Directional Verbs

Fri Mar 27 23:31:30 UTC 2009

I don't know who "they" are, but I personally have benefitted in my 
understanding of spoken languages as a result of learning about sign 
languages.

To take a simple example, iconicity is more common in spoken languages than 
is often recognized.  I recall the first time I realized that the English 
word "duck" was onomatopoetic.  I was feeding a flock of them, and they were 
crowding around my feet, all saying "Duck! Duck! Duck!".  The iconicity may 
well have been much more apparent to people looking at English from the 
outside than it was to me as a native speaker.  My observation came from 
awareness of iconicity in sign languages (and the fact that, for most 
purposes, the iconicity retreats into the background and obeys Saussere's 
observation about the "arbitrariness of the sign"--he was thinking of "sign" 
in a different sense).  In fact, spoken languages are not nearly as 
arbitrary as people may have thought.

Albert

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Patricia Raswant" <patricia.raswant at gallaudet.edu>
To: "A list for linguists interested in signed languages" 
<slling-l at majordomo.valenciacc.edu>
Sent: Friday, March 27, 2009 3:08 PM
Subject: Re: [SLLING-L] Directional Verbs

OK, Susan, if what you said is true, why don't they compare spoken
languages to sign languages rather than vice versa?

2009/3/27 Fischer Susan <susan.fischer at rit.edu>:
> Because they're languages.
> Susan D. Fischer
> Susan.Fischer at rit.edu
> drword563 (Skype)
> drword354 (iChat/AIM)
> +1-714-908-9824 (fax)
> Center for Research on Language
> UCSD
>
>
> On Mar 27, 2009, at 5:09 AM, Patricia Raswant wrote:
>
> I have a question. Why do linguists compare ASL and other signed
> languages to spoken languages?
>
> 2009/3/27 Dan I. Slobin <slobin at berkeley.edu>:
>
> What's clear about this discussion is that this terminology is confusing.
>
> The underlying problem is that the linguistic distinctions were designed 
> for
>
> use with a language of a quite different type, such as English (see 
> Slobin,
>
> 2005, 2008). In my opinion, the terminology is not appropriate to a signed
>
> language such as ASL. Signed verbs of the sort under discussion move from
>
> a source to a goal. It is not important to the grammar whether those
>
> anchoring points of the motion are animate or inanimate and whether the
>
> motion is physical (e.g. throwing, putting, giving, walking to, flying to)
>
> or not (e.g. looking at, asking to, scolding, flattering). Whenever the
>
> starting and/or stopping point of the motion is a spatial location to 
> which
>
> a meaning (reference) has been assigned, one can say that the verb is
>
> inflected-that is, it indicates source/goal. Beyond that, the 
> distinctions
>
> are simply unnecessary, and therefore confusing.
>
> Sign language linguistics can advance by abandoning borrowed grammatical
>
> distinctions from languages like English (but not all spoken languages) 
> and
>
> devising appropriate designations for grammatical distinctions that are
>
> encoded in the embodied modalities of the language. All of the problematic
>
> verbs here are directional (in the everyday understanding of the word). A
>
> verb that includes a handshape that indicates a particular type of 
> referent
>
> includes a depictive element, but the verb itself is more than depictive,
>
> because it also has directional movement. (In fact, both the handshape and
>
> the directional movement can be considered depictive.)
>
> In a sense, all of the verbs under discussion involve displacement, if one
>
> includes metaphorical or symbolic displacement. If an object that is 
> caused
>
> to be displaced ends up in a particular location--say, in front of a
>
> location that has been established as encoding an entity--it can be either 
> a
>
> verb of putting or a verb of giving, depending on the execution of the
>
> movement, especially whether it ends in a hold. There is no distinction
>
> between "agreement" and "spatial" dislocation here, but rather a
>
> morphological means of indicating the role played by the goal of the
>
> movement with relation to the referent established at that goal. For
>
> example, if the cup goes from me and ends up at a locus established for
>
> ‘John’, he can be either the recipient (‘give’) or the referent location 
> for
>
> the endstate (‘put in front of’). If one wishes to uses the terms
>
> "agreement" and "inflection," these terms should apply equally to verbs 
> like
>
> 'put' and verbs like 'give'. However, there are no "subjects," "objects,"
>
> or "indirect objects" in ASL and other sign languages such as those used 
> in
>
> Europe, China, Japan, and elsewhere.
>
> And if the referent type of the dislocated object is indicated by a
>
> handshape that refers to a property of that object, then one might refer 
> to
>
> the verb as "depictive," though it would be more informative to state in
>
> what ways the verb is depictive (handshape, internal movement,
>
> directionality, obligatory nonmanual components, etc.). It is also
>
> misleading to use the borrowed term “classifer” for handshapes that refer 
> to
>
> an entity by means of one of its properties (e.g. shape), but that’s an
>
> argument for a different discussion. In the Berkeley Transcription System
>
> (BTS) (Hoiting & Slobin, 2002) such handshapes are more objectively 
> referred
>
> to as “property markers.”
>
> References are listed below. They are downloadable at
>
> http://ihd.berkeley.edu/Slobin.htm
>
> [click on Slobin-Papers on sign language].
>
> Dan Slobin
>
> Hoiting, N., & Slobin, D. I. (2002). Transcription as a tool for
>
> understanding: The Berkeley Transcription System for sign language 
> research
>
> (BTS). In G. Morgan & B. Woll (Eds.), Directions in sign language
>
> acquisition (pp. 55-75). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
>
> Slobin, D. I. (2005). Issues of linguistic typology in the study of
>
> sign language development of deaf children. In B. Schick, M. Marschark, &
>
> P. E. Spencer (Eds.), Advances in the sign language development of deaf
>
> children (pp. 20-45). Oxford University Press.
>
> Slobin, D. I. (2008). Breaking the molds: Signed languages and the
>
> nature of human language. Sign Language Studies, 8, 114-130.
>
> At 03:01 PM 3/26/2009, you wrote:
>
> Sarah,
>
> I believe you're confusing some of the terminology. "Indicating verbs" 
> refer
>
> to the class of both "agreeing" and "spatial verbs". "Depicting verbs" are
>
> just classifiers. "Directional verbs", I believe, are the same thing as
>
> agreeing verbs, but I would avoid that term as it is vague and could be
>
> easily misconstrued. The same thing with "inflecting". Technically, both
>
> agreeing and spatial verbs undergo some sort of inflection, though people
>
> usually mean just agreeing verbs when they use the term inflecting.
>
> "Agreeing verbs" inflect for subject and/or object.
>
> So, in your two examples, the lexical sign THROW is a spatial verb, and
>
> therefore an indicating verb. I do not think it is "directional" (i.e.
>
> agreeing). For your cup example I'm not sure how the sentence is intended 
> to
>
> be signed. If your using a classifier in a C handshape to show the
>
> displacement of the cup, then that would be a depicting verb. If, however,
>
> the sentence were "CUP, aMOVEb" then MOVE again is a spatial verb.
>
> Is that clear?
>
> Jonathan Udoff
>
> SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Language and Communicative Disorders
>
> Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience
>
> 6495 Alvarado Road, Suite 200
>
> San Diego, CA 92120
>
> http://emmoreylab.sdsu.edu
>
> Voice/VP: (619) 594-8067
>
>
> 2009/3/26 Sarah Hafer <charityh at comcast.net>
>
> I got a question about terminology used for directional verbs, indicating
>
> verbs, inflecting verbs, spatial verbs, and depicting verbs.
>
> To me, it appears that inflecting verbs and indicating verbs are used to
>
> specifically denote that these are not classifier predicates, which would
>
> fall under the spatial/depicting verb category. If that is so about
>
> indicating and inflecting verbs, i suppose directional verbs could apply 
> to
>
> any type of verbs as long as they are directional. Say, if i signed a cup 
> is
>
> being moved from point A to point B, that is both a directional verb and a
>
> depicting/spatial verb. Yet, if i signed that person A is throwing 
> something
>
> (not using a classifier here but the THROW sign in ASL for general) to
>
> person B, that is considered an indicating verb and also a directional 
> verb.
>
> Am i getting the terminology use right here?
>
> --
>
> Sarah
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> SLLING-L mailing list
>
> SLLING-L at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
>
> http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> SLLING-L mailing list
>
> SLLING-L at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
>
> http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l
>
>
> Dan I. Slobin, Professor of the Graduate School
>
> Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Linguistics
>
> Department of Psychology email: slobin at berkeley.edu
>
> 3210 Tolman #1650 phone (Dept): 1-510-642-5292
>
> University of California phone (home): 1-510-848-1769
>
> Berkeley, CA 94720-1650 fax: 1-510-642-5293
>
> USA http://ihd.berkeley.edu/Slobin.htm
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> SLLING-L mailing list
>
> SLLING-L at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
>
> http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SLLING-L mailing list
> SLLING-L at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
> http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SLLING-L mailing list
> SLLING-L at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
> http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l
>
>

_______________________________________________
SLLING-L mailing list
SLLING-L at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l

_______________________________________________
SLLING-L mailing list
SLLING-L at majordomo.valenciacc.edu
http://majordomo.valenciacc.edu/mailman/listinfo/slling-l