FINISH

[Adam Schembri, Deaf Studies]

Points about its role as a lexical item aside, it is perhaps more
appropriate to analyse this use of FINISH in ASL (similar to the use of
signs meaning FINISH in BSL and Auslan) as an aspect marker (i.e.
completive or perfective aspect) rather than a tense marker.

Regards,

Adam

----------------------
Adam Schembri
Centre for Deaf Studies
University of Bristol
8 Woodland Rd
Bristol BS8 1TN
United Kingdom
Telephone: +44 (0)117 954 6909
Textphone: +44 (0)117 954 6920
Fax: +44 (0)117 954 6921
Email: Adam.Schembri at bristol.ac.uk
Website: www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/DeafStudies



On Wed, 21 Feb 2001 09:45:15 -0800 Theresa Smith <tbsmith at ESKIMO.COM>
wrote:

> Hi Don,
>
> I'm responding to your number 2 comment about "finish".  Perhaps I'm being
> overly sensitive and reading too much into your comment (because I realize it
> was not focused on ASL).  Yes, a Signer can use the Sign glossed "finish" to
> clarify that s/he was talking about something in the past but
>
> 1.  "finish" is not a past tense marker - it's a much richer lexical item than
> that
> 2.  time in ASL is communicated at the discourse level, not the lexical level -
> which is probably what you were saying in the first place - the timeframe is
> established within the discourse not by tense
>
> Theresa
> Theresa B. Smith
> ASLIS
>
> 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
>