that Auslan
> seems to have a separate sign for the present and past tense form of DID
> (which looks amazingly like ASL "WHAT-TO-DO!) and SEE vs. SAW.  I didn't
> have the opportunity to talk with her about the linguistics of Auslan, much
> as I would have liked to, so I'm turning to you folks out there in Oz (BSL
> signers are also welcome to give their input to my questions).  My questions
> are:
>
> 1) is there a present tense form of DO in Auslan?
>
> 2) is the presence of specific past/present tense forms some kind of
> carryover from Signed English (the British/Australian version)?  ASL, as you
> know, has no specific signs denoting past/present -- we must add the marker
> "FINISH" to denote past tense
>
> 3) are there a great number of verbs in Auslan with the specific
> past/present tense forms, or is it limited to only a few verbs?
>
> --Don Grushkin

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Susan Fischer                                e-mail: fischer at mail.rit.edu
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